A Love Torn Asunder

As dusk turned into darkness, I came out from behind the bar to light the candles in the windows. Tonight I couldn’t decide how I felt, so I light both the lighthouse candle in the window on the left, and then the simple votive candles in the window on the right. After I lit them, I stood there for a few moments, lost in thoughts and memories.

I was shaken out of my reverie when Jack called to me. “Hey Mikey, what’s it take for a thirsty man to get a drink around here?”

“Alright, alright, I hear ya.” I picked up his mug on my way behind the bar and filled it with Guinness draught.

I set it in front of him on a fresh coaster and dug a five out from the change he had sitting on the bar.

Jack took a sip and cleared his throat. “We’ve spent many a night in here, trading old fire stories.” I nodded. I knew there was q question and a story coming so I got up from my stool and drew a Sierra Nevada for myself. I took a long sip, sat it down, and leaned up against the back bar, waiting for the inevitable question that would follow his long preamble.

He took a long swallow out of his glass and started. “Well, it’s pretty obvious why you have the fire motif going on in here,” he said and waved his hand around the bar at all the firefighter memorabilia hanging on the walls and the model rigs hanging from the ceiling. I nodded my head in agreement and smiled bitterly. Of course it was obvious – I had been a firefighter all my life, joining at 17, taking early retirement from injury 29 years later, finishing up as a lieutenant. From the name of the bar proclaiming “Station 4” to the memorabilia hanging on the walls, it was plain to see that this was a firefighter’s bar.

Jack continued after taking a swig. “Hell, you don’t even need the bar to show you’re a firefighter. Two minutes of talking to you and you make it clear you’re a firefighter through and through.”

I smiled. “Well, that’s certainly true. But what’s the question? Like you said, I certainly don’t hide the fact that I was a firefighter.”

Jack laughed and drained the rest of his beer. “No kidding. You wear that career like a badge. Fill me up and I will ask you the question that everyone’s been dying to ask since you bought this place and turned it into Station 4.”

“Fair enough.” I poured him another Guinness and topped off my mug.

“No one can figure out those goddamn candles in the windows facing the ocean. Some nights you light the lighthouse one, some nights you light the votive ones, and some nights, like tonight, you light both sides. And when you do, whichever candles you light, it takes you to a place a thousand miles away.”

I nodded, the memories of years gone past washing over me. I took another long sip on my beer, wondering how to start the story. “Well, there’s a woman at the center of it.”

“Aha, I knew it!”

I laughed humorlessly. “No shit, Sherlock. This story starts years ago. I was still on the fire department. Someone was out sick or something, I can’t remember, so I covered a run on the medic. I made the rookie do the paperwork turning the patient over to the hospital and then to look for the gear we had left there the run before. I exercised my lieutenant’s prerogative and went down to the cafeteria to grab some lunch.

“I couldn’t decide what to get, as it all looked like bad-ass high school cafeteria food. There was a good-looking blonde behind me, dressed in scrubs, looking like she had the same decision-making problem I had. I made some crack about the bad-ass blue Jello, she laughed, and wisecracked back. We were joking all the way down the line. By the time we hit the cashier, we were old friends. I asked if she was alone and if so, would she like some company.

“Sure”, she replied. “Your jokes will help take my mind off this food.”

“So we sat together and hit it off. I got her phone number, we had several long talks and texts, and we had our first date a week later. From the get-go, there was never even a question of us being exclusive, or if this was going to be serious. It was obvious to both of us from the start that this was it.

“It wasn’t until the second date I even found out she was an anesthesiologist, making about ten times what I made. I told her I wouldn’t have asked her out if I had known she was a doctor. She laughed.

“That was the second date, two days after we had the first one, and we had two more the next week.

“We fell in love, spent more and more time together. I met her kids and family, started spending more and more time at her house. We were making plans together – she still had some years to go before retirement herself. Once her youngest daughter graduated, she’d trade her house for a condo and we’d officially move in together.

“I had never been to the islands before meeting Libby but I did love sailing after spending some summers on Cape Cod as a teenager. We took a vacation down here together that winter and rented a sailboat. Had the time of our lives. For the next few years, that was our annual vacation together. The third year we bought a sailboat – I cashed in some of my retirement to put up my share. We stored it down here at Kips Bay Marina and came down a few times a year to recharge our batteries.

“Three years later, we broke up. I still have no idea what happened, just that her sister engineered it.”

Jack just said, “Damn….”

I shook my head. “Yeppers, that’s about the size of it.” I took another sip of beer and continued.

“Y’know, Jack, I always wondered what to say when people asked me about I survived the crash that eventually caused my injury retirement. Fourteen surgeries and thirteen broken bones later, I had no idea what to reply until I meant Libby. I knew what to say for a few years. She was the reason I lived.

“Now, I’m at a loss for words again.”

We both sat there for a few minutes, drinking our beers, enjoying the silence.

When the mood struck me, I started the story again. “So like I said, Libby and I bought a boat together. This bar is what remains of my share of the boat. When she settled up with me after we broke up, I came down here, looking for a small bar I could run by myself. This was the perfect place, small enough I can run it myself, with a good view of the ocean. I put the lighthouse candle up there so she can find me.

“I tell myself if our love is just adrift, she’ll know to come to the islands and look for me. There can’t be too many retired firefighters down here with a ponytail.”

Jack laughed. We both took a drink and I mulled over things for a few minutes before going on with the story.

“And if it’s truly gone, well, that’s why I added the votive candles – to remember what’s been lost.

“On the nights I’m feeling the optimist, why, I pick the lighthouse to pray for a love adrift, hoping it finds its way home.

“And on most nights, I’m afraid, I’m feeling the pessimist. So I light the votive candles to remember a love torn asunder.

“Tonight, well, tonight, I don’t know how I feel so I lit the candles on both sides.

“Then I pour myself another beer and slowly sip it, staring out the windows, while the candle flames flicker and eventually die. I watch the sea come in, then I watch it roll away. I think of her, and I wonder what might have been.”

Jack didn’t say a word, just taking in the story. I went over and locked up the front door for the night, not feeling like having any more customers for the night. I came behind the bar and refilled our glasses.

I sat back down, thought about the us that no longer is, and mourned a love torn asunder.