The Call

For most of your life you were your mother's son,
quiet, respectful, obedient. A thoughtful child,
giving to daydreaming, your mother kept you close by
her side, convinced you might someday float away
altogether. Like your father, her husband. He drifted
into and then out of your lives like the tide rising
and falling, though far less predictably. Summers, you
remember, you saw him more often, when his ship sailed
the cooler seas between your home and the distant
colonies. Summers, you would sneak down to the
forbidden docks and gape openmouthed at the flurry of
activity, the tall ships with their expansive sails
and unfamiliar names, the rough, loud, carefree men
that crewed them. Your father was one of their kind,
but he was a good man--everyone said so. Summers, you
would wait for him to return, and listen to the
bewitching song of the waves, and dream of the sea.

Almost always it was dark when he came home, while you
slept in your narrow cot under the eaves of a modest
little house not far from the water's edge. You
awakened to his cheerful voice, a lively counterpoint
to your mother's, as they talked the night away. Each
time he seemed a stranger to you, but a familiar one.
Each time, as you grew older, you remembered more of
him. Tall he was, but slender, chestnut-brown hair
pulled back in a tail and eyes the color of polished
mahogany. Those eyes you recall more than anything
else, bright under serious, level brows that belied
the laughter in his voice. Eyes to turn a girl's head,
your mother would say with a sigh. Eyes that had seen
the wide ocean far beyond the little harbor where his
ship would slip in unlooked-for, sleek and dark and
faster than anything else on the water.

It wasn't his ship, actually, and you knew that, but
as a child you would pretend it was. He would take you
aboard, guide your eager steps across the gangplank
and up to the helm, allow you to put your hands on the
wide polished wheel that so intrigued you. You'd
imagine a distant horizon and exotic lands, and you'd
watch the ship's captain out of the corner of your
eye. Watch him pace, talking with his hands, his
black-rimmed eyes bold and mesmerizing. Sometimes he
would ruffle your hair kindly in passing, though he
paid little heed to children. He would lounge at the
rail and chat with Father, leaning in close so their
heads nearly touched, their voices sharing a similar
lilt, rising in shared laughter. You wished you
understood their joking so you could laugh too, and
even though Father was there you felt alone somehow.

When Father was home you were his son, rather than
Mother's, curious, enthusiastic, alive. Trailing after
him as he went about his business ashore, puffed up
with pride as he showed you off to all and sundry.
"Boy's the spittin' image of you, Bill!" you'd hear,
and share a conspirator's grin. Mother's smile grew
tight-lipped at those times and you knew she didn't
like Father's friends, didn't like their boisterous
laughter and crude manners. But you did, and Father
knew it, and he'd wink at you behind Mother's back and
let you stay up late to listen to their tales. When he
left again, as he always did, you'd lie awake and
listen in the darkness for the soothing unending
melody of the waves, knowing that somewhere far away
your father heard it too.

By the time death released your mother's firm hold on
you, it was already too late to follow your father to
the sea; you knew he was lost, though not when or how.
Then for a while you convinced yourself you could no
longer hear the ocean's siren song. But in your dreams
you never stopped listening for the sizzling hush of
breaking waves, never stopped listening for soft
footfalls late at night. Finally it was the ocean
herself that brought the memories flooding back, her
seductive call singing strongly through your blood as
you lay wakeful in a sailor's bunk on a stolen ship. A
ship stolen by you and a madman, or so you thought at
the time. A madman whom, you soon learned, had not
only known your father but sailed at his side for many
years. A man, not as mad as he led others to believe,
full of quirks and contradictions and unexpected
revelations, unpredictable as a storm at sea.

You can remember this man, after a fashion, from your
childhood, having pieced together vague recollections
of a black ship and your father's long-ago captain. It
was a short journey to find the good man beneath his
pirate trappings and a shorter journey yet to his bed,
seduced by eyes dark as a moonless night, canny,
glittering, unfathomable. And now it's you beside him,
in your father's place, and you wonder about many
things. You wonder how your life would be different if
your father were alive, and which of you would sleep
in the captain's bed. You wonder if your father would
be proud of you for living as a free man bound by no
rules but the ones you choose to accept, the same path
he followed. And you wonder what your mother would
think of your life and your choices, and with a wry
chuckle decide that you already know.

In darkness lit only by distant stars, cradled and
rocked by the ever-changing sea, you listen to the
lullaby of water against the wooden hull and the
contented breathing of the man who is everything to
you: lover, friend, family, captain. Though you are
alone in the world, you belong to him and to the sea,
and that is enough.


-end-

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