Once again, the booming of the foghorn jarred Emily from her thoughts. Now it was twenty after one in the morning, but the more she concentrated on Bart's lateness, the more she got upset, so she forced herself back to thoughts of the past. Those were a lot more pleasant...
XXX
She and Daddy moved to the new cottage a month or two after Auntie's funeral. "Too many memories for the both of us," he had said, and he was right. There wasn't a corner she could find that didn't have memories of Auntie somewhere.
The new cottage was nice. And it was next to the beach, so Daddy could go out and look at the water any time he wanted to. Which he did, a lot...
For her tenth birthday he took her to Paris. What a strange place! It was very interesting, though, and she liked it a lot. But the best part of her present was waiting for her when she got home.
A piano of her very own.
She shrieked with delight and ran over to hug her father. "Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
"What?" he asked innocently. Then he pretended to see it. "Oh, that old thing."
It was old. But it had been well cared for and, as she was to find out, this one had a rich, beautiful tone. "Can you play it?" she asked him.
He walked over to it, sat down, and then played a jaunty show-tune. She clapped her hands for joy. "That's wonderful! Play another one, Daddy, please?"
Her father shook his head. "Sorry, Em, I only know the one. But you can learn to play your own..."
And she did. He had a neighbor lady come over for awhile to teach her the basics, and then she grew beyond that and taught herself to play what she liked to hear.
The piano became her refuge and her friend. When the other children teased her because she was 'funny looking' she retreated to it and found comfort in its smooth, friendly sound.
But the 'townies' were mean about other things, too. When they weren't teasing her about her looks, they would give her a hard time about her father. "He's a pirate! He's a pirate!" they would taunt her, and often Emily would be forced to run home in tears.
One night she watched him overhauling his pistols and she decided that she couldn't take it any longer.
"Daddy?" she asked.
He looked up. "What, Em?"
"Are you a pirate? The other kids say you are."
His face hardened. "Do they, now? You don't see me swinging off a gallows, do you?"
Emily shook her head.
"Well, I guess that should answer your question, then."
An awkward silence hung between them.
"No, I wasn't a pirate," Daddy said.
"I hunted them."
Her eyes grew wide. "Did you ever have to kill any of them?"
A flash of anger flickered across his face. "That's not a proper question for a young lady."
He held one of the pistols up to the light and dry-fired it to test the mechanism. Satisfied, he put it down and motioned to her to come to him. He took her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. "But – yes - sometimes it has to be done. Otherwise, the seas won't be safe for decent folk."
A few long moments passed.
"But know this – life is special, and precious, and not to be taken likely."
Then he released her shoulders and he turned away from her. That night he spent a long time at the beach...
XXX
The next day he presented her with a sword-shaped wooden stick and a mask-like thing made out of leather.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Fencing lessons," he answered. "We start today."
Emily wrinkled her nose. "But why? Ladies don't use swords."
"Oh, you never know when knowing how to handle one could come in handy. Maybe you'll have to fend off a ruffian some day."
She still wasn't convinced.
"It's like dancing," he commented.
"How's that?" she asked.
"Well," he answered, "you have to know what your body is doing. And you have to read and anticipate the other's movements." He picked up his own wooden sword and dueled briefly with an imaginary opponent. "Otherwise, you won't know how to respond." He pantomimed a stabbing motion. "Auggh!" he said. "That could have hurt …"
Reluctantly, she put on the mask. After a few tentative jabs back and forth, she forgot her nervousness and got into the game.
After an intense quarter hour, Daddy called for a pause. "See," he said, sweating heavily. "Not so bad, was it?"
Emily lifted her mask, and then she shook her head and grinned. "No, I guess not."
Over the next couple of years, many, many happy hours were spent in swordplay, and she got to be very good with the blade. But she was careful not to let her friends find out about that - it still didn't seem to her to be like a ladylike thing to do. But it was fun …
XXX
There were other surprises, too - she remembered one in particular that had happened on her twelfth birthday. She had gotten the usual presents and such, but afterwards her father took her aside, "Em, I've got something that you'll want to see."
He didn't try to drag out the suspense, but went directly to his bedroom closet and pulled out a large cloth-covered object. He laid it flat on the table and then undid the ties on the bag, but didn't open it. "Close your eyes," he warned. "No peeking."
"Okay," she said, and then Emily squeezed her eyes shut.
She heard the sound of cloth rustling and then her father said, "Open your eyes."
Young Emily gasped.
"Oh, Daddy, it's beautiful! Was it Mother's?"
It was. The antique wedding dress was made with the finest stitching that Emily had ever seen and was sprinkled from bodice to hem in beautiful white pearls.
"May I try it on?" Emily asked hopefully.
Her father shook his head. "You're too small to fit just now, and we don't want to wear it out before its time, do we?"
She shook her head solemnly. "I guess not." She paused. "What time do you mean, Daddy?"
He paused and smiled. "Why, when it's time for you to wear it at your own wedding. That is … if you want to… "
The child's happy shriek answered that question.
XXX
The years passed quickly. Daddy wasn't like the other parents - it wasn't his way to simply order her around or to try to shame her like the other parents usually did to their children. He preferred to talk things out and to explain why. But he wasn't soft - far from it. Walter had been a sea captain – a very good one - and he still carried that air of authority about him. Fair, but very firm…
But things changed when she turned fifteen. In a little more than a few months she shot up by nearly a foot and the look of her face changed dramatically. As Daddy had promised, she "grew into her eyes" and the teasing from her classmates gradually stopped, especially from the boys. The girls ignored her all the more.
And then one day, in an absent-minded way, her father had called her 'Martha'. She didn't mind, but he was quite upset by it.
"I'm sorry, girl," he had apologized to her. "You remind me so much of your mother, it's hard to remember who's who, sometimes."
XXX
From that day on, he kept a growing distance between them that she couldn't bridge, no matter how hard she tried. As much as she liked her looks, she hated the effect that their similarity to her mother's had on Daddy's attitude toward her. And she hated how that resemblance became an ongoing burden to them both – a constant reminder to him of his loss, and to her of how that loss had happened, so many years ago.
It would have been much easier for them both if he had simply re-married and got on with his life, but Daddy had decided long ago that he wasn't interested in anybody else and he preferred to stay in a permanent state of mourning for his wife.
It was easier for him to push his daughter away, so he did.
Eventually, he started going back to sea again. First for short trips, and then for longer ones…