Ships of My Fathers Read online

  “I suppose. Am I breaking him in, or what?”

  She chuckled. “I honestly don’t know, but he’s pretty fragile right now. No hard press. Play it sweet and innocent, but do what you can to make him forget his sorrows.”

  Josie nodded. “I suppose, but for how long? I need the work.”

  “Consider him your rent payment this month, okay?”

  She took another sip of her soda. “I do have other expenses, you know.”

  Annie sighed. “Look, do this for me, and the next time Captain Joe comes through with his high rollers, I’ll take you with me.”

  Josie hopped up. “Deal. Let me get cleaned up, and I’ll go in and crash with him. With luck, I’ll have him in my bed by noon for the duration.”

  Annie picked up her crochet again as Josie headed down the hall, but before she could get far into the next row, Josie stuck her head back around the corner.

  “Just how sweet and innocent do you want me to be?” she asked with a playful lilt to her voice. “I mean, do you want me to do the whole teddy bear and pig-tails thing or what?”

  This time Annie did throw the pillow, but Josie ducked it easily and ran giggling down the hall.

  Michael woke disoriented and numb. He did not know where he was. He did not what time it was. The only thing he was sure of was that there was a body pressed against him.

  He opened his eyes to see light sneaking past the curtains to illuminate the room. It was a bedroom, cluttered with nick-knacks but otherwise tidy. That detail penetrated his brain enough to tell him he was on a planet. Which one? Where was Dad?

  Then it all came rushing back: the accident, the adoption, Annie.

  The blond hair spilling over his chest told him that it was not Annie. He could not quite make out her face, but her pale skin was another sure sign. She was not nude, but the pink t-shift clung to a shapely figure. Beneath the sheets, he could feel that he was still in his briefs, but otherwise, her bare legs wrapped around and between his.

  The change in his breathing was enough to wake her, and she tilted her head back and opened her eyes. Deep blue, like his mother’s.

  “Hmmm, morning,” she said.

  He struggled to find his voice. “Good morning.”

  She smiled and snuggled her face into his chest. “Still too early.”

  “I’m Michael,” he offered.

  She lifted her head back up and swept the hair out of her face with a hand. She was beautiful: a clean sleepy face, a hint of pink in her cheeks, bright teeth, long lashes, and a cute nose. “Yeah,” she replied. “Josie. I’m Annie’s roommate.”

  “Is this your bed?”

  She shook her head. “Annie said you could use some company, but you were sleeping. Simpler this way.”

  Simpler? Entangled as they were, Michael did not think so, but he liked her logic. “Where is Annie?”

  “Out,” she replied, rubbing at her right eye. She had lavender nails, with a white daisy painted on the thumb. “Stuff to do.”

  She shifted again, her thigh running up the inside of his. He suddenly became aware of his own erection and the pressure in his bladder. “I… um, can I…”

  “Bathroom’s through there,” she replied with a head bob towards the far wall.

  “Thanks.” He extracted himself from her arms and legs as gingerly as he could, but she did nothing to make it easier for him. The bed was pressed against the wall on his side, so he ultimately had to climb over her to get out. She twisted with him and smiled up as she did so. He made his way across the room, almost tripping over his own pants on the floor.

  “Cute butt,” she said.

  He closed the door behind him and splashed cold water on his face. He was pretty sure they had not had sex. He was certain he would have remembered that. His bladder urged him onward, so he went to the toilet and took a moment to focus. Just as he got started, he heard her calling.

  “Hurry, Michael. It’s cold out here by myself.”

  Shit. Focus.

  He finished and washed up again. He checked his breath and found it atrocious. He glanced around and found some mouthwash. A few swishes later, he headed back out.

  Josie had moved back over to his side of the bed and was facing him. She propped herself up on her elbow, and the v-neck of her t-shirt hung suggestively towards her breasts. She stared at him a moment and then looked aside with a blush. “Come on,” she urged. “It really is cold.”

