The Adventure in Repaying a Debt

Prologue

     I was born on a merchant ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. I like to think that I was born to sail the ocean because of this. It was a clear night in the middle of June when my mother went into labor, and I arrived early the next morning. I am told that the first thing they did was show me the ocean out the nearby window, and supposedly I stopped fussing almost immediately. Now I highly doubt that is the actual story, but I'd like to think that even as a baby I loved the ocean.

     I was raised with love and attention, as a child should be, and there was almost never a dull moment during my childhood. I was always following someone around and getting into trouble. And if I wasn't doing that then I was picked up by one of the various crew members and being shown different things about The Lucero, the ship we lived on. This playground of knowledge was paradise for a young child like me, and while I obviously could not retain that much information, it just gave me a reason to ask the same question a week later. I am fortunate that many of our crew members were patient with me, and would explain the knot they were tying no matter if it was the first, or the fifteenth time I had asked.

     When I was three when we stopped at a port and my father suddenly announced the hiring of two new crew members, a man to be the ship's doctor, and a scrappy boy around my age hiding behind him. A boy who would eventually become my best friend. He was shy for a short while. But he soon discovered that people enjoyed it when he talked and shared his thoughts, and he became very extroverted. We both were as kids. I grew out of it, and grew into a more reserved persona, but he never did. Not around me anyhow.

     When I was five, my mother died of what I now know to be sepsis, but at the time had no knowledge of. I just knew that my mother left and that I couldn't go with her. That's how they explained it to a five year old with no concept of death at least. One day she was there, she was sick, but still there, and then the next morning she had disappeared.

     My father handled it as you can expect. He was devastated. I didn't understand, because mother had just left, and when someone leaves they can come back if they want. It took him marrying another woman for me to finally understand that she wasn't coming back.

     My step mother was a wonderful woman. It hurts me to say that I remember more of her than my biological mother, but memory cannot be helped. She was kind and understanding. She taught me what little I know about sewing, and she would let me play dress up with her shawls and hats. Sadly, she died shortly after giving birth to my brother. By this age I did have a concept of death, and I hate to say hers affected me more than my mothers.

     My father did not handle this as gracefully as he handled the previous. He told me he had quarreled with God, and that this was The Almighty's way of punishing him. By taking away both his wives. I do not believe this, because he neglects to see that God also gifted him with two healthy children, but that's beside the point. We moved inland for approximately a year so my father could hire a wet-nurse for my brother, as he was only days old when his mother died. We moved in with my father's best friend, a blacksmith in Madrid, and my father slowly gathered the scattered pieces of his heart. Though he did not dare to tempt God again with another wife, he was attentive and caring in that year, and it was one of the most peaceful times in my life.

     Eventually we reunited with The Lucero, and things seemed to go back to the way they were before we left. My father was almost complete again on land, but I think being out in the open ocean reminded him too much of all that he had lost, and, as a result, he lost himself in drink.

     He never got violent or cross when he was drunk, which was most of the time, and sometimes he actually seemed downright cheerful if you could get the balance of alcohol right. But the crash at the end was unavoidable. Trying to prevent it was like trying to stop the seasons from changing. It just happened, and all you could do was stand and watch. The cycle of my father's drunkenness went on for a span of months, many tried to help him, but he insisted that he was fine, and joked that someone must have spiked his drink.

     He fell overboard in the middle of the night.

     The crew didn't really know what to do with my brother and I. A handful of them debated dropping us off at the nearest port and letting us fend for ourselves. That was quickly vetoed, and those in favor of abandoning my brother and I were dropped off as quickly as possible.

     In the end, the crew decided to keep me and my brother with them, and raise us. They did their best. I can certainly understand the difficulties of 30 unmarried, childless men trying to raise a young girl and toddler, but lucky for them the ship's doctor had a child and knew how to raise relatively respectable children.

     That's how the three of us were raised. We were taught basic reading and mathematics, I learned how to tie various knots and steer a ship. All the things that would be useful when I was officially made captain of the ship on my twentieth birthday. I feel I am blessed to have such a childhood, though there were many tragedies in my earlier years, the later ones were filled with happy memories of sunshine, sea spray, laughter, and excitement. I sometimes long to wind back the clock and talk to my father and mother again, but then I realize that I wouldn't have the blessings I do now, and I abandon the thought.

     When I turned twenty I was made official Captain of the ship, and I made my best friend First Mate. Now some may consider it favoritism, and maybe it is, but I do not regret my choice. If I die, The Lucero and her crew will be in good hands with him. I have full confidence in his ability to not only to command the crew, but in his ability to lead them on the right path. Which is exactly what I am trying to do.

   And thus our story begins, on a merchant ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.