Shadow of a Life

by Tifani Clark

  *****

  Much to Sophia’s relief, it turned out that her father wasn’t intending to build a ship from the ground up. He had somehow managed to buy a small, salvaged ship after it ran aground during a storm. It was in poor condition and her father intended to restore it to its original beauty so that he could return to the sea as a merchant, ferrying cargo up and down the Atlantic Coast. Sophia hadn’t yet figured out what her father’s con was going to be, but she was sure there would be one at some point that involved the new—er, old—ship. Her father, two of the crewmen from his earlier sailing days, and Nicholas made up the team that would attempt to renovate the boat and would eventually sail her.

  The boat was anchored not far offshore from where their little home sat near the coast. Sometimes, on the rare day when Sophia would finish her chores early, she would walk down to the rocky beach and stand as close to the water as she could. She would stand there until the afternoon breeze carried the voices of the men working back to her waiting ears. There were the rough voices of her father’s crewmen and her father’s deep, hearty voice. Sometimes she even heard the young voice of Nicholas drifting back toward her. That is what she waited for. Besides, she didn’t know why, but there was something about the sea that pulled at her. Even when the men weren’t hard at work on the ship, she would sometimes go to the beach and watch the horizon. Nothing felt better than letting her golden hair loose to blow in the breeze while water lapped at her bare toes. She felt as if she was waiting for something . . . or looking for something . . . but she could never be sure of what it was.

  Evening had become her favorite time of the day. The men would paddle their little boat in just before dusk and the crewmen would head for their shack farther down the road, but Nicholas and her father would come into the house for dinner. She did her best to help her mother without complaining and tried to make every meal a feast. Was it true that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach? Before Nicholas’s arrival, Sophia had been biding her time, waiting until she was just a little older and could marry a decent man and leave her parents for good. She felt horrible for feeling that way, but she had never felt close to them and she honestly didn’t think they would miss her much when she was gone. But then, with Nicholas around, her life wasn’t so bleak and she wasn’t in such a hurry to find someone to whisk her away. She could only wait and dream and hope that Nicholas felt the same way about her as she did about him.

  After the evening meal had been served and cleaned up each night, they would gather around the fire and her father would tell tales or read aloud while she worked on the basket of clothes to mend. It was almost as if they were a happy family.

  Sometimes Nicholas joined in the storytelling. Sophia loved it when he participated because his stories were always sincere and from the heart. His tales didn’t need to be embellished like her father’s did. Nicholas would tell stories of his childhood and the antics he would get into. He had been quite a mischievous child in his younger years, but by the time he was eight or nine his father had been gone for long enough that Nicholas himself had become the man of the house. His mother worked as a maid for a wealthy family in town and was gone from sun up until sun down. He and his older sister, Elizabeth, were left at home to cook and clean and make any needed repairs to their home. Apparently Elizabeth, who was just two-years older than him, had always been sickly and would tire easily while doing the simplest of chores. This put a great burden on Nicholas’s shoulders.

  “Elizabeth was the first to come down with tuberculosis. That was just over four months ago,” Nicholas explained one night. “My mother tried desperately to care for her and help her to recover, but it was of no use. She passed away two weeks after she started coughing up blood. I tried to take care of my mother when she too started showing signs of the terrible disease, but there was nothing that could be done. She was so heartbroken from losing Elizabeth that she lost the will to live. We buried her next to Elizabeth only eighteen days later.” The mood in the room was somber. In the space of less than a month, Nicholas had lost everyone he cared about and his whole purpose in life. Sophia couldn’t imagine being in his shoes.

  Not long after his mother’s death, Nicholas sold his family’s few belongings and ventured out with his beloved horse, Mabel, to look for steady work and greener pastures. He made his way from North Carolina to Virginia where he met Jeremiah Goodwin, looking for a hard-working apprentice. The circumstances that had brought Nicholas to the Goodwin’s door were tragic, but Sophia felt that fate had somehow put her hand in it.

