To The Lighthouse

Elizabeth ran her fingers across the letters, feeling the wearing down of them from the years of weathering but knowing that even when there was little left the love that had encompassed her and Jack as he carved them in the log would always remain. She wondered if another set could be placed alongside, with Little Jack's name in the middle. Possibly another one as well.

She went to rise and suddenly felt her knees give way. There it was again. That feeling. It had been even stronger last night when she took her weary body to bed, finally giving into the exhaustion that came over her after she abruptly sent Nathan on his way, begging him to leave her alone, crying out that she was doing what she knew was right. That she had no choice. She had shouted that it was not his place to ask her that question, just as he had been wrong to ask her once before what was in her heart. Then she had shut him out as she had done so many times before.

But those feelings were always there, like a flickering candle that wouldn't go out no matter how hard she tried. Even if she let the wick burn low, praying that it would extinguish itself, just as she thought she had reached the safety of darkness it rose up again, bursting back into life. Devouring her in a way she needed to make end. Never going away. Staying in the background. Keeping ever present the pain of what she knew lay out there beyond the darkness, hanging over her while the wind whispered his name over and over again outside her window.

Sometimes she would wake with a start, the sweat pouring from her despite the coolness of the room. It had been the same for the past few nights. The dream of being separated from everything she knew almost playing on repeat and yet there was an emptiness to it, as though she was unable to find the right door to escape. One long empty corridor stretched before her and all she could think about was him. But she didn't know if he was ahead or behind her. Her destiny or her past. All she knew was that he was there and like the oxygen she breathed she didn't know how she could live without him.

In the dream she revisited every hurt she have given him, all the pain she had sent his way. Whilst in his eyes there was only love reflected back at her, reaching down into her soul with an intensity that she could not withstand. What have I done? How can he still be that person who listens to my heart, always there, forever giving yet never showing how much it must take from him each time he then has to watch me walk away. Back to Lucas. To the life he knows does not include him. And now the distance was going to be even greater yet still his only concern was for her.

She wanted to do what was right. But in recent days her heart had opened itself to acknowledging what she had been fighting for so long. She loved Nathan in a way that went as deep as what she had felt for Jack. Right to the core of her being. Finally she could deny it no longer as she realised that if she chose Lucas the pain of losing Nathan would still be the same but the pleasure of loving him would have been lost forever.

So this morning she had done what she so often did when something troubled her, ridden out to Jack's land, the place where she felt him around her the most. His words to her in that final letter ran through her head. "I want you to open your heart to love again".

She hadn't done that with Lucas. She had settled for what was comfortable and easy, never challenging her until now, and only when faced with losing so much if she left Hope Valley did she realise that he would never be enough. He was a good man who loved her but deep down she knew that he loved the bigger stage more.

If she asked him not to run for Governor of course he would agree and they would find another way to save Hope Valley, they just had to think what. But one day, maybe not for a while, but eventually, the wider world would come calling and it would be too much for him to resist. What then for her? To leave this place that was home to her in so many ways was unthinkable now. To leave some of the people, impossible. Could she do it?

Would watching Nathan making a life with someone else be better than not seeing him at all. At least she would have a little part of him as a friend and she could dream of the what ifs. Or should she make a clean break, let her heart heal as time made him little more than a distant memory?

But a voice inside her head was getting louder until she could no longer ignore it. Just the one sentence over and over. "Elizabeth. What do you want?" She could see his face, the tears in his eyes, the love shining from him, as he spoke those words. Why did it have to be this hard? "Elizabeth. What do you want?" She covered her ears with her hands, trying to make it stop but it just grew louder. "What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?" So many emotions playing in her head that she wanted to scream.

Then suddenly she stood, her head turned up to the sky as she shouted out, "I want Nathan. I love him" and softly she added, almost in a whisper, "I can't live without him". Immediately she felt a calm descend, a sense of peace that had eluded her for so long. She needed to find him and tell him. Pray that he felt the same. There was no doubt that he still loved her but would it be enough after all she had put him through?

She had watched him leave this morning, riding out past the row houses, like her probably wanting to escape into his own thoughts. Somehow she knew where he had gone, the field where the wildflowers grew. It was his place of solitude and reflection he had once told her. Where the world stood still for a time and he could gather his thoughts without everything else overwhelming him. Was he thinking of her? Wondering what he should do next?

His way back would be along the same path he had come riding on the day he had professed his love for her. The day she had rejected him so cruelly for the first time. That was where she would go.

And so she sat, waiting. And hoping. And praying. Until she heard the sound of a horse approaching and knew it was him. Feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from her she stood, wanting to see his face as he drew near. Needing him to realise that finally she knew the answer to what was in her heart.

Words from her favourite Virginia Woolf novel, To The Lighthouse, came into her head as he finally appeared. "And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked (out of the window) and said, thinking to herself, nothing on earth can equal this happiness".