Saving The Pirate (Book Two)

39. Christopher's Father

Christopher

As Christopher gazed out the window, he kept thinking about the conversation he had with his father before he left.

Walking the manor corridors had done little to ease Christopher's mind. It didn't stop the pounding in his head, nor did it help the sickly feeling lodged in his stomach. It would seem that the world was taking a beating at him. First with Anne and now his mother. He didn't know what was in the near future, and it scared him a little. It was out of his hands.

Christopher played with the little hole he made in the corner of his trouser pocket. He pulled at the fabric bit by bit, feeling the once tight strands pull apart. He kept his head to the ground and watched his feet as he walked, step by step, nervously.

He thought about his mother and the little memories he had of her. When she tucked him into bed, read to him only leaving after kissing him goodnight, the little things that she let him get away with, the way she laughed when he said something funny. It all came back to him in a heap that made goosebumps run across his arms.

The memories he had of his dear mother were all he had when she died - when he thought she died. He was so young, so innocent, so ignorant. He barely just got acquainted with death when he learned of his mother's death, of her said sickness. He barely saw her when his father announced she was sick.

Christopher remembered. The rare glimpses he saw of his mother lying in bed and reading a book or sewing were precious to him at that time. Christopher hardly saw her. Now he learned that that was to fool everyone that she was ill and that she was dying. His mother didn't want any babbling servants sharing about her fake death, especially when she knew it would come back to her son and ruin her husband's reputation. Nobody wanted to hear that a man's wife left him.

When Christopher saw her casket, it was black, that he remembered. After the funeral, she was buried in the family plot, along with the lost generations that were slowly forgotten - his mother would be one of them someday.

Christopher cried that day. His father put his arm around his shoulder and pressed him to his side, trying comfort the little child that only knew that Mama wasn't coming back.

Now he learned that his mother was alive. That changed everything; everything that he used to know was now lost. What would happen now? Once he found her, would she greet him with open arms? Would he? Would everything go back to the way it used to be?

His mother missed him growing up. She missed the first time Christopher lost a tooth, the first time he grew hair on his lip, missed the first time he took a swing of liquor. What was there to talk about with his mother now? The things she'd been doing since he abandoned him?

Abandoned. His mother abandoned him. He rolled the word over in his mouth, tasting the funniness to it, hearing how pathetic it made him sound. The mighty pirate captain, confident and mischevious, was abandoned by his own mother at a young age. And for what, because she couldn't stay in one place? Because she couldn't take it anymore?

Christopher suddenly felt an anger about his mother that he never thought he'd feel. She left him, left him and his father for something so selfish that she had to fake her death for it. Did she think about the times Christopher cried over her? The nights he sprayed her perfume on his pillow just so he could hug it at night? The times telling his father that his mother would understand him?

Christopher didn't know where he was until he was back at his father's office door again. And he didn't know what he was doing until he heard the sound of his fist and the shout for him to enter. His father was still smoking his pipe. It hung out of his mouth like he forgot it was even there.