I’ve waited what seems like a lifetime to
have you hold me again. I love you so dearly, Heath. I’ve missed
you so! I will be awaiting your return to me.
Heath quickly wrote back.
With great fortune, I have acquired a
position as assistant surgeon aboard the new White Star liner
christened Titanic. The ship, which they boast is unsinkable, shall
end her maiden voyage in New York. Be there waiting for me,
Lillian. Look for the man with a full head of silvery blond hair
and eyes that shine brilliantly when falling upon you.
The day couldn’t come fast enough for me. I
had long since forgotten about Richard, New York City, and my days
of yore. Those troubled, dark days seemed an entire lifetime
ago.
I will be there waiting, holding my breath
for you, Heath. Look for the woman with long blonde hair, who wears
her heart on her sleeve . . . for the man she was born to love.
Epilogue
I waited forty years before returning to
Jasper Island. Over all those years I traveled the world with
Heath’s love letters in hand, retracing his steps, feeling his
loving spirit guiding me since the day he died tragically aboard
the Titanic.
One letter, which I read time after time, was
Heath’s urgent last letter to me. It was delivered by a kind,
elderly woman the night the Carpathia arrived in New York. She
found me soon after the crowd dispersed and the spotlights dimmed,
standing alone in the rain, shivering, not from the bone-chilling
dampness, but from my fear as my desperate hopes of finding Heath
somewhere on the pier, safe and alive, faded away.
“Your husband, the doctor, asked me with
great urgency to find you and give you this letter. He described
you in detail . . . said you would stand out amongst a crowd, that
your beauty was unmistakable,” she began with tear-filled eyes and
slowly handed me the envelope. I instantly recognized Heath’s
handwriting. “He did all he could to save each and every passenger.
For the last hours, he helped load the boats. It was pure mayhem. I
was one of the passengers fortunate enough to board the last
lifeboat. There was little hope we would be rescued before the
great ship sank into the dark, frigid sea.”
My eyes snapped up from the letter onto her.
Oh, if she only knew being taken by the sea was Heath’s worst fear.
Heath must have suffered so, watching all those innocent people
drowning, knowing he would be one of them.
With a piercing pain in my heart, I swallowed
hard, and with trembling hands and tears that streamed down my
cold, numb face, I opened the letter, as the empathetic woman
rested her warm hand on my shoulder.
My darling wife, Lillian,
I spend what I believe may be my last
moments on earth, staring at your beautiful photograph, feeling
your love fill my heart, and it gives me profound peace.
Since the moment I met you, when I was only
a boy on our beloved lighthouse station, I have been in love with
you, and since then have loved no other. I realized I’ve never
confessed what drove me to forsake you in your most troubled times,
how I shunned you when you needed me most, for I’ve been too
ashamed.
All the years you were gone, not one moment
passed without me thinking of you, hoping you were alive somewhere
and well. I could only speculate as to what had come of you on the
night you disappeared from our lighthouse station. I prayed every
night you were safe, cared for, and that I would someday see you
again. With every year that passed, my heartache became greater and
greater, and it was all I could do to go on. Then came the day I
learned you were alive. My heart soared as high as the heavens,
until news came that you had become involved with a married man,
Richard Parker, and were a star in his seedy burlesque show. My
heart sank. All the years I waited for you, your wholesome vision
filling every one of my dreams, believing you had to be alive and
in love with me, waiting for the day we would reunite, ended the
moment I learned of your new life, or so I thought. I selfishly
felt betrayed. It was then that I turned to the first woman who
reminded me of my first innocent childhood love. It was my way of
secretly hurting you, for unknowingly hurting me. It wasn’t until
you returned to Savannah, so weak and ill, when I briefly cared for
you, that I finally began to realize what a fool I was, that you
were just a child victim in a very grown-up world, and your
innocence was lost through no fault of your own. However, I feared
it was too late for us. I had wrongfully committed myself to
another, and didn’t know how to abandon the relationship without
hurting that innocent person. Then one day it came to me. I loved
you so much, I would have done anything to win you back. Then all
too quickly, I came to learn of your marriage to Ayden. I was too
late! I had lost you again. I was angry with myself, never you. I’m
sorry for all I put you through those first months after I returned
home to Jasper Island. How you came to love me after the way I
treated you still remains a mystery to me.
Now my deepest regret on this tragic night,
Lillian, is that I didn’t stay and fight for you the night Ayden
returned from the dead, and instead, surrendered.
