"Papa, can't I come?"
"The sea is cruel and no place for a woman and a child."
The man fixed the bandana upon his head and placed a kiss upon his wife's soft lips. "I will return before the tide comes in," he embraced her tightly and she returned the embrace with near equal strength. "Never soon enough, my love," she murmured. He turned his attention to the small girl sitting upon the bed, clutching a rag doll in one hand and a wooden model of a ship in the other. He kissed her forehead and she looked up at him with wide black eyes. "Papa, will you bring me a treasure?" she lisped in a child's way. The man laughed and ruffled her hair. "I will bring you all the treasure in the seas." Contented, the girl leapt up and hugged him, standing upon the bed to reach up and kiss his cheek. "Time to go, Domi," he told the child. He gave his wife another kiss and stepped to the door of their modest cottage. He gave a final nod, then left their home.
It pained him to leave - each time was no easier than the last. But he was a pirate; a man of the sea. He belonged on the waters just as much as he belonged there. It was a choice he could never make. Leave his wife and child to go back to his old ways, or settle at home and give up life on the ship? He could never decide such a thing. Though fate, it seemed, was preparing to make the choice for him.