  He came back, doing his best not to get snagged by his pants again, and slipped under the covers with her. “So, Josie, right?”

  “Yep,” she replied, sliding her legs back towards his.

  “Annie’s roommate. Did she…”

  “Say, Michael, do you like kolaches?”

  He tried to remember them from his last time through Taschin. “Yeah, the little sausage things.”

  “Annie said she’d toss some in the warmer before she went.”

  “Okay.”

  She slid her arms around him, her nails grazing across his back. “Do you want to work up an appetite first?”

  He was starving, but now food was the last thing on his mind.

  Annie sipped coffee at one of the tables outside the café. She had been waiting half an hour, scanning the crowd for Isaac. She waved when she finally spotted him, and he changed course to head her way.

  She motioned to a seat, but he remained standing. “I heard you were looking for me, but today’s not a good day.”

  “I’ve got Michael,” she said, and nodded to the seat again.

  His shoulders sagged and he slumped into the offered chair. “Thank God. I’ve been all over the port looking for him since yesterday. Is he okay?”

  “Well enough, but he’s pretty upset.”

  “Yeah, he is. You know about Malcolm?”

  “I heard it around port yesterday morning. I didn’t believe it until I talked to Captain Wallace.” She shook her head. “I spent most of the day in a haze and finally went out for drinks with a few friends. That’s when I found Michael.”

  “You took him home?”

  She nodded. “He cried for a while and then fell asleep. My roommate is keeping an eye on him for now.”

  “Good.”

  Annie reached for her coffee but stopped. She turned to Isaac instead. “Wallace said he’d been to the wake, but he couldn’t tell me much about how it happened.”

  “It was a loading accident.”

  “That’s all Wallace knew, but you were there. How did it... I mean, did he...?” she trailed off in a sigh.

  Isaac looked away for a moment. “If you’re asking me to tell you it was quick and painless... well, it wasn’t.”

  She pulled her arms close and held in a sob. “He knew?”

  “Yeah, but he still didn’t have much time.” He shook his head. “Too slow to be painless, too short to say goodbye.”

  “So he didn’t get to tell Michael about the adoption at all?”

  “No, but I think he... wait, you knew?”

  She shrugged. “I knew Malcolm for almost twenty-five years, even before he met Sophia.”

  “Then what’s the deal?”

  “It’s not my story to tell.”

  He gave a snort. “Well, there’s not a hell of a lot of people left who actually know it.”

  “Not much to tell,” she said. “She broke his heart, got hitched, and got killed in the war. Michael was all he had left of her.”

  A waitress passed near, and she signaled for another cup. Isaac held up two fingers to indicate his order as well.

  “Too bad,” he said. “But now Michael doesn’t even have that much.”

  “I know. So what’s the plan for him? He’s still got Malcolm’s ship, right?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  The waitress stopped by to fill Annie’s cup and set one out for Isaac as well.

  “Is it his age?”

  Isaac took a sip and nodded. “It’ll all sort out when he turns eighteen, but until then it’s lo
cked up tight, and then there’s the guardianship thing. I talked to some lawyer about it yesterday, but I don’t understand it. Hell, he’s been working a ship all his life. In my book, that makes him an adult.”

  She chuckled. “It takes even less in my line of work. So, are you signing up to be his guardian?”

  He sat up. “Oh, no, not for me. I like the kid and all, but he’s never going to accept my authority. I may have been his superior on the books, but he’s been giving me orders for two years now.”

  “Then who? I’ve known him most his life, but the courts wouldn’t exactly consider my home to be appropriate.”

  Isaac took another few sips of coffee. “Probably not.”

  “So, what then?”

  “The lawyer says he has an uncle, Hans Schneider.”

  She nodded. “That name sounds familiar.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s one of the senior partners in Schneider and Williams Shipping. They’ve got ships all over the sector.”

  She nodded. “So little Sophia married into money.”

