Lighthouse

The Confluence of What Was and What Is

Chapter Three

Jared returned to the province where his story had first begun. On the first day of his visit, he proceed at the lighthouse to meet his cousin.

He did not come to his hometown for rest. He came for an answer.

All his life, he had known that something in his story was unfinished-like a book with missing pages. He had grown up under the care of his Uncle and Aunt, the couple who raised him with patience and honesty. They never hid the truth. They were not his parents but they loved him, provided for him, guided him-but he was not born from them

Alfred was his cousin. Yet the bond between them had always been deeper than that simple word. By means of communication, Alfred had been the one who quietly filled the spaces jared did not understand. He was the bridge between Jared and the story of his bloodline. Whenever Jared asked who he truly was, or where he truly belonged, it was Alfred who explained what he could-careful measured, never revealing more than what the elders allowed.

‘Why do I call my parents Uncle and Aunt?” Jared once asked when he was younger. “Why don't I have a mother or a father like everyone else?”

“You will understand in due time” his guardians would reply gently. “There is a right time for everything” His Uncle would add. ”You seek the truth yourself”

And so Jared waited. He studied. He grew. But question do not fade with age-they deepen.

Now, standing in the place of his origin, he understood that this journey was not only about names or titles. It was about blood, about lineage. About the quiet spaces in family gatherings where certain topic were never spoken loud.

Alfred had told him enough to know that they were cousins. That somewhere in the branches of their family tree, their lives met at a shared root. But why Jared been raised apart? Why had he grown up calling his parents Uncle or Aunt, while Alfred remained close to the heart of the family history?

“Jared”

The sound of his name pulled him from his thoughts. He turned, the weight of memory still resting on his chest. His childhood in Manila had been filled with care and understand. He was not unloved. He was not abandoned. But he had always felt like a story told in fragments. Now he was no longer content to live between half – answers.

He had to come to the source – to the soil where his blood began – to uncover for himself the truth of who he was, and why fate had written his life differently from his cousin Alfred’s

This was no longer a question or curiosity. It was a question of identity

With his easel in hand and a small satchel slung across his back – its mouth heavy with brushes and paint – Jared glanced over his shoulder at Alfred.

“I woke up early and you’re gone,” Alfred said, tapping a hand against Jared’s shoulder. You’ve been here only for three days, and already you look as if you know every inch of this place.”

A hollow laugh escaped Jared. He sat down the bag and the easel, and Alfred watched him silently

“So, this is where you’ll carved your masterpiece?”

Jared unfolded the tripod stand and fixed the canvas in place. “My feet brought me here,” as though the words themselves were guiding him.

“It’s beautiful here. You’ll find inspiration enough to paint for days”

“It seems so.”

From the hill, Jared gazed at the lighthouse in the distance. To the right, the sea stretched wide and unbroken, its vastness shimmering beneath the light. The lighthouse stood at the edge of it all, rising like a solitary sentinel – its crown almost brushing the heavens, as though it were daring to kiss the sky from where he stood.

Alfred dropped to the ground beneath a tree beside the tripod stand. “Have you spoke to my mother? You haven’t talked to her since you arrived"

Usually, Alfred’s mother left early each morning to tend her small stall at the market and returned only after nightfall. And when she did come home, either Jared was already asleep, or his aunt was– so the cousins, who spent their evenings wondering all over town, rarely found a moment when the household was fully awake beneath the same roof

“All right cousin, I’ll see you at home,” Alfred prepared himself to start for a new day. Working as tourist guide.

“I’ll be home early”

And then he was alone

The quiet seemed to draw closer, as though it wished to conspire with the masterpiece waiting to be born from his hands. The air carried a stillness so profound it felt almost sacred. Before him lay a place hushed and unassuming, yet brimming with inspiration – its silence not empty, but alive, breathing gently against his skin.

In that solitude, Jared felt the world recede, living only the whisper of wind, the scent of earth, and the promise of a canvas that would soon cradle the unspoken longings of his heart.

Jared readied his paintbrush – an instrument capable of summoning worlds in color. Before him lay the tools that would breath life onto sorrow and awaken joy, each hue waiting to confess what words could not. Upon the silent canvas. He would unravel the quiet chronicle of his life allowing grief and gladness alike to find their shape, their shade, their story.

