MeeAugraphie

Married to a Crabber

One barge. One ship. One distress flare sent out in harsh conditions, yet it was just an ordinary occurrence on the Pacific Ocean.

Sore men spent days, their shoulders to the wind, their mind on their job as the hearts of their families at home bore the brunt of the emotion. Some, at home, dealt with their feelings by cleaning yet another floor or watching another soap opera character repeat their words for the fourth time. The children found things to hoard, whether it be candy or another hug from Mommy since Daddy wasn’t home. Although barbecues were lit, it was rare any celebratory gesture would be made, like lighting a torch and sitting outside on a cool night.

Instead a woman might carve a world of imagination and folklore and the brown bear’s lair for the children to live in while he was at sea. Some may show scorn at her strange ways of coping, she noticed, but that never tore at her heart. It was the fare to be paid by him she worried about.

She dreamed not of ocean’s waves pulling him to sea, she dare not breathe into her psyche that thought. Rather she breathed of deep gorges gouged into mountains, the lord of the land above them all, daring them to climb out. This beast stood above them all, ready to snare them as he had snared a unicorn and banned it to books and dreams.

It was her youngest son who woke her, shouting with the flair of a precocious child, (he was). He leaped onto her stomach gently, though, as lightweight as a hare to beg for hugs and kisses.

The gorge left her thoughts, just as it did the special mornings that fate was marvelous enough to send her child to distract her — before her hand unconsciously reached for the comfort that was not yet home. Those few times that instinct allowed her heart to soar, rather than warn of dangers lurking on the Pacific.