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That particular winter had been a very mild one so Father decided to take advantage of it. He wanted to celebrate the New Year with our family up north. My oldest brother Lucas was going to live with my Uncle Simon in New York to go to a university there. While we all enjoyed our life, my father wanted more for his children than he had. Pirating was not a life for the faint of heart even though my brothers would have loved to follow in his steps. We were on our way home to resume our school lessons when it happened. The sky began to darken around luncheon and within an hour the sun was blocked out. My mother and other brother were worried but I was still too young to understand. The wind and rain began to beat against the cabin just as The Sea Dragon, my father's ship, came into the warmer water of the Caribbean. We were tossed about like a ball in a child's hand. The ship jerked as if it were being pulled apart by two mighty paws. The storm lasted all night and the next day. The clouds lifted enough for us to the bright red sunset turn the water the color of blood. It seemed appropriate somehow. When we reached our private harbor the devastation was total. Not a building stood; not a man, woman, child, or animal lived; not a tree was unbroken. Of all the people who'd lived on this island since my father had colonized it as his pirate base we and the others on the ship were left forlorn. That's what turned my brother Tristan away from the sea. A little under a decade later, he and Lucas started a now prosperous import-export business, where he handles all the legal matters. As for myself I see that long ago storm as a turning point in my life. I am the one who followed in Father's footsteps. For a long time after that day I could not sleep unless I saw my father's ruthless face with that roguish patch over his eye. That's what made him take me along in the summer and what lead to this career of mine, but now as I sit in jail awaiting my trial I can't help but wish the island we'd called home had been Long Island. |