  “I don’t know, maybe. They’ve been around for a while. Hans is still in the Captains’ Guild, and they list him as working the Heavy Heinrich.”

  Annie giggled. “The Heavy Heinrich?”

  He shrugged. “I never know where folks get these names, but it makes a regular run through these parts. The lawyer put in a call to the local S&W office. Their next port is supposed to be Ballison. If they get word out on the next mail run, there’s a chance they could divert to here.”

  “How long?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe three weeks. Longer if they miss the connection, shorter if the uncle sends someone on a fast transport. I’ll stick around until then at least.” He drained his cup. “Shall we go get him?”

  “Let’s not,” she said.

  “What? I mean, I have to.”

  “But you’re not his guardian.”

  “No, but the lawyer thinks I’ve got him, and I made promises to Malcolm.”

  She nodded. “And so did I. Look, let’s just let this cool down for a while. His uncle will send someone soon enough. I can keep an eye on him for at least a week or two. I owe Malcolm that much.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I suppose maybe he could use more of a woman’s touch right now.”

  Annie repressed a grin. A woman’s touch, indeed.

  Michael relaxed in the shower. As bad as yesterday had been, today had been fantastic, from waking up, to breakfast, to after breakfast, and then back to Josie’s room. He had lost count. He was no virgin. The McKenzie sisters had taken care of that last year, but he had been nothing more than a boy toy to them. With Josie it was different. She took their pleasure seriously.

  He dried off with a towel, and held it to his face. He could still smell her on it. She had laid out a pair of boxers and some sweats for him. He needed to get his uniform hung up, but that could wait. For now, it was back to seeing what Josie was up to.

  He walked out into the hall and checked her room. No Josie. He stepped out into the living room to look there, but instead of Josie’s blond hair splayed out over the sofa, it was Annie’s brunette hair tucked neatly into a bun.

  “Come on out,” she said.

  He did, sitting on the sofa beside her. “Where’s Josie?”

  “I sent her on an errand. She’ll be back soon.”

  “Oh.” He looked around the room. He had not paid it much attention before, but it was nice. It was small for a common room, but it was only for a two-person apartment, not a seven-man ship.

  “We need to talk, Michael.”

  He nodded. “I guess, but Josie said—”

  “No,” she cut him off with a chuckle. “Not about Josie. About your Dad.”

  He looked away. He should have known. “Yeah, my…” he trailed off. Dad was not truly his dad any more. He could not hide from it. “Malcolm. We should talk about Malcolm.”

  “Okay, let’s talk. What do you want to know?”

  Where to start? It seemed so unreal. “Did he even know my mother?”

  “Yes, he did. He loved her very much.”

  “But he didn’t marry her? What’s the deal with that?”

  She shrugged. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I never heard Sophia’s side of it. You didn’t know your fa—” she caught herself. “Malcolm was a different man back then. He grew gentler as you grew up.”

  Michael thought about his years under Malcolm’s shipboard discipline. “Gentle?”

  Annie smiled at him. “I know it’s hard to see it that way, but he loved you more than he could say, and I think that softened him up a lot.” She shook her head. “But back in the day, he was a brash man, hard, bold… exciting even. I think that’s what first caught my eye.”

  Michael looked at Annie as she remembered with a far-off look. “So did you two…?”

  She looked back to face him. “No, not until years later, after Sophia died. I didn’t tear them apart, and I can’t really blame Peter either.”

  “Peter.” Michael did not want to think about him. Biological father. What did that even mean to him? “Then what did it? Didn’t she love Malcolm?”

  “Oh, I think she did. Like I said, he was a bold figure and ruggedly handsome, but I think in the end, she wanted more.”

  “What? Money, fame?”

  Annie shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe, but mostly I think what she wanted was you. She was an only child, and she always talked about wanting to have a big family. Malcolm… well, Malcolm didn’t.”

