A Light For My Love (14 page)

"Who are you? What do you want?" the old man
grumbled crossly.

Jake swallowed. "Pop, it's me. It's
Jake."

Ethan Chastaine squinted at him suspiciously,
looking him up and down. Finally the light of recognition dawned in
his father's faded eyes, and a hint of gladness crossed his face.
He opened the door wide. "Jacob?"

Jake nodded, unable to speak. He wasn't
prepared for the flood of emotion that washed through him. For just
that moment, he forgot the friction and animosity that had driven a
wedge between them. He only remembered that this man was his
father—his blood. Instinctively, without thinking, Jake reached for
Ethan to embrace him. But the older man pulled back stiffly,
reducing the hug to a clasping of arms.

In this dour place, men didn't show affection
either. Not for the first time, Jake felt the lack.

Ethan pushed Jake back to look at him, like a
grandfather trying to read a newspaper without his glasses. Jake
thought he saw a trace of wetness in the old man's eyes before he
turned away.

"You'd best come inside," Ethan said, his
gruffness returning as he stepped aside to let Jake in. He pulled a
big handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. "I heard
you was back. I hardly knew you."

Jake might have said the same thing. When he
left Astoria, Pop's hair had been lightly scattered with gray, and
he'd been as tall as his son. Jake followed him as he shuffled his
way back to a chair by the stove in the corner of the front room.
His father had become an old man. How could someone have changed so
drastically in so few years?

"It's good to be back, Pop. It's good to see
you."

Jake glanced around. A quick inspection
revealed a small sitting room that was drearily familiar, having
long been in want of a woman's touch. The wood walls were dingy,
the paint faded to a neutral absence of color. A stack of what must
have been a year's worth of newspapers sat in the corner by the
door. Liniment of varying brands and in a rainbow of different
bottles sat on a tray on a bureau, the way liquors were kept in
some homes. Under the bottles was a dresser scarf that Jake was
certain hadn't been moved since he left. It was one his mother had
made.

Ethan tipped his head back to look up at him.
"By God, you grew up tall. Sit down here so I can talk to you
without sprainin' my neck."

Jake dragged a low stool over and sat in
front of him. Unbuttoning his own jacket, he pushed his hands into
his pockets. "How have you been? Pug Jennings said you don't get
out on the boat too much these days."

"My joints just give up," Ethan said with
impatient disgust, gingerly putting one hand on each knee. "Some
days, it's all I can do to get out of bed."

"Did you go see Doc Tuttle?"

"Bah, what do I need with a doctor?" Ethan
groused. "They can't do no good till the time comes to declare a
body dead. Any fool can do that, and do it for free."

Jake shrugged. "He might be able to help
you."

Ethan waved off the idea. Any lingering trace
of sentimentality disappeared beneath his scornful resentment.
"Help! It would have been a sight more help if you'd been around
these last years instead of gallivantin' around the world. Your
place was here. But oh, no, you had big plans. You wanted
that—"

Jake interrupted with a sigh. "Come on, Pop.
Let's not start in already."

Ethan nodded his angry acquiescence, then
narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "I hear you came in with that
full-rigger I saw down at Monroe's yard."

Jake couldn't completely suppress his smile.
Despite the way he'd acquired the ship, pride rose in him. "She's a
rare beauty, isn't she?"

Ethan shrugged negligently. "Eh, she's not
bad. First mate isn't a bad job. It isn't the same as bein'
captain, though, is it?"

Apparently the full story hadn't reached Pop,
Jake thought, and his grin widened. "I was her mate for four
years—we sailed around the world twice. I'm her captain now."

Ethan lifted a gray brow, seemingly taken
aback. "You've done well, then, since you left."

"I can't complain much."

The older man sat back in his chair and eyed
him speculatively. "Well, still, there's lots of men your age what
are captains. The owners, now, they're the important ones. Bein'
the captain, you'll have to answer to them. They're the only ones
who make any real money."

Jake's buoyancy faded. He'd been down this
road with Pop more times than he could count. The path of this
track was carefully mapped with verbal snares and pitfalls from
which it seldom deviated.

Of course there was to be no outright joy in
telling his father about his success. Pop wouldn't permit it.

