In the evening, Father walks through the door and announces that we are "stopping through" Port Royal and that I may see my mother for a while, for he has some business to settle.
When I enter the warm room of my mother's house, I let down my defenses and embrace her warmly.
"How are you, dear? How is…your father?"
"We are both…well." I answer. Lying to Mother is difficult.
Then, as I always do when I visit her, I beg her to let me live with her. And, as always, she shakes her head sadly.
"You can't leave your father all alone on that ship, can you? And you know how attached Hannah is to you, what with her losing her one child to the epidemic and her husband at war – she's all alone in the world. Also, the fresh air is good for you – you've always been ever so frail and weak as a little girl, I thought it was best to let you breathe in the salty sea air and get stronger."
I don't tell Mother that I barely ever go outside, and that I am kept inside studying from dawn to dusk. It'll just upset her – what is the point?
What I really want to ask her is why things can't go back to the way they used to be. I want it the way it was before my father became Lord Cutler Beckett. He was just Governor Beckett, the governor, but still a man full of heart and laughter, a man who would pick me up and twirl me around, and who would let his precious daughter run around the streets of Port Royal.
It was so long ago, I barely remember. Yet some parts I do.
When he became Lord Cutler Beckett, all of that changed. He started traveling on the ship, leaving Mother and I for months, and finally, when I got fever when I was three, abandoning us for a year. When I was four, still a frail and weak little thing, Mother gave me up to Father for my health.
Now, I sail with him and see Mother occasionally. It's been like this for years, and it hurts. Well, it's nothing new. Sailing will hurt, unless, of course, it was with Jack and the others…
No! I don't allow myself to think of that, because it just means more pain.
Mother and I part with hugs and smiles. I am led away by Father towards the ship. The closer we get to the ship, the more serious Father's face looks.
"Now," he says once we're inside the ship, "get back to your studies. Once the clock strikes eleven, you may go to sleep."
When I got to my room to retire for sleep that night, Hannah looks at me with sorrow as she picks up my shirt and pants.
"Miss, when a' you going to start wearing your pretty dresses again? You looked so nice in them, too."
"Hannah, I'll stop when you stop calling me 'miss'."
"Which is never, right, miss?"
"Precisely."
Hannah shakes her head and leaves my room.
As I lie awake, I think about what I just said. True, Hannah will never cease to call me "miss", but I lied. I'll star to wear dresses when things change. When…when Jack comes again, and Gibbs and Cotton and all the rest of the crew. And…Elizabeth. Oh, Elizabeth was just like a second mother. I want to be like her. Strong, powerful, but also kind to others.
Slipping into sleep that night, my thoughts rest on one thing: the Black Pearl, Jack, and how it was a few years ago.