  Michael had never thought about it, but he was hardly surprised. In all the lessons over the years, Malcolm had never talked about the joys of fatherhood. “Why not?”

  “I think it was your aunt, Molly. You never knew her, of course.”

  “Yeah, but he told me about her. She died when she was a kid, right?”

  “She was fourteen, four years behind Malcolm. I never knew her, but apparently he doted on her. Their dad had been gone for years, so he had played the man of the family. Then she got sick. I don’t know if they ever found out what it was, but he watched her fade away over the summer. I think at some level, he didn’t want to risk going through that again.”

  Michael nodded, absorbing it. “So he didn’t want the responsibility.” A hundred details of his shipboard childhood started to take on a different color. “He didn’t want me.”

  “Never say that, Michael.” Annie stood and walked over into the kitchen. “Never say that.” She came back a minute later with two glasses of tea, setting one before him.

  He did not take it. “So, I guess this Peter guy did want kids?”

  “He was a little older, already established in his father’s company. I only met him a few times, but he seemed like a nice man. I never heard the story of their courtship, but I know that he made the offer that Malcolm would not, a safe and stable life for Sophia and her children.”

  “Safe?” Michael scoffed. “They’re dead, and... and Malcolm survived. If you ask me, she chose the wrong guy. This Peter Schubert—”

  “Schneider,” she corrected.

  “Yeah, whatever, he couldn’t keep her safe. He let her die.”

  “I doubt it was for lack of trying. He died too, remember.”

  “I guess...” he trailed off. “So how is it I’m even alive?”

  “I don’t know. Malcolm and I weren’t in touch back then. He was off in his ship, and then those damn Caspians started their war.” She gave a shudder. “It was a bad time for all of us. All I know is that when I saw him next, Malcolm had you in one arm and a diaper bag in the other.”

  Michael allowed himself a grin. “Diapers. I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

  Annie reached down with her tea glass and clinked it against Michael’s, still sitting on the table. “He was versatile. You’ve got to give him that.”

  “Versatile,” he said, nodding, “but not truthful. Why didn’t he tell me? For that matter, why did he even keep me?”

  She sh
rugged. “He never told me, and after a while, I stopped asking. Maybe it was just that you were his last link to Sophia, and he didn’t want to give that up. Maybe he thought if you knew...” she trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t think he ever really wanted to be a father, even after all those years, but he wanted you to have one. He was always very clear on that. I guess he thought that if you knew he wasn’t your biological father...”

  “Then I’d feel like the orphan I am. Is that it?”

  She nodded. “Something like that.”

  Michael shook his head, remembering all those stories about Malcolm and Sophia: how they met, their tiny wedding, how she died. They had all been lies. “So what, was he never going to tell me?”

  “I think he was always planning on it, someday. Maybe he was going to do it when you turned eighteen. Maybe it would have been when you got your captain’s license. I don’t know, but he would mention it every now and then, some vague event in the nebulous future.”

  “But he never did.”

  Annie shrugged. “He always meant to.”

  Malcolm’s dying words flashed back to him. “Meaning to do it isn’t enough.”

  She sipped at her tea. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked down at the glass and finally lifted it to his nose. It smelled of raspberry. He took a tentative taste and set it back down. “So, however much he meant to, it’s never going to happen now.”

  “And what is going to happen now?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. I imagine Isaac is tearing apart the port by now.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I talked to him this morning.”

  “When’s he coming?”

  She shook her head. “Let’s take it easy for now. There’s no rush.”

  A series of beeps sounded from the door and Josie burst in with two bags of takeout. “They were out of egg drop, so I hope you like hot and sour.”

  Chapter 5

  “Sure, taking a break can be nice, but remember that the rest of the world is still going.” — Malcolm Fletcher

  TWO MEN SAT AT A conference table as the others filed out. When the last one left, closing the door behind her, the older man spoke. “You said you had some news, but I gather it’s not about this latest Shiantic intrusion.”