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Lighthouses are endlessly suggestive signifiers of both human isolation and our ultimate connectedness to each other. — Virginia WoolfThe tower of the lighthouse wasn’t especially tall, maybe fifty feet, about the size of the Hudson-Athens one back home in New York. And while the attached dwelling wasn’t especially large, especially not compared to the Lynch mansion back in Sleepyside, Diana couldn’t have cared less. As long as she had the lighthouse, it didn’t matter if she had to live in a badger’s burrow.
Living in the lighthouse was more spectacular than she ever could have imagined. She loved to climb up through the lantern room and stand on the balcony any time she wanted, stand there and watch the sun rise or set, or just go out to have the wind rush at her, whipping at her clothes and hair. Whenever she wanted to feel more alive than usual, she’d go up to the tower, sometimes dragging Dan and Mart along with her.
“Look at it,” she sighed dreamily on their first night there as she looked out across the water and sky, the descending sun weaving a brilliant trail of pinks, oranges, and purples, like a tapestry of richly colored threads. “See how the water is as smooth as glass and reflects the light just like a mirror would? It’s so beautiful. So peaceful.”
“Hmm.” Mart put an arm around her shoulders and Dan’s, drawing them both in close. “So then, you think we made the right decision to house-sit for Uncle Andrew this summer?”
The lighthouse was a recent purchase by Andrew Belden, but since he was spending his summer attending to his other properties, he’d asked the Belden siblings if any of them were interested in spending a few months in Massachusetts. Mart had eagerly volunteered for the job and then invited along Diana and Dan.
Diana was thrilled to have the chance. Spending the summer in a cottage by the seaside with both of the men in her life? It was the perfect way to use her break from college, as far as she was concerned.
“Signs point to yes,” Dan agreed, a smile playing on his usually stoic face as he leaned in closer to Mart. “Even if I’ve never been much of a beach person.”
Diana nudged him playfully with her elbow. “Yeah, I seem to remember you always punking out on our trips when we were kids.”
A wicked smile flashed across Dan’s face. “Maybe I was just waiting for precisely the right travel companions. Think I’ve picked the right ones?”
“I’ll say you did,” Mart replied roughly, tugging Dan into a kiss.
Diana just watched them for a moment; she never got tired of seeing Mart’s broad, muscular body pull Dan’s lithe, slim form flush against his strong chest as he held him. But she only stayed out of the embrace for a short while; the moment after Dan and Mart broke apart for air, she sidled between them, giving Dan another long kiss as she slid her hand up Mart’s shirt, and it wasn’t long before the three of them retired to their shared bed.
Waking up in bed beside the both of them was one of Diana’s favorite parts of living on their own. No longer separated by location or household, they could just be with each other in their house by the seaside without needing to care about what would scandalize their families and the townsfolk.
And not needing to worry or care about what anyone thought at all was Diana liked the most about their home for the summer. She wasn’t expected to wear certain clothes or act a certain way, didn’t have to appear at obligatory society functions when she would have much rather pursued one of her own interests. Here at the lighthouse, she was nothing more or nothing less than herself. If she wanted to dress like a hippie and wear nothing but bohemian skirts and long fluttery tops, there was no one to tell her she couldn’t, and so she did. If she wanted to run down the brief path to their private beach and stretch out on a rock, listening to the waves while she painted her toenails periwinkle, she could do so without having to face a barrage of questions, from her parents to her siblings to her maid, about where she was going and what she was doing.
This summer Diana was free to do whatever she wished. And she adored that.
She found herself a job in the neighboring village, close enough that she could ride there on the old-fashioned bicycle that they’d found waiting for them at the lighthouse. Dan and Mart both had internships for the summer, so to occupy her time, Diana took on a position at the local nautical museums, playing hostess and giving tours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Weekends were the time for herself and the guys, and then Mondays and Fridays were exclusively for herself, her own time that she could devote to whatever she pleased.
Hours were spent wandering up and down the beach, wearing a wide-brimmed summer hat to protect her fair skin as she relished in the view and the taste and smell of salt in the air. Diana liked to weave in and out of the surf as she walked, pulling her long, gauzy skirt up to her knees and watching her footprints appear and then vanish in the wet sand as the waves lapped at her feet.
After their internships finished for the day, Dan and Mart liked to join her, ripping off their ties and loafers and leaving them in a jumble on the front steps, rolling up their trouser legs and shirt sleeves so they could wade alongside her.
“Funny, I always thought it was a cliche, all that stuff about long walks on the beach,” Dan remarked, the glow of the setting sun softening his typically hard features. “But it is kind of nice, isn’t it?”
“More than nice,” Diana declared, smiling at him and leaning in to nuzzle against him. She always took pleasure in touching Dan, who brushed off most physical contact beyond that from her and Mart.
Dan didn’t return the gesture, but he did put an arm around her and around Mart, and Mart and Diana traded grins at the rare show of public affection. There was a certain privilege to being let into the heart of someone so typically aloof and distant, and it brought a warm feeling to blossom within her.
“It really does seem like a magical type of place, doesn’t it?” Mart asked easily, the breeze off of the ocean tousling his golden curls. “It’s something about this setting, something about the location. But I can’t quite name it. It’s as inexplicable as it is intangible,” he mused, traces of his teenage obsession with vocabulary showing through.
“It’s our own little world, up here and away from everyone else,” Diana agreed. “A magic of our own making.”
