BOSTON

(Part 1)

"When is the last time you went outside?"

He didn't answer - had stopped answering such pointless questions days ago. The close air of the room became fragrant with the scents of tea and soap and pungent medicine, and then rain as he heard the window casements creak open. The moist breeze brought him to life.

"Shut that!" he said sharply. "Last thing he needs is a chill!"

"Ah, so you haven't gone deaf then. " The tone was dry, but he felt the breeze diminish some. "Miracle, seeing the way you sit alone in here, day in and day out."

"I'm not alone." His voice was low, but held the warning note of a suppressed roar. "Not yet. Close that window, or you'll kill him sure."

"A little fresh air will be good for you both." But the tone was milder this time. "And you didn't answer my question."

The wall sconces suddenly sprang to life and he blinked, cupping his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness. "You want answers then ask sensible questions."

"It was a perfectly good question. When is the last you went outside?"

He shifted positions, squinting his eyes to help them adjust. "Why?" he snapped sourly. "Something special going on out there?"

"Why not go out and find out?"

He pushed the rocker into truculent motion. "No," he said after a moment. "I'll stay." He ignored the gusty sigh that accompanied his pronouncement.

"Then at least come over here and have some tea while I clean him up. Allow the poor boy a little privacy."

He gave a snort of laughter. "You call a perfectly strange woman bathing him privacy? Just as well he's unconscious."

"I am not in the least strange and think of myself as a nurse. Heaven knows I've enough experience. Get out of my way now and feed yourself - I've enough to do."

Abel pushed himself from the rocker with reluctant stiffness and moved toward the small table by the window where she had laid out tea, pausing just short of it to hover anxiously around the foot of the bed.

"I said eat."

He made a face. "Bossy creature."

"If you had any sense I wouldn't have to bother."

He poked distractedly at a piece of toast. "Don't know why you have to keep shaving him anyway. Not like he's going anywhere."

"Because hair can steal the strength needed to fight the fever."

He watched her movements, smooth and rhythmic, for a while, and then sank slowly into a small chair facing the table. "Wives' tale," he muttered.

She didn't bother to glance up. "Maybe. But why take the chance?" She reached for a soft towel. "Besides, I'm sure it's more comfortable."

Abel's hand went unconsciously to his own beard and he glared. "Lot you know about it." He cut the top off of the egg sitting in the eggcup without really seeing it, dabbing at it with a bit of toast. He rumbled in his throat, glancing up again to where she was stirring a mug of shaving soap. "Spose I - " he broke the toast in two and abandoned it on his plate. "Spose I - should be thanking you."

She looked up at him in surprise, but his eyes skidded away. "I don't see why," she said easily. "It's my job."

He snorted. "It's not and you know it. A little cooking and cleaning and marketing - that's your job. Not - " he turned away and stared hard at the window.

'Well, then, I guess it must be my pleasure." He snorted in response. "It's true. You're not the only one to enjoy having a young face about for a change, you know." She paused, her eyes intent on spreading the shaving soap evenly. "And you're not the only one to ever lose someone."

"No," the voice was barely above a whisper. "No, I'm not. I'm sorry, Alice."

She glanced up from her work and looked at him in surprise.

He caught the look and raised his brows in return.

She smiled in response. "Usually you call me Mrs. Longworth," she explained. "That's the first time you've ever used my first name."

He grimaced. "Then I'm sorry for that, too. Next I'll be getting as cheeky as that one - " he broke off abruptly, turning hastily away from the figure on the bed and pressing a hand over his eyes.

Her eyes flashed with compassion, but her tone remained even. "Like grandfather like grandson, I suppose."

"No - " he shook his head fiercely, "No. He's not. Like his father, surely, and like his mother in almost more ways than I can bear to - but not like me. Never. I know what I am."

He made a crumbling mess of the toast in front of him, staring out at the grey dreariness. Typical New England springtime. There were things he should attend to…business things…but he had lost interest in them somehow. Adam would be irritated with him. He liked things done right, and on time. He smiled faintly. That must come from Benjamin, that rigorous, efficient streak. He could remember it, almost, if he thought about it - remember Benjamin's meticulous attention to schedule and detail on shipboard, but he had surrendered that memory until he had actually seen Adam at work in the Chandlers Shop - that had brought it all back. Not that he had approved of him working there in the first place.

It had happened more or less by accident - a brief stop on one of their weekend strolls. Abel had wanted to check on some things since one of his men had just retired and another was down with influenza. It was Adam who had suggested that he could assist on the weekends, Abel had waved the idea aside.

"As if you don't work hard enough. Why don't you spend a little more time in play with your friends? Row the lake, go on a picnic - find a pretty girl to write bad poems to…"

"I can do both. This the place?"

Abel nodded a casual assent, but in truth he was touched by the look on the boy's face - a softening, as if he were approaching a long anticipated shrine. Romantic soul. That must come from his father - certainly not from a hardened old barnacle like himself. "This is it, if you care to step inside. Hasn't changed that much since your parents started the place - still running, still solid - despite your father and all his new fangled notions."

Adam had taken a step towards the door, but stopped abruptly. "What was that?"

"Your father and all his new fangled ideas. New navigational equipment and the like. Like there was something wrong with the old way. Though I'll admit a few of those ideas didn't turn out so ill."

"New ideas." Adam cocked his head at him. "Pa? "

"Oh, aye - was always wanting to try new this and new that and the very latest - now what is it you're gaping at, boy? You have the look of a beached carp!"

