The Silent Sailor

Tight Lipped Rebel

        I lived the life of a sailor, aboard a beautiful ship with a loving family. I should be happy. I should be content and love everyone and everything around me. However, something I learned from the years on sea, life isn't always as it should be. Just like my six older sisters shouldn't be able to flounce around and do as they please all day while I was given a babysitter as I went about my business. Daddy always went on and on about how 'I was his youngest daughter' and 'you're the last thing I have left of your mother' like I was some kind of child!

        Daddy was the captain of a huge cruise ship. An amazing vessel that I grew up on. I had so many memories of my mother and me playing hide and go seek on the off seasons when the passengers where scarcely seen. We were close and she always told me how much I was like she was. It was a fact that I hold highest in my list of achievements. Mom had no fault; she was beautiful and adventurous and curious. Daddy says that's why I still - after six years haven't recovered from her death.

        It was an unexpected death and a moment I still resented Daddy for. We had docked over night in the Bahamas, - a place my sisters loved (probably because they could get all the booze they wanted), but Mom and I hated -  nearly all the passengers got off to explore. Mom and I stayed on deck though, to man the boat. We tried to get Daddy to stay with us, but he refused, claiming he needed a drink. So we stayed up and played games, danced, sang, and Mom even let me stay up late. I told her it was the happiest day of my life when she did. I finally fell asleep around midnight.

        I didn't sleep long, though. I woke up to screams and Mom's small body covering my own. I remember looking up and wondering why Mom would wake me, but seeing the tears in her eyes and then wondering why she was crying. I thought she was trying to ruin my best day ever. Then I heard them.

Pirates.

        They weren't unheard of nowadays, but they were rare enough that going out into the seas hardly frightened anyone. Mom did as any good mother would have done. She hid me. I was eleven at the time and we knew enough about pirates to know that if they were sick enough, they wouldn't be below taking advantage of a little girl. They came into the Captain's Quarters, where Mom and I were, of course, and demanded money. Mom gave them everything without any hesitation. I still remember her voice trying to negotiate. 'You're welcome to anything you see, just, please, don't hurt me.' I knew now that she only said that so they'd leave and I wouldn't have to watch her be hurt, or worse, killed. One man told her he knew exactly what he wanted and I knew by the sound that it wasn't anything he could just reach out and take. He wanted her. She begged and pleaded, but they didn't relent. I watched my mother get dragged away.

There was a gunshot a few minutes later. And my mom was dead.

        I was quiet since then. I rarely talked, only when completely necessary, but I was rebellious. A tight lipped rebel, I imagine Mom would call me. Part of me wished Dad would burn in Hell for letting Mom be killed, but another part of me just wanted to escape the memories forever. So I became the 'failure' of the family. Everyone has a kid that falls lesser to the rest. A kid that there's no hope for. That was me. Is me.

        I was reminded of that as I sat in the Captain's Quarters, yet again, listening to Daddy rant and rave. It happened often. Today for better reason that usual. The ship was due to leave port at 8:00 tonight. I arrived at 8:12, it wasn't exactly an accident. Daddy set my sisters and me free this morning to get off the ship as long as we returned no later than 7:15. I resigned as soon as I got off the boat that I wanted to piss Daddy off today. We were in the Bahamas. The place I hated most in the world. I went on land anyway and ventured to the closest - and most sanitary- tattoo shop I could find. It was around 4:00 when someone could finally assist me, apparently this is where all the underage kids go.

        My cute little seahorse tattoo was decided on and confirmed and the man assured me it'd only take thirty minutes, but it turns out my wrist was very sensitive and that thirty minutes turned into an hour. Twenty minutes later he'd given me all the instructions to properly caring for my small seahorse and sent me on my merry way. But it was only 5:30, so I went out for dinner, making sure to be out by 6:00, so I'd have plenty of time to board the prison. I passed by the place my tattoo was done and stopped for a split second thinking about what else I could possibly do to ruin Daddy's day.

        At 7:45 I walked out of the extremely busy shop with a freshly burning nose piercing. A little star sat on my left nostril and I knew if the tattoo wasn't enough, this would be. When I finally strode back onto the boat all I heard was my sisters giggling like little...ugh.

        "What would your mother say?!" He finished with a roar, his angry eyes shooting toward my wrist and nose.

        "She'd be disgusted." I snapped, leaving out that it wouldn't be me she'd be disgusted in, but him for letting - forcing- me to live this way.

        "Then why do you keep doing this, Lynnette?! I just don't understand why you have to constantly defy me!" I didn't answer; there was nothing for me to say. If he'd let me be who I wanted to be and take into consideration what I wanted then I wouldn't act how I did.

I stopped talking when he stopped listening.

        "Just go to your room." He muttered in defeat. I stood silently, making my way to my space. Once there I donned my night clothes and brushed my thick red hair into a ponytail. There was nothing else to do with it.

        "Lynnette? Can I come in, Linnie?" My sister, Lucy, called. We were closest in age, she and her twin, Lacy, were only a year older than me. I am closer with her than any of my other sisters. Laurais 24 and a total drunk, Linda and Lindsey are 21 and ditzy, Lana is 19 and keeps to herself, Lacy and Lucy are also 19, but they aren't twins, just ten months apart, and I'm 17. It is quite a family.

         "Yes." I mumbled, sitting down on my bed with Mom's scrapbook. I missed her on days like these more than ever. She would've approved of it, hell, she probably would've gotten a tattoo with me. Lucy came in and sat on my bed, facing me. "We all heard Dad yelling. What'd you do this time?" I wordlessly looked up and presented to her my wrist.

        "Do you want him to kill you?" She laughed, examining my tattoo. "It's very pretty. You got it for Mom." She wasn't asking because she knew it was true. They were Mom's favorite sea creature and I had all her little trinkets to prove it. Daddy didn't ask for me to unwrap the bandage around my wrist to see it, so he didn't even know. He wouldn't've cared.

        "Linnie, you have got to stop pushing him so much. He was worried about you when you didn't return and you left your cell phone, again, so no one could get in touch with you. One day he's going to die, just like Mom. Please, fix what's left of your relationship before it's too late." I loved Lucy and she was my favorite sister, without a doubt, but her compassion killed me. The one piece of Mom I didn't have. Lucy reminded me of a counselor, but I don't need fixing, I needed to go somewhere other than this boat. She knew that.

        "I will when he lets me live." I said, hoping that explanation was simple enough. Lucy nodded and I twisted the book to show her my favorite picture of Mom. It was at our Dance of the Decades hosted by Mom and me, the first event she allowed me to help in. We were both flappers and in the picture she was dancing with me. We werecaught mid swirl and she had the prettiest smile on her face, both of our red hair flying in the spin. I looked just like her in the photo. It was two months before she died.

        "She wouldn't care if you were like this now, Lynnette. She'd still love you." I snatched the book away, sneering at Lucy. Mom would love all of us, no matter what. I knew that. She was preaching to the choir as she and the rest of them always did. "I'm going to bed." I snarled, placing her scrapbook back in its rightful place and ripping my covers back. I heard Lucy's resigned sigh and the opening and closing of my door. I cuddled into my bed and let a tear slip down my cheek.

        "I love you, Mom." I murmured, before the sobs took way once more and I drifted into yet another fitful night's sleep.