All these years you have remained my wife in
my heart and soul. I pray not to perish on this star-filled night;
I pray to make it home to you, Lillian, and into your loving arms.
I will fight my last breath to return to you. However, if not in
this life, my love, then in eternity. I will be waiting there for
you, Lillian.
Love,
Your husband, Heath
I visited to Italy, France, Greece, and South
Africa, but found the place closest to home in Southampton,
England. Heath had owned a quaint, picturesque cottage along the
coast, where I lived in solitude, surrounded and comforted by his
photographs and personal belongings, through two world wars, until
one day, my eldest granddaughter, Heather, wrote to me, imploring
me to return to the States.
The lighthouse, abandoned long ago, is going
to be restored, Grandmother. Come and tell the Historical Society
your story.
The lighthouse stood just as tall and noble
as I remembered. Heather and her husband, Gregory, Thomas and
Audrey, along with two more of my grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren, together stepped onto the island. My thoughts
drifted back in time.
“Are you going up into the tower,
Great-Grandma Lillian?” my youngest great-grandchild asked.
“No, Tommy,” Gregory laughed at the
suggestion. “Your great grandmother can’t climb all those stairs
anymore.”
“Come, Tommy, I’ll show you around,” I said
defiantly, and I took hold his small hand and slowly led him
along.
“Over there used to be the fog signal house,
and the three houses ahead that are fortunately still standing were
called the keepers’ quarters. The largest one was my house with
your great-grandfather, Ayden,” I explained. “You go and explore. I
have something I need to do. Then I will take you up to the top of
the tower so you can look out onto the endless sea.”
Tommy excitedly scurried off, and I quietly
stole into the deserted, empty house. I took a moment to gaze
around, remembering back to when I was a little girl. I thought of
Momma and Daddy when they were happy, long before Momma died,
before my life fell apart.
My mind then drifted to Ayden and Heath, and
I recalled how young they were then, and how in what seemed like a
mere fleeting moment, we were all grown up and fighting for
love.
Gradually, I drifted up the narrow creaky
stairs, down the dark hall, and into the room where my son was born
and Ayden died. I stood motionless in the middle of the room. I
sensed Ayden there, and as a warm ocean breeze blew through the
broken windows, I felt his peaceful presence and smiled.
From my purse, I remembered what I came to
do. With tears in my eyes, I read Daddy’s letter again, for the
last time. Ayden had given it to me many years earlier, when he
found it behind some boxes in the fog signal house.
“The envelope was addressed to me in care of
the editor of the magazine. It was returned by sender, never
opened,” Ayden, explained. I never got that letter. Apparently,
Ayden had stashed it away to protect me, and had all but forgotten
about it.
My Dearest Lillian,
I have finally found the words to write and
tell you how I have missed you. I’ve mourned the day I left you in
Savannah, as I am plagued with deepest regret.
In the years past, since we’ve been apart,
I’ve tried to find the courage to bring you home, and have
shamefully lost my nerve time and time again.
Without your mother’s strength, love, and
light to guide me through life, as steadfast as any lighthouse, I
have succumbed to my own despair over losing her. I have been half
the man I should have been, and became an unworthy father when I
abandoned you years ago.
I couldn’t believe my eyes the day I saw
your beautiful face gracing the cover of a magazine. There you were
after so long, right in front of my eyes. I realized then I needed
to stop mourning for Amelia, make right of my wrong, and write to
you, begging for forgiveness and pleading with you to allow me back
into your life.
I’m not certain you would consider forgiving
me, and I wouldn’t blame you. Please know I have learned what a
tragic mistake I made, that your mother would have been ashamed of
what I have done, and that I will spend the rest of my life making
it up to you, Lillian.
I want to be your father again, and this
time, you can entrust your heart to me, as I swear never to fail
you again.
Daddy
I opened Momma’s journal and walked to the
closet. As I placed it on the top shelf, a wilted rose petal
floated out and into the breeze, landing by my feet. Slowly, I bent
down, gently picked it up, and held onto it, until suddenly it
disappeared in my hand. I heard Heath’s soft voice call out for me
somewhere in the distance, and then his handsome vision appeared
with arms reaching for me, surrounded by the most brilliant
heavenly white light I had ever seen. “It’s time, Lillian. It’s
time to come be with me.”
Through the sunset of my life, I contentedly
recalled the people I loved and many memorable events with great
clarity. Never did I lose my deep love for Ayden, my ardent passion
for Heath, and my fondest memories of Momma and Daddy. I’d come to
learn, through my most troubled, lonely times, that the darkest of
days inevitably turn into light.