Skipping a step in his needling, Ethan
advanced to what could have been the finishing blow. "That is, they
make money if there aren't too many shareholders." His eyes gleamed
with a satisfied expression.

"I own the
Katherine Kirkland
, Pop,
anchor, mast, and wheel. I'm her only shareholder—she's all mine,"
Jake said.

Ethan stared at him from under a frown,
momentarily vanquished. He shifted in his chair, then shook a
finger at him. "Well, don't get too far ahead of yourself. You
could lose everything tomorrow. Your mama may have named you for a
rich man, but fate can be a cruel bitch, you know."

Jake's insides clenched. God, how many times
had he heard that? he wondered.
Your mama may have named you for
a rich man, but—
A thousand times, maybe a million.

It had prefaced reprimands.
—But don't
think I can't take a strap to your backside.

It had been stuck on the front end of
admonitions.
—But you're not one of the Astors, you're still a
fisherman's son.

Jake knew it was too much to hope that his
father would be glad for what he'd accomplished. Despite all the
changes, in some ways it seemed as though he had never left.
Apparently Ethan felt the same. His attitudes and gibes were frozen
in time. Jake could feel an argument brewing, and he knew if he
didn't get out of here now it was going to erupt like a storm in
the Atlantic. And after the day he'd had, he just wasn't up to a
verbal battle with Pop. He unfolded his long frame and rose from
the low stool.

"You're goin' already?" Ethan asked. "You
just got here."

Jake reached into his front pocket and pulled
out a ten-dollar gold piece. He extended the coin. "I promised I'd
be on time for dinner where I'm staying. It kind of throws things
off when I'm late." He'd already missed dinner, but it was as good
an excuse as any.

Ethan glanced at the money, then up at his
son. "And where might that be?"

Jake hesitated. If he made up something or
skirted the question, he knew his father would find out anyway.
"I'm staying at the Sullivans’s."

Ethan's scowl turned black and he pushed away
Jake's hand. "Still tryin' to rub elbows with them, huh? Well,
they're broke. All they got left is that house." A humorless cackle
escaped him. "Important Captain Brody Sullivan, gone to the bottom
a poor man, leaving his daughter to rent out rooms."

Unable to resist any longer, Jake retorted
sharply, "Yeah, fate can be a cruel bitch, can't she?" Squeezing
the gold coin till the edges dug into his palm, he turned and
crossed the small room in two angry strides, meaning to leave
without further comment beyond slamming the door behind him. A lot
of their quarrels had ended that way.

But he lost his resolve when he glanced back
over his shoulder and saw his father, shrunken and rumpled, still
sitting in that chair, watching him in silence, his hands on his
aching knees again.

"I'll stop back in a couple of days, Pop,"
Jake relented in a murmur.

Ethan nodded once.

Jake placed the ten dollars on the little
table next to him and quietly closed the door.

Out on the street, he pulled in a deep
breath, trying to dispel the smell of liniment that lingered at the
back of his throat. The sun was just about gone, its last red
streaks muted by the gathering mist. Lights glowed along the
waterfront, and from downriver he heard the distant clang of a
buoy.

Jake turned up the hill toward the house on
Eighth Street. A chill, damp wind kicked up, slicing through his
light wool jacket, and shivering, he leaned his shoulder into the
gusts. Darkened storefronts of businesses, closed for the evening,
gave way to the fenced yards of pleasant, well-tended homes, their
windows radiant with the mellow light of supper lamps.

He searched his mind for some reason that
returning to Astoria hadn't been a complete mistake. He couldn't
think of even one. He no longer fit in the world where he'd grown
up, yet the life he aspired to remained a closed door to him. In so
many ways, this town now felt as alien as a village in the Peruvian
jungles. In fact, there were seaports on the other side of the
world that were more welcoming.

Jake trudged along under black, leafless tree
branches, his head down, feeling morose, listening to the sound of
his boots hitting the planks in the walk. If he couldn't get a
decent cargo for his ship, the
Katherine
could quickly
change from the best opportunity of his life into just another
liability. He'd already advanced his crew two months' pay to wait
for her refitting. He had to earn that money back somehow. If he
couldn't do it for himself, who did he know in this town that could
help him make the connections he needed?