  Days turned into months and before anyone could believe it, summer had come to a close. The summer days had been unusually warm that year and everyone was a little relieved when the autumn breezes began to blow, and the leaves on the trees changed from green to vibrant shades of yellow, brown, and red. At the same time, Sophia felt melancholy, as if something good was about to come to an end. In reality, the ship her father had spent his summer repairing was finished, and he and his little crew—Nicholas included—were preparing to set sail on their first voyage in the newly christened Mist Seeker. She was much smaller than Jeremiah’s previous ship, the Aurabelle, and could easily be managed by a four man crew. The plan was to sail her to destinations along the eastern coast of the United States, taking small loads of merchandise to coastal towns along the way. Sophia had no doubt that her father would be carrying illegal cargo at times—that’s just how he was—and she hoped that he would not involve Nicholas in anything that would corrupt his gentle nature.

  A few days before the men were set to leave, Jeremiah sent Nicholas on an errand into town to pick up a few last-minute supplies for the ship. Sophia was asked to accompany him to get some items that Elsa would need at home. Other than their first meeting many months before, Sophia had not been alone with Nicholas, though she longed to sit and talk with him. She could hardly contain her excitement as they made their way down the rutted lane in her father’s creaky old wagon.

  “Are you excited for your trip? Have you ever sailed before?” she asked Nicholas.

  “Never. This voyage will be the first of many things for me. I’ve dreamed about seeing the world and traveling to places completely different than anything I’m used to, but I honestly never thought my dreams would come true,” he answered.

  “Are you nervous at all, Mr. Trenton? The sea can be a dangerous place.”

  “The only thing I am nervous about is that I might find my stomach can’t tolerate the sea and I will spend many miserable days being seasick over the side of the Mist Seeker’s rail. And, Sophia, please call me Nick. Surely we are friends enough to drop the formalities. Besides, I’m not that much older than you.”

  Sophia’s heart soared. Not only did the person she couldn’t stop thinking about consider her a friend, but he also went out of his way to point out that they weren’t so different in age. Surely that had to mean something.

  “I’m sure you will find the sea to be soothing rather than sickening, Nick,” Sophia replied with a smile in his direction.

  Nick returned the smile and kept his eyes on her for more than just a glance.

  “And what of you, Miss Sophia? What plans do you have to while away the time until your father and I make our grand return?”

  She wished she could answer that she planned to lie in bed and do nothing but dream, but that would only embarrass her, and it wasn’t as if her mother would let her become lazy anyway. No, she was sure that things would return to how they’d been before Nicholas arrived in the spring and Sophia would find herself being forced to do most of the work around the house while Elsa lazed about. But she couldn’t tell Nick that.

  “Winter is almost upon us. I plan to spend most days inside with my sewing and handwork and helping my mother keep the house. Perhaps it will snow and I can make a snowman for my birthday at the end of the month,” she beamed.

  “Your birthday, huh? And when might that be?”

  “The last day of the
month. I’ll be seventeen, you know.” She didn’t know exactly when Nicholas’s birthday was, but she was fairly sure it fell sometime in the early spring. For at least a few months they would be the same age in number.

  They arrived in town and Nicholas, ever the gentleman, helped with Sophia’s errands before proceeding to buy the things on Jeremiah’s list at the local general store. A few people in town greeted Sophia, and many more turned to have a second look at Nicholas. The most playful greetings came from the local bachelorettes. He had been handsome when he first arrived in Newport News in the spring, but the hard work in the summer sun had turned Nicholas from boy to man, and his physical appearance was not one to go unnoticed. She knew a few of the girls her age because she had attended almost a year of school at the little red brick schoolhouse after her family moved to town. Jealousy crept in when these same girls looked at Nick. It was all she could do to stop herself from putting a possessive hand on his arm. He must have sensed something was amiss because he reached down and took her hand, placing it on his arm just below the elbow as any gentleman would do when escorting a lady through town. Her heart fluttered and she sincerely hoped that her palm wouldn’t start sweating through the sleeve of his shirt. That would be mortifying.

  The young pair finished their errands and returned to the wagon. The journey back to the Goodwin home was filled with pleasant conversation about nothing of great importance, but something had changed in the air, and there was longing in every word they spoke to each other. The trip came to a close too quickly in both of their minds. Nick reached up to help Sophia down from the wagon and let her hand linger in his longer than necessary, giving it a little squeeze before he released it. From that moment on she knew that her heart could never belong to anyone else as long as she lived.