Page 6 of Bless This Hot Mess

“Who rises when the lighthouse keepers

Disappear into the deep?”

The words rang out, clearer now, surprising her with their boldness. From a truck idling at the intersection, a fisherman in a ball cap looked over and muttered, “Somebody’s gotta,” as if in answer.

“Who learns to tend the flame alone

When grief will not let her sleep?”

As if on cue, the church bells down the block chimed the quarter hour–late, as usual but pleasant in their key. A woman carrying a florist’s box walked past, blinked twice and sneezed, then tightened her grip around the flowers as if hugging herself despite her body’s aversion to one of her favourite things.

“I never asked to hold this post,

But I can hear the coastline call.”

She really could. Not literally–though on the Bay of Quinte, Napanne’s closest coastline was Lake Ontario, twenty kilometres away but in her imagination she heard the windand the gulls and that relentless, low boom of the crashing waves that said,you’re small, but I still see you.

“If faith is built on unseen things,

Then I will answer, I will stand tall.”

Ontall, she lengthened her spine and lifted her chin like some invisible director had shouted, “Posture! Shoulders back! Chest out! Really let ‘em have it now!” Her mother’s blazer pulled across her back, the seams protesting slightly. She ignored it, and grasping a hand around a lamppost, used it as leverage to swing and strike a pose like Lady Liberty staring out across the imaginary ocean engulfing her small town.

“I’ll hold my flare above the waves,

Though my own heart shakes with doubt.

They built the tower.

Now it’s my turn

To send the signal out!”

The last line left her on a held note as she reached the steps of Trinity United Church. A toddler on the top step dropped his ice cream cone with perfect comedic timing and howled like the universe had personally wronged him too. Emma-Lou bent without missing the tail-end of the note, scooped the scoop back onto the waffle, and offered it to him with a smile that agreed, it was indeed one of those days. He sniffled, then accepted with a nod, and his mother mouthedthank you.

She cut down a side street, away from the main traffic, letting the song carry her between brick buildings and chain-link fences sagging with long-dry morning glory vines. The town thinned a little here–fewer shops, more houses, laundry flapping lazily in small backyards. A lilac bush spilled over someone’s fence, the scent overripe and nostalgic, swirling upmemories. She took it in as the next verse climbed up through her chest,

“All my life, I stayed behind them,

Shadow, secretary, dutiful child.

Sorting mail and brewing coffee,

Every dream of mine too wild.”

She saw herself at sixteen, manning the WWJD front desk, highlighter in hand, dutifully colour-coding donation pledges while her friends were at the mall trying on jean skirts and shoplifting lip gloss. Her mother had said, “You’re helping people find Jesus, Lou-Lou. In the end times, what do you think people will need more? Malls or the radio?”

She huffed out something between a laugh and a sob,

“But now the chairs behind their desks

Look carved with something like my name,

And Greater Napanee keeps waiting

For a leader to relight the flame.”

She imagined the office upstairs at the station–her father’s favourite coffee cup on his desk, her mother’s Post-its stuck to the corkboard in a constellation of duties to be done.Plant tulips for Spring.Call the Ferraris. Pay Hydro. Pray for Cheryl’s hip.