“Whatever it is, I’m glad we have it for now,” Mart said contentedly, reaching up to stroke Dan’s hair as he sent a soft look Diana’s way.
Sometimes during her ventures on the beach Diana went looking for treasures, and other times, the treasures found her. On her very first walk she started a seashell collection, and by the end of the first week, she’d stocked up enough cockle shells and interesting pieces of driftwood that she decided to take a risk on a creative endeavor. With a long piece of driftwood to serve as the base, she used different lengths of twine to string up the shells one by one, eventually creating a mobile of them. She hung it on the front porch so they all could watch the shells dance in the breeze.
“I think I’ll leave it here,” Diana said one morning as she enjoyed her coffee on the porch with both Dan and Mart. She liked eating outdoors when she could, and while it didn’t seem to make a difference to them, they often indulged her in it.
“I’ll make another one to take home with me, but I’ll leave this one here, like a remembrance,” she continued thoughtfully. “A testament to our time here. That it was once a home to all of us.”
“You’re already thinking of leaving, Diana?” Dan questioned, sipping at his black coffee. He was the only one among them to favor that style; Diana and Mart preferred cappuccinos. “We have another four weeks.”
“It’s always on my mind one way or another,” Diana told him with a shrug. “I’ll be so sad to go that I have to prepare myself well ahead of time.”
“Don’t be sad,” Mart urged her as he stood, gathering his keys and lunch together. “It’s your birthday today, Diana. It’s no time for moping.”
So it was. She was nineteen that day, but because it was the middle of the week, they were waiting until the weekend to celebrate. Still, to make up for the delay, they’d be going out for dinner and drinks on both Friday and Saturday.
“Well, I suppose I can taken a break from my mourning, if just for today,” Diana said wryly, giving Mart a kiss on the cheek and then Dan.
“Yeah, just think of what a blast we’re going to have this weekend. Less preemptive sadness, more pre-gaming,” Dan said with a smirk, accepting his kiss and then giving one in return before following Mart out to the car.
Diana laughed and waved goodbye to them before making her own preparations to leave for the day.
There was a festival in town that week and the museum was taking part, so she was late to arrive home that night, getting in at almost a quarter to eight instead of her usual half-past five. The night breeze was already stirring her long skirt, making it sway and swish with her movements even more than usual.
The lights were dimmed in the house when she walked in, but on the table was a single candle flickering in a jar, holding down a note written in Dan’s spidery handwriting instructing her to come up to the lighthouse balcony.
When she climbed to the top of the narrow, winding staircase and out the door of the lantern room, she found both Dan and Mart awaiting her, a picnic spread out on a blanket before them, a massive old-fashioned lantern providing the light, and a bottle of wine chilling in a worn wooden bucket.
“Happy birthday, Di,” Mart said with a grin.
Dan poured her a glass of the wine, handing it to her before raising his own glass. “A toast to the birthday girl,” he said, with such warmth in his voice that Diana couldn’t help but blush and laugh, surprised but delighted at this unexpected celebration.
“Dinner in my favorite place with my favorite boys?” she asked playfully, accepting the wine and clinking her glass with Dan and Mart’s. “What more could a birthday girl want? And is that pasta I smell?”
“Vegetable lasagna, made by yours truly,” Mart told her proudly. “You better believe that Helen Belden didn’t let any of her children go off to college without knowing how to cook.”
“We’ll have to remember to call her and thank her for that, won’t we, Dan?” Diana teased, wasting no time in fixing herself a plate.
By the time they’d finished their meal, the stars were out in full, far-off white brilliance against the black of the sky. With as far as they were from any big cities, they had a fantastic view of the constellations, none of the light from New York City polluting the sky like it had back home.
They sprawled out to look at them, Mart stretched out on the blanket so that Diana could lie in one direction with her head on his stomach while Dan lay in the other, his head on Mart’s chest. As they gazed up at the sky in contented, comfortable silence, Mart reached for whichever one of their hands were nearest to to him, twining his fingers through theirs.
“I want this forever,” Diana said lowly with a soft sigh. “Just the three of us. No one else here to be a bother. Just us in our own little world, away from everything else.”
Mart chuckled. “Lighthouses are for coming and going, Diana. They guide ships into port safely so that those ships can leave again another day.” He shifted slightly beneath her and Dan; she could feel the heat of his body as he did. “They’re built to stand forever. The people they guide are not,” he added, a touch of pride in his voice, no doubt for his somewhat poetic metaphor.
“I know,” Diana said resignedly. It had always been a constant in her brain that their wonderful summer together would end, would eventually fade to just another bright spot in her memory she’d wistfully look back to down when she found herself bogged down by coursework in the dreary winter months at school.
They’d been living a dream life together for over a month, and Diana dreaded to have to endure the pain of waking up from it.
But limited time together could be far more valuable than time was unlimited.
“I love you both,” she said, her voice barely audible above the night breeze. “And I love it here. I love being here with you.” She wasn’t ashamed of her admission, but it felt like a confession nonetheless.
“Who knows?” Dan’s voice was gentle. “Maybe the three of us will make it back here someday.”
Honestly, Diana wasn’t sure that they would. A year was long time, and sometimes the distance of their separate schools seemed impossible to bridge. And Dan and Mart would be starting their senior year by then; they would need to be looking ahead to their futures, not returning to the past to play house with her.
But the idea of having another summer alone with the men she loved cheered her, no matter how unlikely it was.
“Maybe,” Diana repeated with a smile, and they fell back into silence, looking up in awe at the brightest sky they’d ever seen.