We're in the wind down now, as you can probably tell. Thank you to all those who left unsigned reviews. The system doesn't allow me to answer you individually, but I really appreciate your feedback and kind support.

BOSTON

Return to Ithaca

(Part 4)

"Walking the harbor all right with you?"

"Oh, I think you should choose - should have a say in something. Told you she'd push you around - don't let that meek little face fool you."

"I wanted some air. It was my own choice."

"Ha. Tell me you wouldn't rather be sitting with your son right now. Then make me believe it."

Ben buttoned up his coat. Spring breeze had a sharpness to it. "I wanted a little time to think. Do that better on my feet."

Abel looked at him more carefully. "I see. Anything you'd like to talk about?"

Ben shrugged moodily, starting in the direction of the harbor. The wind grew stronger as they approached, and he turned up his collar. "I wanted to thank you."

Abel's brows lifted. "For…?"

"For a lot of things. For having him here, for one. It means a lot to him."

"Oh, and that was a terrible sacrifice on my part - can hardly bear having him about."

"Well, I know it's not always easy."

Abel shoved his hands deep into his pea coat pockets. "Was never partial to easy. Sort of stirred me up. Gave me somebody to fight with."

"Somebody besides Mrs. Longworth, you mean."

Abel snorted. "Somebody I can fight with and hope to win occasionally, then."

Ben laughed. It eased the pressure in his chest some. The harbor was straight ahead and the breeze from off the sea felt refreshing. Bracing. He pulled the salt air deeply into his lungs, looking. The sun glinted off the water and a few ships bobbed on the surface, anchored offshore. No matter where he went, there would never be another ocean quite like it for him. "And thank you for…looking out for him. Especially these last weeks. Both the doctor and Mrs. Longworth told me how you stuck with him - not that they needed to - I knew you would, inside. Even if it sometimes sounded like I didn't in my telegrams, I always knew it. Counted on it. It made things easier for me, knowing I could rely on you."

Now it was Abel's turn to be silent. He squinted against the sun, idly tracking a seagull's flight. "Well, I'm glad," he said slowly. "After last time I was determined to learn my lesson and do it right."

Ben had been looking out at the water, but he glanced at Abel at that. "Last time. What do you mean?"

Abel lost interest in the gull, found something to study along the harbor at his feet instead. "Last time. Elizabeth. You can't tell me you've forgotten that."

Ben smiled sadly. "I like to think I haven't forgotten anything about Elizabeth. But you'll have to be more specific."

Abel blew out his breath. "When she was so sick - you remember. I left her to make that unholy deal with Mandible about my own ship. And then you had to leave her to come help me - try to fix the mess I'd made and save the Chandler's shop. If I'd just kept to my post then maybe you would have been there all that time instead of having to have someone come and fetch you. You might have had a little more time together that last day - instead…" he let it trail off, frowning hard at the street passing by under his feet.

"Oh." Ben was quiet a moment, trying to recall the sequence of events more clearly in his head. It wasn't a day he liked to think about - had spent a lot of time avoiding thinking about it, actually, so it took him a few minutes. "I don't remember her as actually sick before the delivery - was having a difficult pregnancy and was confined to bed, of course, but Mrs. Callahan was looking after her. I was on my way to work, wasn't I?"

Abel shrugged.

"I was - I remember because I was just leaving when Otto came to tell us about Mandible. Went to the shop…"

"Had that knock down, drag out with Mandible's hired muscle, I remember - you were impressive that day, by the way, if I never told you."

"Thank you. You were insufferable that day, by the way, if I remember right."

"Yes. Well. I'm consistent in some things, I suppose. You were pretty insufferable yourself at the time as I recall - young upstart."

"Humph. I was trying to be downright obsequious - to both my old boss and new business partner and my wife's father. You didn't make it easy." He smiled at the cobblestones. "But with the perspective of age I can see that I might have seemed just a little…insufferable."

"You were always right. It's a very annoying quality in a person, you know."

"Hm. Try telling Adam - I'm sure he won't agree. I do, of course."

"Hmph."

They walked along in companionable silence. Ben studied the horizon where it curved to meet the sky. "I would have been at the Chandlery anyway - even without the incident with Mandible. Someone would have had to come and fetch me. And they wouldn't have let me sit with her while she was in labor. It would have all come out the same."

Abel didn't answer.

"I appreciate what you did though. Sitting with him. It's what I would have done if I'd been here."

Abel nodded silent thanks. "So what is it that's been preying on your mind that requires a walk? For all his fence sitting I do think that old sawbones knows what he's talking about - boy's turned the corner. And with a dragon like Mrs. Longworth guarding the gate, he'll have no choice now but to make a full recovery."

Ben gave a ghost of a smile. "He behaving himself?"

"He was. Think I've finally cured him of that, though."

Ben's brows lowered.

"Oh, don't growl - do you really think anyone could make him do anything but what he'd made up his own mind to do? Needed a little lightening up, however. Was too damnably polite."

"Oh, heaven forbid."

"And too serious."

Ben was silent at that, then ventured, "He was probably nervous at finally meeting you."

"Still torn up about his stepmother, too."

Ben nodded briefly. "I suppose we all are."

"Won't talk about it. I've tried."

Ben sighed. "No, well. That doesn't surprise me." He squinted out over the ocean. "After five years I think we both felt some…false sense of security. As though enough time had passed that it wouldn't happen again. Childish, I know, but your mind plays games with itself."