Adam shook his head slightly as if to rouse himself. "Nothing, I just - Pa. I can't imagine. He's so old fashioned. Why, every time I mention trying something new he practically blows his top."

Abel's brows jumped. "Does he now?"

"He's so stubborn about it. It's hard to believe…"

"Hmph." Abel reached for his pipe and tobacco and started to work on filling the bowl. "Is he now." He tamped down the tobacco, making sure it was even. "You keep at him though, I trust?"

"Of course."

He flipped open his tinderbox and eyed Adam over it. "No matter what he says."

Adam nodded. "Not much luck, though."

Abel struck a light, hovering it over the pipe bowl. "Drives him mad, does it?"

Adam grinned a little. "I think so."

"Good." Abel lit the pipe and drew deeply on it. "Then there's justice."

He pushed at the door to the shop and went inside. Adam followed close at his heels, his face awash in that intent expression that Abel enjoyed so much. "You poke around if you like. I need to check on a few things." He squinted at the interior with critical eyes. "Needs a bit of cleaning up, I suppose."

"A bit." Adam picked up a stack of papers from the nearest desk and automatically started organizing them. "Look at this place."

Abel chewed on his pipe stem and waved vaguely at him. "Now, now - let's have none of your tidy, fussy ways - I'll just take a quick peek at the books and then we're gone. No point in spending a fine Saturday afternoon in the Shop."

"It's an overcast afternoon, and we might just as well take a few minutes to get things in order. Won't take long. How do you find anything?"

"I can find everything just fine," answered Abel sternly. "It's just - just a might - casual. I like it that way."

Adam snorted inelegantly in response.

"Well, I'll tell you this," rejoined Abel indignantly, "you didn't get those persnickety habits of yours from my side of the family."

"Yes, I can see that," agreed Adam dryly, trying to sort through a scattered jumble of inventory. "What is all this?"

"That's - why that's - some things that need labeling, I suppose. Leave it, lad - you've better things to do."

"We might as well fix it, since we're here. Want me to take a look at the books? I do them for Pa a lot of times."

"What I want is for you not to work for a few bloody minutes on what should be your free afternoon!"

Adam laughed. "You call this work? This is nothing. Why, when Marie died - "

He stopped so abruptly that Abel looked at him in surprise. Why, the lad's face had actually gone white. What on earth…?

"Marie," he nudged gently after a tense, suspended pause. "That would be your last stepmother?"

Adam nodded jerkily, avoiding his eyes and paying meticulous attention to the stacks of boxes he was straightening, his face now colored with a hectic flush.

Abel beetled his brows. And now he actually looked mortified. "Something you'd like to tell me about…?" he suggested gently.

Adam ducked his head. "There's nothing to - there was just a lot of - work. After she died. With Hoss and Joe and…everything…"

"Yes. Of course. There would be." Abel waited patiently. He would bet his life there was more, but he knew better than to push. After a minute he knew there would be nothing more forthcoming and he removed his pipe from his mouth, choosing his words with care. "Well. Perhaps some time you'll tell me all about it. Wouldn't hurt if you took a glance at the books, I suppose - they're just a jumble of numbers to me. They're on that desk back there - " He indicated with a jerk of his head and Adam made a grateful escape to the rear of the store. Abel returned his pipe to his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully.

"Find 'em, lad?" he asked after listening to the shuffling and banging of ledgers and giving him a decent time to regain himself.

"Yeah. All of them." Adam's voice floated up to him, sounding normal again and tinged with irony. "How did you ever manage on a ship is what I'd like to know. Don't you ever throw anything away?"

Abel blustered. "Why throw away perfectly good things that you might just as well need later? Can't believe your father raised such a wasteful boy."

"Well, in ranching we learn that sometimes you have to clear away the old and the dead to make room for the new. Do you have any idea how far some of these go back?"

"It's useful, I find, to have a history of the business. And you need to learn a little respect for your elders, young man."

"Well, the first thing we're going to do is create some kind of an archive system for you. That way you can keep all your history but it doesn't have to be cluttering up everything underfoot. Look at this one. I'll bet this is the first…"

Abel waited. The silence stretched between them.

"Adam?" he offered after a moment. Still no answer, and he strode to the back of the store this time. "I hope you're not throwing anything out back here! I'll have you know that I'm still - " He stopped, puzzled and a little concerned.

Adam sat with the ledgers surrounding him, one open in his hands, on his face an expression Abel couldn't begin to fathom. He maneuvered to get a peek at the ledger and felt his own face melt with sudden understanding.

"Ah." He smiled fondly. "She wrote a fine hand, didn't she?"

Adam didn't answer and Abel mentally shook himself. Stupid thing to say to a boy about the mother he didn't know - that she had nice penmanship, as if that was all there was to her. "Of course, I'm afraid she wasn't always tidy either - look at the way she used to scribble in the margins - the marketing list…ah. Look. That one there - that must have been things she needed to prepare for you. She worked here almost until you were born, you know. Your father didn't approve, but your mother had a mind of her own, make no mistake." His eyes scanned the page, his heart warming within him.

"I suppose you're right - " he continued slowly after a moment, "About hanging on to everything. Time I cleared out a bit. Don't suppose you'd like to take that off my hands?"

Adam swallowed.

"Just taking up space around here I can ill afford. Be doing me a favor, really."

"But - " Adam hesitated longingly. "It's - yours, and - "

"And now it's yours. Nasty old dust catcher really."

He dropped a hand briefly on his shoulder. "Take it, lad. It's a little link with your parents' life together. I think it belongs to you."

TBC