Chapter 4

Upon entry into the kitchen he was greeted by the smiling faces of his children happily occupied by their sandwiches, and a plate already laid out for him.
“Where is your mother” he asked his children.
“With Jules” his daughter replied through a mouthful of bread.
“Who?”
“The man you rescued” his son piped in.
“Hmmm” he grunted as he bit in to his sandwich. He loved the way the lettuce crunched and how the mayonnaise tasted. No matter what meat or bread she used that day, mary always put the right amount of Mayo and the crispiest hearts of lettuce on his sandwich. He finished off the last scraps of his meal and left the table.
“Come with me” he said to his son. Father and son walked out of the kitchen leaving the cleaning to his daughter as today it was her chore to do so. They walked down the hall in silence and upon reaching the spare room, they heard voices drifting through the door. He watched as his son continued on down the hall, then he placed his hand on the door knob. He leaned in to open the door and caught himself as he heard Mary say “I am sure he will believe you, you are a good guy and I can see it”
“I enjoy having someone to talk to, its been so lonely on the boat, for so long, I started talking to the seagulls on my long runs. Nobody could know what I was doing, so any stops I made were straight forward and to the point. A lot of ‘yes sir here is the cash, I need this much gas now, yes sir, 9 am, yes sir a gale coming in, yes sir pirates sighted in the straits.”
“Why did they pick you” she asked.
“ I owed them” he replied. At this he yawned and Mary tucked the blankets up about his chin. She moved around the room picking up the leftover dishes and the soiled bandages and was shocked to find her husband standing outside the door when she opened it.
“Oh” she gasped “how long have you been here?”
“Long enough to hear him sucker you in with that story of his” he said curtly.
“If only you had really listened you wouldn’t feel that way” she spat back at him vehemently, as she turned on her heel to walk down the hall. The anger in her footsteps was evident as the dishes rattled about with each fall of her foot. He turned to the still open door and saw Jules looking back at him clearly awake.
“I know you heard all of that, and I will not pass judgement on you, that is for the Coast Guard to decide.”
“How soon will they be here, I need to speak with the Captain” Jules said, now sitting upright, returning the stare.
“Soon enough” he said as he shut the door to ‘Jules’ room. How odd, he thought, that a criminal would want to see the Coast Guard. He put the thoughts in the back of his mind and continued down the hallway to the front porch where his son had been waiting for him. He walked to where the boy was sitting on the steps, and standing next to him gazed out across the property. From here he could see the gardens and the barn, and farther down the slope, just beyond view was the shore. The sound of the unseen waves reached up to him, and he followed along as the wave crashed on the shore. He stepped off the porch, his son quietly falling into step behind him. It was Wednesday, therefore it was the day to polish all of the bright-work in the lighthouse. It didn’t need to be done every week, but he took pride in knowing that it was. The two of them walked into the beacon house and headed for the tower. There underneath the stairs was a built in cabinet that stored all of his polishing gear. He handed a rag and a can of polish to his son, and grabbed some for himself. In silence they both set off to different areas and started on their task at hand. Each knew his place and where he was expected to clean. To the son, all of the detailed parts and hand railings, for his fingers were still small enough to polish the smallest of cracks. To the father, the area around the lens and the 6 foot foghorn. Areas that could be quite dangerous, and therefore not suited for his child. Neither stopped till the brass-work was shiny enough that one could inspect their wrinkles in its reflection. It was a valuable lesson he was trying to teach his son. Work hard, and you will have a bright future. Only once had his son complained. After sustaining a nasty fall in the rose thicket, he had a 2 inch scratch across his palm. That afternoon they were polishing, and after an hour his son came to him with tears in his eyes and said “Papa, my hand hurts”
His father unwrapped the cloth from around his sons palm to find the polish had seeped into the wound and was forcing it to bleed. He was proud of his son that day, he had shown him that he could work through the pain, he would make a fine man when he grew up.

As they neared the completion of their task, he looked out the beacon windows and saw his daughter come skipping down the path. In her hand swinging ferociously back and forth was an old flour sack weighted down with something. He made it to the bottom of the stairs at the same tim e she came in the door singing an unknown tune in an unknown language known only to her.
“Where you off to” he asked as she danced circles around the room.
“I came to get Billy so we can get some muscles” she said as she made a fantastic impression of flexing her arms. He sat down on a stool in the main engine room and she climbed up on to his lap, “well” he said “what’s in the bag”.
“Muscles”
“What?” he said with a puzzled look on his face. He reached for the bag and opened it up to find a pound of fresh blue mussels.
“Oh” he said trying not to laugh, “Mussels darling”. He lifted her up off his knee and shooed her out of the engine room, “alright you two get along now” he said as he sent them out the door and locked it.