"Lulled you."

"Hm? Oh," Ben nodded. "Yes. I suppose. And then it did happen and…well. This time it must have seemed to him that he'd lost both of us." He caught Abel's questioning look and tilted his head at him. "I - wasn't myself for a while. He didn't tell you?"

Abel shook his head.

Ben gave a short, unhappy laugh. "No. I don't suppose he would." He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. "He had a lot on his hands for a while. His own feelings are most likely just starting to catch up with him. Good for him, probably, being here."

"Then he should have come sooner."

Ben breathed a laugh. "He almost did - did I ever tell you? I almost sent him to you years and years ago."

Abel actually halted in surprise, then picked up his pace again. "When was this?"

"When he was small - two years old. After we lost Mrs. Callahan as a nurse and I got a real taste of what caring for a two year old was like."

"Oh, and you thought I'd be better equipped to deal with that, hey?"

This time Ben laughed out loud. "Well, I thought you'd have a better chance of finding a decent nurse here at least - one with training and credentials. You wouldn't believe some of the so-called nurses I tried out: one was a drunkard, unconscious more often than conscious, another one apparently held a high stakes card game in my rooms every afternoon while I was working. Another one had an astonishing parade of brothers and male cousins in and out all day until I finally figured out - well, I don't think you really want to know. Let's just say it made me really appreciate the likes of Mrs. Callahan and Shaughnessy and Hop Sing." He jerked his head to indicate one of the wharves stretching out into the water. "Feel like sitting for a minute?"

"I hope you're not insinuating that I'm too old to continue a simple walk. I get enough of that sort of thing from your cheeky progeny."

"To be honest, I just wanted a better look at the ocean."

"Hmph."

They strolled to the end of the wharf and sat on a couple of pilings, looking out over the broad expanse of sea.

"This hasn't changed," Ben remarked after a minute.

"No, she's steady as she goes. Or she's predictable in her changes anyway, once you get to know her. Miss the sea?"

Ben considered, then shook his head. "No. Not really. I love her, but don't miss her. You?"

"No. Like being near her, but lost the need to be on her. Getting old, I suppose. And don't you DARE tell him I said so!"

Ben crinkled his eyes in amusement, enjoying the wind off the water whipping through his hair. "So, you must have solved your nursing problem - didn't send him on after all."

"Not really. Worked jobs where I could keep him with me. When he was about four or so I got a little more comfortable about leaving him at boarding houses for the day if the proprietors were kind - at least then he was old enough to tell me if anything was wrong."

"So it all worked out in the end."

"I suppose." Ben folded his arms over his chest and tucked his hands under them for warmth. Much as he enjoyed it, the ocean breeze was stiff. "It wasn't just the nurses, though - I thought if I turned him over to you for a while - at least while I took care of building us a home - his life would be more - stable. Never knew what we'd be getting into when we traveled - never knew where the next meal was coming from, where we'd be sleeping - I got to thinking that a child should really have a home. Should have…" he sighed. "There was little enough sometimes just to cover the daily necessities, there was rarely anything left over for more. Extras." He felt himself redden, stared out at the water. "You know. Toys."

Abel didn't comment, so after a minute he continued, "I've been trying to remember what toys he had back then. The blocks you sent, of course - he was very attached to those. Slate and chalk - that was usually cheap. Sometimes a book, when I could, or when you sent one. I think I remember whittling a wooden horse for him once, and he put together some things for himself sometimes from odds and ends - I remember a small company of grass and straw and string soldiers…if it bothered him, he never said. But it would have been nice…anyway. I was just thinking."

Abel remained silent.

Ben caught sight of a small skiff rowing out to one of the ships and followed its progress. "I had a lot of time to think on the way out here. Thought about things I hadn't in years. That's the one problem with travel - too much time to think. Too many memories. To tell the truth, I had almost forgotten myself that I had planned to send him to you. Had written you a note and packed him up and everything." Ben could sense Abel's eyes on him, but kept his own glued to the skiff on the water.

"What changed your mind?"

Ben's smile was troubled. "Circumstances…intervened. And then I - I lost my courage. Couldn't bring myself to part with him. I don't know. I'll go to my grave wondering whether or not it was the right thing, I suppose."

"Hm."

Ben could tell that Abel's eyes turned away from him, transferred themselves to the skiff pulling its way slowly through the light waves.

"I'll tell you something interesting," Abel continued nonchalantly, pulling his pipe from his pocket. "All the time he was so sick - out of his head for most of it, too, unable to censor himself or be sensible - through all that thrashing about and mumbling he only ever called out for one thing, the whole time. Just one - always the same." He looked at Ben now. "Any idea what it was?" Ben was quiet for so long that he finally prodded, "Benjamin?"

"I'm trying to decide," Ben drawled ruefully at last, "if it would be a book or his horse."

Abel chuckled deep in his throat, holding a tinder to his pipe and then drawing on it. "You," he corrected with mock severity. "Just you. Seems to me that if that's all a boy wants when he's in deepest trouble and is too weak to stop his heart from speaking out then you can't have gone too far wrong. Seems to me that you must have done something pretty right."

They sat in silence, Abel smoking his pipe and Ben deep in thought, watching mindlessly as the skiff reached the ship and made preparations to board.

At last Ben unfolded his arms and stood, looking at Abel now, thinking. Finally, he held out a hand to help him to his feet.

"Let's head back," he said softly.

TBC