Tʜᴇ Isʟᴀɴᴅ Iɴ Bᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ

Wɪʟᴛᴇᴅ Wᴀʟʟғʟᴏᴡᴇʀs

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 10

In the year your father died, you turned eighteen.

You wanted to do something with your life. Something great, something that would make you want to keep living on— something worth living for.

You kept an eye on the ad listings, you would walk through your small quaint town in your spare time, looking through shop windows for advertisements, searching for the words; 'We're hiring!' wherever you could find.

Until finally, on accident, you saw a job posting for a lighthouse keeper in the daily newspaper.

When you told your father about it, he was in the hospital. He had been battling dementia for a while by then. His condition was worsening. He hadn't recognised you in the previous visits, yet he constantly asked you, 'Where is (𝚈/𝙽)? Is (𝚈/𝙽) coming to visit me today?' His eyes wide and confused— not a single ounce of recognition in sight.

But when you showed him the paper with tears in your eyes, telling him you found a job and a place to live. He met your gaze, eyes steady, he had recognised you in that moment.

"That's the place you died, isn't it?"

He said.

And died.

Yet there you stood, alive and well, all these years later, watching Russia try and tell Maya that he was not writing love letters to Germany, and failing miserably.

You were doubled over the counter of Marla Connie's till, laughing uncontrollably as Russia argued with the little girl. His face red with embarrassment.

After a week and a few, the seamstress had finally finished tailoring new clothes for the Country, which you had come to pick up with him.

"He seems like he's settled in nicely, doesn't he?" Marla asked, chuckling away to herself as she rung up your money. "I think he has." You agreed, wiping tears from your eyes as you sighed audibly.

Marla leaned over the counter a little, her eyes watching her daughter clinging to the Russian's leg across her shop. "Say, he seems to be really good with Maya, if you wouldn't mind, maybe there could be some days I use him as a babysitter, if you don't have him working to the bone that is."

You thought it over. It could be good for him to have a job like that. As of now, you had finally managed to convince him to do small tasks around the lighthouse— which he took to just fine. Washing up, cleaning, lighting the Stanley when it got cold and doing laundry made up the bulk of his chores, and he got it all done before you finished your own work, leaving him with plenty of spare time in the day. Before, all his time was spent drinking and mulling around, now he spent his extra time playing card games with you and annotating the wildlife book he borrowed from you.

He spent his daylight hours prancing around outside, trying to find every flora and fauna in the meadows. Once found he would put a sticky note on the page in his book and circle it, proudly counting off everything he'd seen that day on a small notebook you lent him.

You thought it sweet that he had begun to collect wildflowers, drying them out in the kitchen and leaving them in bunches by his bed.

You liked that he spent his time now doing something other than drinking himself into a hole every evening.

It seemed as though he was getting a little better, finally having found the energy to do something more than sleep and think. But you were aware that this stage of recovery was fragile, so you made sure to give him as much of your time as you could, so he had less of it alone with his thoughts.