The Seahorse Lighter

 

1990

May, dark-haired, and pink-cheeked sat back impatiently in her grandmother’s pickup. The rickety old thing was rattling so much on the way back from the airport, the eleven-year old was convinced it may come apart before they reached their destination.

She caught her grandmother’s stare through the rearview mirror at her. She smiled slightly. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her Grandma Edna, she was the sweetest old woman alive. It was just that they were so different in personality, with Edna being so energetic and May so quiet. In fact, her grandmother hadn’t been quiet the whole way up, talking on and on about this and that all the way to her country home.

Anna May knew she was waiting for a reply, so she helpfully asked the inquiry: “What did you say?”

“I said, I brought something for you that you may like! Look in the box net to you!” The silver-haired fairy godmother cooed.

Dutifully, May reached carefully into the undecorated box sitting on the worn seat beside her. What she saw when she drew her hand out puzzled her. It was a beautiful, slightly tarnished and silver old canister. Carefully turning it over in her hands, she saw that it was a lighter from the switch at the top. Most striking, was the tiny blue seahorse etched into the side.

“I found it in the attic this morning, and I know you love antiques.”

1925

A flick of a finger and a quick ‘fwish’ sent the flame burning blue and gold. Sickly sweet smoke filled the air as a pale hand lowered the lighter from the pale carcinogenic roll of tobacco. A tiny blue seahorse glistened aside the silver lighter.

“Are you sure we can do this?” A beautiful woman with a jet black bob turned to the handsome man beside her, and blew a smoke ring away from them.

“Absolutely,” the man assured her.

The two leaned in for a kiss, silent in the dark, but watched by the large house behind them.

1924

“I am so sorry!”

The young man gasped, as he struggled to his feet, offering a hand to the beautiful 20-year-old debutante he had knocked down. She gave her thanks to him, her dark hair framing her face as she accepted his offer of aid. She gazed up into his face and realized with surprise that they both had visages that had become flushed, but not from wine, heat, or embarrassment. He took notice of something that had fallen to the floor and returned it to her, before apologizing once more. The woman anxiously gripped the lighter she had dropped, the last small gift her brother had bequeathed her before his cruel demise in Germany. Her uncle, the man who had raised her and her brother, scoffed as the young stranger quickly made himself scarce and mingled into the party’s crowd.

“The idiot is a part of the art business. Lousy lot, always wasting money on pretty pictures of petunias.”

The same impressions were not running through the young woman’s mind as she watched the retreating back of the man who had caused her fall.

1925

“I will not stand for this…this disgusting display! No niece or child of mine will have union with some crackpot art fanatic!” The man roared to the couple standing across the room from them.

Tears of disappointment but a spine of steel was the woman’s reply as her husband comfortingly placed a hand on the small of her back.

“He holds art galleries.” She tersely murmured to her uncle.

“I don’t care what sort of fancy names you call it! He isn’t a real man. A ‘man’ who doesn’t have the spine to hold a rifle and stand and fight against the enemies of our nation, and instead decides to observe pretty pictures, has no right to stand in this house.”

“I did fight in the war, and I was one of the fortunate to survive.” The male half of the newlyweds growled while his de facto father in law fixed him with an evil stare.

“There are things a man does and doesn’t do. Now get out!”

“Fine! It’ll be our pleasure to leave! Just let me get the lighter Timothy gave me! I accidentally left it when we eloped!” The debutante managed to get these words out in a voice trembling with rage and hurt.

“I auctioned that piece of junk when I realize you, dear niece, had run off with some imbecile!”

“No.”

The woman’s tears finally spilled as she put a hand to her mouth.

1990

Folding, folding, and more folding. That is, of laundry while the youngster May and her grandma Edna talked.

“You found it in the attic? That’s so cool! You’d think something like this would belong in a time capsule or a museum.”

May’s eyes were glowing as she looked over at the lighter on the table.

“Indeed, I did. It’s so sweet of you to come out and help your old grandma clean out her new house. We’ll pick up your parents at the airport tomorrow so we can finish the job and all spend the summer together. It was absolutely filthy in here when I first bought it! Filled up with old regrets, grime, and junk. It used to belong to a very rich family, but it fell into the mess it was because the old man that owned this place wanted it closed up after he died, and he didn’t clean it when he lived here. Apparently, there was something in his life he became ashamed of in his old age and he kept punishing himself by keeping the place the way it was.”

“That’s so sad, Grandma Edna.”

“Indeed it is. Old shame and regrets hurt the worst.”
They heard the doorbell suddenly.

“Who could that be?” The grandmother asked as her grandchild ran to answer it. She went to see who it was.

“Oh, come in, Mrs. Owens!” Edna’s eyes twinkled merrily. The other even older woman, who had a glamorous air about her even without youth returned the smile and sat down on their sofa.

“May, this is Mrs. Owens, she’s a member of my church but she lives on the other side of town. Mrs. Owens, this is my granddaughter May.” Edna explained.

While May ran to get drinks for Mrs. Owens, the two old women spoke about the next food drive they had been planning for Thanksgiving.

However, all talk ceased when May shyly sat beside Mrs. Owens, fiddling with something in her hands.

May was alarmed when her grandmother’s friend’s eyes filled with tears.

“He didn’t auction it.” Mrs. Owens, gasped, placing a hand to her mouth, as she reached over to touch the lighter with a seahorse in the young girl’s hand.

“My brother gave me this before he died, back in World War I. When I eloped with my Robert, my uncle couldn’t bless our marriage, and I thought he sold it to punish me. But he didn’t.” Mrs. Owens leaned down and wept her tears for the sweet and bitter remembrances coming with the lighter.

Edna sat down beside Mrs. Owens and put her arm around her, consoling her.

May stared at the lighter grasped in the once-debutante’s hands and wondered at the memories of the years, and how they last.