And he thought of her, as he often did,
whether or not he wanted to. Hair as black as onyx, dark blue eyes,
skin like cream and pink rosebuds, and soft, full curves that
begged a man's touch.

China Sullivan, with a dignity she maintained
even when pushing a carpet sweeper and a haughty pride that was as
touchy as a blind rattlesnake.

Her life was infinitely better than Belinda
McGowen's. Yet within her own world, her situation was nearly as
dire. For just an instant, he pictured China penniless and
exhausted, with a sick, colicky baby in her arms and dark circles
beneath her eyes, and it shook him to his bones.

She may have lost her wealth, but she was
still better connected than he was. She could probably arrange
introductions to the men he wanted to do business with. If she'd do
it. If he could swallow his own pride to ask her. But why should
she? he scoffed to himself. For old times' sake? Not likely. He'd
have to offer something in return, something so tempting it would
be difficult for her to refuse him. Money.

Deep in thought, he didn't realize he'd
reached Eighth Street until the big Sullivan house loomed directly
ahead of him. Its windows glowed softly like those of its
neighbors, but a single light shining from the hall window on the
second floor reached out to him. He stopped in his tracks to look
up at it, and a shaky sigh rose from deep within him. He'd been so
preoccupied with other things since he arrived, he hadn't noticed
that light glowing in the window.

For all men gone to
sea . . . 

He was well acquainted with China's tradition
of the lamp. He homed in on that light as though he were bringing
in a ship on a storm-ravaged night. Here, at last, was one good
thing that hadn't changed.

Jake crossed the street to go get his dinner
from the oven, a faint smile on his face and the germ of an idea in
his mind.

*~*~*

China sat with one foot tucked under her on
the sofa in the back parlor. Susan sat next to her, and China, her
own mending forgotten in her lap, watched in fascination as the
woman attached a cluster of tiny cream satin roses to the jade
green hat she was making. One of the ladies in Aunt Gert's musicale
group had ordered it. With a froth of cream tulle and a wide ribbon
of jade grosgrain, it would be a lovely, feminine confection.
Susan's needle flashed in and out, making stitches so tiny, even
under full lamplight, they disappeared as soon as she pulled her
thread taut.

China stood to sweep a hot cinder from the
tiled hearth back into the fireplace with the hearth broom. "Susan,
you've got such a talent for this, I'll bet if you talked to some
of the dressmakers in town, they'd send their customers to you to
make their hats. You could earn some real money. Who knows, you
might even be able to open your own shop someday."

China was grimly amused by her own remark.
Having handled the family's finances since her early teens, she'd
never been a spendthrift, but she'd never had to worry about money
or how it was made. It had simply always been there. Now she
thought about it every day, although she hoped that experiences
like the one in Mr. Herrmann's shop wouldn't happen on a daily
basis. She replaced the broom and, tightening her shawl, sat beside
Susan again.

"Oh, it would cost a lot to open a shop,"
Susan replied in her small voice. She leaned closer to the lamp on
the table next to her to snip a thread with a pair of tiny gold
scissors that hung from a chain around her neck. "And I don't
suppose Edwin would approve of that anyway. Women in business, you
know."

China looked from the hat to Susan's pale,
plain face, pointed down at her work. Was she making another of
those odd references to her husband? China wondered. She
sympathized with Susan's loneliness and loss, but the woman's hours
of near silence and her long walks worried China.

"Would he have minded your success?" China
questioned subtly, trying to determine if Susan spoke of Edwin in
the past or Edwin in the present.

"No, not success, but leaving the protection
of home to achieve it. That he won't like." Susan's silver thimble
gleamed like a shiny dime as she turned the hat.

It was a troubling answer, and China glanced
at Aunt Gert, who sat at a small marble-topped table, to see if
she'd noticed Susan's response. But Gert, her box of calling cards
before her, wasn't listening. Her white head bent, she muttered to
no one in particular, while from the stack of many dozens she
withdrew a gaudily ornate card, overburdened with scrolls, flowers,
hearts, cherubs, and birds.