Free Twice Loved (copy2) by Lavyrle Spencer

water droplets. The fog swirled about his knees and obscured the distant view of the shore. But from out of the lost beyond came the incessant throb of incoming waves while in the foreground the Brant Point Shipyard was vignetted by a frame of fog. There, below, the  Omega  was already undergoing a complete overhaul. Like a beached whale, she’d been hoisted onto the skeletal “ways” and careened—turned on her side for cleaning. Workers scurried over her like ants, scraping every inch of her hull, recaulk-ing seams, holystoning, or scrubbing, and revarnishing decks. Already six new cedar whaleboats were being constructed for her davits, while in town, at the ropewalk, new hemp was being woven for standing rigging and manila for running rigging from which the ship’s rigger waited to splice the intricate network of shrouds, sheets, and stays for the upcoming voyage. And in a sailmaker’s loft above a chandlery on Water Street, needles and fids were flying as new sails were being stitched.
    But on an embankment above Brant Point Shipyard, a lonely man stood beside his dog, forlornly contemplating the implacable cycle that never ceased in this whaling empire.  Whaling!  He clenched his fists.
    Damn you, you merciless bitch! I have lost my wife to you!
    He studied the  Omega  below, painfully considering whether it would be preferable to sign on another voyage rather than stay here to see Laura remain married to Dan.
    But then, with a determined grimace, he turned back the way he had come, stalking the ocean path while seagulls squawked and hammers echoed through the shrouds of mists behind him.
    Dan is at his desk in the countinghouse, and she is home alone.
    The long stride grew longer, and the dog at his heels broke into a trot.
     
     
     
    ***
    Laura Morgan had been expecting the knock, but when it came she started and pressed a hand to her heart.
    Go away, Rye! I’m afraid of what you do to me!
    The knock sounded again, and Laura caught her trembling lower lip between her teeth. Resolutely, she moved toward the door, but when it was opened, only stared transfixed at Rye, who stood outside with his weight slung on one hip, his hands tucked inside the stomach flap of his britches. A myriad of impressions danced across her mind, all too quick to grasp—he stands differently; he’s wearing the sweater I made; his hair needs trimming;  he’s  spent a sleepless night, too.
    “Hello, Laura.”
    He didn’t smile, but stood at ease, waiting patiently on the stoop. And it happened, as it had happened since she was fourteen—that total surge of gladness at the sight of him. But now caution tempered it.
    “Hello, Rye.” Resolutely, she held the edge of the door.
    “I had t’ come.”
    Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she noted the abbreviated speech he’d picked up on the high seas, realizing it added to his magnetism: a thing she needed to explore, for it made him somewhat a stranger. Her fingers clenched upon the door, but her eyes remained steadily on his.
    “I was afraid you might.”
    At the word  afraid  his eyebrows puckered, and his lips seemed to thin. She noted again the pockmark on the top one and steeled herself against the urge to touch it with her fingertip.
    He studied her as if she were a rare diamond and he a gem-cutter.
    She stared at him as if expecting him to rattle some ghostly chain. The Nantucket mists formed an appropriate background, as if they had levitated Rye Dalton and borne him to her, then hung back to watch what she’d do.
    “Can I come in?”
    How preposterous the question. This was his house! Outside it was damp and cold, and behind her a fire burned. Yet while he tucked his hands against his stomach for warmth, she hesitated like a gatekeeper.
    She glanced nervously down the scallop shell-path, then dropped her hand from the door. “For just a minute.”
    As he stepped forward, the dog instinctively moved with him.
    “Stay.”
    At the word, Laura noticed Ship for