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Authors: Alan F. Troop
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Peter.”
“Okay,” I say into the phone.
He lets out a relieved breath. “By the way,” he says. “I sent your letter out four days ago. The one to Jordan Davidson. We haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“It’s early,” I say. “Was there anything more in this week’s Dish ?”
“No. Claudia’s been watching for us. She said this week’s was DelaSangre-free.”
“They should all be,” I say.
In truth, neither Chloe nor I find staying on our island for a few extra weeks to be any hardship. With all the extra time we have, the few remaining chores we have to perform to ready our house for our absence become easy tasks. Without any need to take Henri to and from school on the mainland each day, five days a week, it begins to feel like a mini-vacation.
Chloe, who has never loved rising early, stops setting the clock’s alarm. We get up when the children wake. In the evenings, after both Henri and Lizzie go to sleep, Chloe and I turn to each other and make love in our human forms, exploring each others’ bodies, taking time for each other, like we did when we first met.
Other than the usual daily cleaning the house needs and tending the garden and Elizabeth’s grave, we have little we must do but wait for notification that our home’s ready in Jamaica. The weather conspires to lull us into relaxation. The blustery winds of early March give way to calm spring breezes. The regular visits of cold fronts and the showers they bring stop, each new day of mild weather and sunny skies becoming a monotonous repeat of the last. If it weren’t for the disappearances still being reported every few days and the increase of the boats patrolling near our island, I’d just as soon not bother going anywhere else.
I count it as a gift to have my son home from school each day. We set aside the afternoons for each other, fishing some days, boating or sailing on the others, Henri growing good enough that I readily give the helm to him. In the evenings, with no safe possibility of either flight or hunting, I begin to teach him chess, as my father taught me.
On nights when his interest flags, I turn to telling stories of our family’s past, Henri usually saying at some point, “Tell me about Don Henri’s pirate fleet!” I smile and point out Don Henri’s old cutlass on the wall, the boy’s eyes growing large as I pull out the old log books and nautical maps that still remain stored in the same wooden chest that Don Henri had placed in the great room long before I was born.
Henri peers at the old maps and leafs through the log books. He touches the raised ink of my father’s script—the words written in Spanish and equally incomprehensible to both of us.
My father may have been Spanish-born, but he never spoke the language at home, speaking French with my Hungarian-born mother whenever they felt the need to converse in a foreign language. Other than a few phrases and a few curse words, I’ve long forgotten whatever Spanish I learned in school. Like far too many English speakers in Miami, I’ve just been too lazy to truly learn the language.
They’d terrorized the Carribean for over a hundred years, each ship commanded by a person of the blood—Captain Jack Blood from Jamaica, Captain Giscard Sang from Haiti and, of course, Don Henri, their leader. Still, the boy frowns when I point to Jamaica and Haiti on the maps and then show him the tiny ink spot that signifies our island. “We should have as big an island as they do,” he says.
I smile and say, “We have all we need.”
Each day blends into the next so that after only another week passes, I could swear we’d been living like this for months. We’re outside, under the gumbo limbo tree, Lizzie sitting between my legs, leaning back against my stomach, Henri sitting cross-legged at my side, Max’s huge head in his lap. Both children listen, open-mouthed, as Chloe retells the ancient story of the great war between the four castrylls—the
“Okay,” I say into the phone.
He lets out a relieved breath. “By the way,” he says. “I sent your letter out four days ago. The one to Jordan Davidson. We haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“It’s early,” I say. “Was there anything more in this week’s Dish ?”
“No. Claudia’s been watching for us. She said this week’s was DelaSangre-free.”
“They should all be,” I say.
In truth, neither Chloe nor I find staying on our island for a few extra weeks to be any hardship. With all the extra time we have, the few remaining chores we have to perform to ready our house for our absence become easy tasks. Without any need to take Henri to and from school on the mainland each day, five days a week, it begins to feel like a mini-vacation.
Chloe, who has never loved rising early, stops setting the clock’s alarm. We get up when the children wake. In the evenings, after both Henri and Lizzie go to sleep, Chloe and I turn to each other and make love in our human forms, exploring each others’ bodies, taking time for each other, like we did when we first met.
Other than the usual daily cleaning the house needs and tending the garden and Elizabeth’s grave, we have little we must do but wait for notification that our home’s ready in Jamaica. The weather conspires to lull us into relaxation. The blustery winds of early March give way to calm spring breezes. The regular visits of cold fronts and the showers they bring stop, each new day of mild weather and sunny skies becoming a monotonous repeat of the last. If it weren’t for the disappearances still being reported every few days and the increase of the boats patrolling near our island, I’d just as soon not bother going anywhere else.
I count it as a gift to have my son home from school each day. We set aside the afternoons for each other, fishing some days, boating or sailing on the others, Henri growing good enough that I readily give the helm to him. In the evenings, with no safe possibility of either flight or hunting, I begin to teach him chess, as my father taught me.
On nights when his interest flags, I turn to telling stories of our family’s past, Henri usually saying at some point, “Tell me about Don Henri’s pirate fleet!” I smile and point out Don Henri’s old cutlass on the wall, the boy’s eyes growing large as I pull out the old log books and nautical maps that still remain stored in the same wooden chest that Don Henri had placed in the great room long before I was born.
Henri peers at the old maps and leafs through the log books. He touches the raised ink of my father’s script—the words written in Spanish and equally incomprehensible to both of us.
My father may have been Spanish-born, but he never spoke the language at home, speaking French with my Hungarian-born mother whenever they felt the need to converse in a foreign language. Other than a few phrases and a few curse words, I’ve long forgotten whatever Spanish I learned in school. Like far too many English speakers in Miami, I’ve just been too lazy to truly learn the language.
They’d terrorized the Carribean for over a hundred years, each ship commanded by a person of the blood—Captain Jack Blood from Jamaica, Captain Giscard Sang from Haiti and, of course, Don Henri, their leader. Still, the boy frowns when I point to Jamaica and Haiti on the maps and then show him the tiny ink spot that signifies our island. “We should have as big an island as they do,” he says.
I smile and say, “We have all we need.”
Each day blends into the next so that after only another week passes, I could swear we’d been living like this for months. We’re outside, under the gumbo limbo tree, Lizzie sitting between my legs, leaning back against my stomach, Henri sitting cross-legged at my side, Max’s huge head in his lap. Both children listen, open-mouthed, as Chloe retells the ancient story of the great war between the four castrylls—the
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