Mommy,
I need to find him. I'll be back when I have the closure I need. I'm more like my father, anyway. I am sorry for that. I'm sorry I couldn't be the way you needed me to be. I'm sorry I left like this. I'm sorry that life here isn't enough for me. But I'm not sorry that I'm different. And I'm especially not sorry that I must make this journey. Tell Trace to stay out of my things. And, don't worry. I'll be back.
Lucia W. Turner
Oh, and happy birthday to me.
Elizabeth's eyes were stinging by the time she got to her daughter's name in handwriting that was scratchy, but not illegible. She had already sent the serving men out to search for her, but she knew that it was pointless. Lucy was right. She was indeed more like her father. And since this was the case, there really was no stopping her. She knew what she wanted. She was going to get it.
Trace was sitting next to her in the grass, his face buried in a book. Yes, this was normal Trace behavior. But Elizabeth knew that the reason he refused to look up was because he didn't want to show his mother just how emotionally vulnerable he was at that moment. Thinking of her child's pain, she clutched the note from her daughter closer to her chest.
They waited in silence. They had waited in silence for ten years, and that wasn't going to change now. The only difference here was that the truth of everything hung in the air, almost suffocating them.
The sun was almost up now. Orange had begun to deepen over the ocean's horizon. She couldn't imagine what Trace was thinking. In a few moments, he would meet his father. In a few moments also, though, he would witness his mother miserably tell his father about how his sister had run away from home. This was Trace's tenth birthday. This was supposed to be an amazing day, to be shared with him, his sister, and his father. Trace must have felt awful.
But no one could tell. Because his face showed no emotion.
At last, while Elizabeth was lost in thought, a mass on the horizon began to take on the shape of a ship. When she saw this, Elizabeth's breath caught. It's really him, she thought to herself and looked down at her son, who had also seen the figure. His face, finally, was showing signs of disbelief and overwhelmed happiness.
Then, she felt the familiar moistness in her eyes again. Except this time, she knew they were for joy. That so much satisfaction could not fit into any person, so some of it would need to escape. So she let herself cry. Trace stood up, still staring out on the ocean.
It was Will. Elizabeth stood up as well, one hand on Trace's shoulder, and one covering her mouth. She could actually see the man she married ten years ago on a ship in the middle of a storm so fierce, none of them knew if they would make it. She could see him, but she couldn't move. Even with how close he was now. Close enough to make out his features: perfect and not aged. His ship came to a stop a ways from the beach. Elizabeth was barely aware of her feet moving beneath her. Moving so quickly, in fact, she thought she may not be able to stop. Trace stayed planted, still in shock.
She hit the water, though it didn't slow her at all. She wasn't paying attention to anything except him getting into the rowboat and moving closer and closer to her. She stopped when she was knee deep, waves crashed around her legs. Then, when he was about twenty feet from her, Will jumped from the boat, swam until he could stand, and ran. Just as Elizabeth had done.
They met. They touched. And the world melted away. The past ten years never happened. Their daughter had not run away, and their son was not emotionally compromised. He wasn't the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, and she wasn't alone raising two children. They were in love. They were embracing each other tightly. They were kissing lightly and quickly. He had lifted her right off her feet. He was where he belonged. With her.
"Mommy?" A small, timid voice was behind them, and closer than Elizabeth remembered Trace being. Their moment was over, and she turned to face the confused little boy, whose toes barely touched the water.
Elizabeth looked at Trace, as did Will, who, admittedly, was as afraid and shy as Trace was. She then smiled, and held her arms out to him.
Trace ran into her arms. He hugged his mother. Then, when she sat him down, he turned to the man who looked exactly like his sister.
Elizabeth was still smiling as she said, "Trace, this is your father. Will, this is Trace." Trace stared wide-eyed up at Will, who awkwardly held out his hand, not knowing what else to do.
Suddenly, any bad feelings Trace had for his father drained out of him. He couldn't stop himself. He ran and jumped into Will's arms. This had taken Will by surprise, of course, but when he felt his own son's arms gingerly wrapped around his neck, he sighed and laid his head against the head of the small boy.
They stayed like that for what seemed like hours before finally walking back to the beach. That was when Will realized something was missing.
"Wait," he stopped them as they reached the blanket on the grass where Trace and Elizabeth had been seated before. "Where's Tabitha?" he looked around expecting to see a little girl run to him.
Instead, both Elizabeth and Trace looked at him confused. "Tabitha?" Elizabeth shook her head at him quizzically.
"Jack informed me of a son and a daughter. Maybe he got the name wrong." Before Elizabeth could even consider wondering how Jack found him, grief washed over her. She looked down as she spoke. Trace sat down and stayed quiet.
"Lucia..." she began, "Her name's Lucia." Lucia, Will thought to himself. This may well be the best day of his life. This was all before Elizabeth handed him a torn piece of parchment.
~She was shorter than everyone else, but she was not frightened. Lucy wound her way through the crowd of people on the port. She saw many men with rum bottles who staggered and many women with dresses that showed much more of them than she'd like to see, but none of them spoke to her.
She came upon a ship then that was loading wooden crates. She quickened her pace and weaved through everyone rather carelessly. She knew that this may be her last chance.
The crates that were being loaded onto the boat were still in piles to her far right. At that moment, no one was paying much attention to them, (a man was shouting at a sailor for dropping one of them and was drawing a crowd). They were good sized boxes. She could fit. She knew that much.
Lucy seized the lid to one of them, heaved, and it came free with little sound. Inside, there was lumber. Funny, she thought to herself as she climbed in, delivering wood inside of more wood.
It wasn't particularly comfortable, but she did fit. And she performed this task without being noticed. That was all that mattered. She had counted softly to herself to three-hundred and two before her box was lifted with a lot of huffing coming from whoever was carrying her. The wood crate vibrated around her as the man threw it into the cargo-hold of the ship. She was here. No turning back now.
She thought of how curious this was of a way to spend her birthday. All her life, she pictured this day so differently. Right now, she should be with her father, laughing. What she didn't know that at that very moment, her father, her mother, her brother- none of them were laughing.