As Jared stood gazing at the unfolding scenery, his paintbrush began to move of its own accord. With every stroke and every careful blending color, it seemed to confess a longing – an ache to discover what form his masterpiece would finally assume. It was a though within that waiting canvas a mystery struggled to be born, something that followed him closely, whispering the meaning it wished to reveal.

From the restless corridors of his imagination, passion and emotion moved in quiet harmony. As the framework of the painting slowly emerged – the first shy lines of the rising sun touching a tranquil sea – a lighthouse took shape, solemn and steadfast. Beneath it, a long staircase stretched downward, as if inviting or warning those who dared to descend.

“ So you are painting?” Anselmo approached unnoticed and was now setting down a woven basket at his feet “I brought you lunch, just as Alfred instructed”

Jared paused and turned, “Oh it’s you, Anselmo. Thank you for going through the trouble”

Anselmo smiled gently as his eyes lingered on the canvas. Though it was already midday - far from down- the sun Jared had drawn was only just peeking sun over the eastern horizon. The lined were precise, nearly perfect, yet the colors had not fully claimed their place.

Imagination. What Jared had witnessed that very morning had already sealed itself within his mind, vivid and unyielding.

“You have a gifted hands,” Anselmo said softly. As he unpacked the food from the basket, the stole glances at the unfinished painting. “Even unfinished, it alraedy feels alive in my imagination. I can sense that it will be beautiful”

Jared allowed a faint smile, “It only suggests how this place means to you, Anselmo.”

”Much” Anselmo whispered.

Darkness spread across the sky, swallowing the last streaks of gold along the horizon. A fierce wind began to howl, bending the trees into restless bows.

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Jared said, lifting his gaze toward the athering storm.

“This is no ordinary rain.” Anselmo replied quietly as he rose and began clearing the remnants of their meal. He placed the dishes carefully into a woven basket, each movement deliberate, almost reverent. “Come, my son before the heavy downpour begins,”

Jared quickly yet cautiously packed away his canvas and brushes, shielding them from the wind as though protecting something far more fragile than paint and cloth

“In the small garden room, it wont get wet there.” Anselmo reached into his pocket and felt for the padlock key he always carried. The chain clinked sharply in the rising wind as he unfastened it.”

When the door creaked open, a small chamber revealed itself – modest, almost hidden, embraced by clusters of tiny blossoms that lined its edges like silent gusrdians. Inside stood a narrow bed, worn by tome yet still bearing traces of careful order, as though it had been tended to with unwavering devotion.

"This is a beautiful scene, Anselmo.”

As a lover of art, Jared possessed the instinct to recognized beauty where others might overlook it. He could already imagine how the soft decay of wood, the stubborn bloom of flowers, and the approaching storm would blend into a masterpiece.

“Nostalgia,” he whispered.

“This is not for public viewing, Jared.”

“That’s a pity. The lighthouse itself feels historical especially if this place were part of its story”

Anselmo’s eyes lingered on the small room “ I built this place for the most important chapter of my life.”

Jared noticed the shadow of sorrow settling across the old man’s face

“Your wife? “

“My wife, if only,..” Anselmo murmured, “Had we met here, I would never have allowed her to leave.”

A gust of wind roared outside, rattling the door.

“If only she hadn’t married another.”

“How did.”

“On the day we we’re meant to meet, Elaine never arrived.” Anselmo’s voice faltered, as though the mere utterance of her name constricted his chest.

“Elaine..?” Jared echoed

Anselmo sighed. “Yes. Elaine is the one and only soul who breathed life into my lonely world.”

Jared adjusted the canvas while Anselmo steadied it for him. The sorrow in the old man’s eyes was unmistakable as he drifted back into memory. “A single moment of happiness,” Anselmo murmured, “replaced by a sorrow so long it seemed it would never end.”

Jared felt the weight pressing on Anselmo’s heart. “Why didn’t you look for her?”

“It would only have made things more complicated,” Anselmo replied quietly. “She told me from the beginning what stood in our way.”

“Why didn’t you fight for her?”

Anselmo shook his head. “What power do paper and pen possess against a love that has already chosen to surrender?”

He turned toward the open door. Raindrops streaked on its wall echoing the tears he refused to shed. The downpour slowly weakened, the fierce drumming softening to a whisper, until at last the rain and wind both fell still. And with the passing of the storm outside, the tempest within Anselmo’s heart began to ease. Yet the rain carried a memory — a promise once spoken, and never fulfilled.