Epilogue
The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter
A Novel
For Andrew
e-book: “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter”
The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter By Corinne Devin Sullivan
ISBN 979-8-9909558-0-6
© Corinne Devin Sullivan. 2024. All rights reserved.
Publication made by: CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN BOOKS
Published in the United States of America, in November of 2024.
A letter a sailor once wrote that wasn’t opened by his humble daughter until 2024…
Fiona,
Hi. It’s your dad. Here’s my letter-writing action. Thought I’d drop you a line in the way my favorite daughter always showed me.
Don’t get excited about me working. I’m feeling okay.
I boarded a monster of a freighter today. I headed up to my Chief’s quarters. It looks pretty good. There is a writing desk here. Thought I’d write something short. Remember all those letters you sent me when you were a little girl?
I can’t make it to California for Patrick’s birthday. I’ll send something I picked up for your little one. Tell each of your boys and sweet, darling Matilda Hello! from Grandpa Meade!
I need to find a good seamstress. Kingston Riggs’ daughter is getting married. Baxter brought in rolls and rolls and rolls of pure Singapore silk on his last trip. Riggs’ little daughter loves the stuff, and Baxter was a good friend to pick everything up for her last time he went there. The family will need shirts and dresses made for the entire wedding party.
Your mom has somehow managed to stay in touch with everyone from the voyage, even Captain White. She sends Christmas cards off every year to the Ukrainian men you were always chatting with.
Remember the nice lady from India whose life you saved? The one you paid for so she could stop living on the streets? I can’t tell you how impressed I was when you moved them both to California, dear. That was a fair share of luck you shared with her and her son.
You said she owns a sewing shop and has a place in Oxnard? Well, if she needs another task to do, pass along Riggs’ phone number to her. Ask her to give him a call.
Baxter and his wife are going to the wedding. Aoife and I are also going. Your mother is letting me take her as her official date. Would you make a trip up to Seattle for that? It’s nice when everyone comes together.
Been thinking about you and Aoife and even Captain White. I realized that I am not the same since that trip, and I won’t ever be.
Today is the anniversary of when Sassy was first scheduled to depart to India from Seattle. Of course, she couldn’t make that happen. It took a month to make her ready for the trip, because Sassy needed a lot of work. What a lot of hassle!
Not sure I told you this, but Aoife confided our adventure was the first time in her entire life when she had signed up for something that turned out to be awful, but she couldn’t get mad and quit. There was no place to run away to out there in the middle of the ocean.
Your mom has always been tough. She had to venture out into the wild and make a trip across the Pacific before she understood perseverance.
Yesterday, Aoife told me she had a dream about catching fish from the ocean, and cleaning them up, and frying them for a meal. She loved those dinners on Sassy as we cut across the deep Pacific. Fresh fish at sea can’t really be beat by anything on land.
I noticed how you haven’t made it back to sea since that voyage, Fiona. Your credentials are expired. However, you finally got to work with giving me my allotment of grandchildren. Every one of your beautiful babies is good for a full 18 years of respect from your dad. So, instead of giving you a hard time, I had better apologize!
When you sold that last film, I meant to ask you to spend a few million on a shipping fleet that came on the market yesterday. I’ve got something in mind for a company I’d like to start. It’s okay if you don’t have time. Maybe one day getting a small shipping company going will be something you and I finally do. The twins sure don’t care about anything I have going down. Those guys are just obsessed with marketing and politics. How thankful I am that you still care at all.
Remember back on our blueberry farm, back in those days in New Jersey? The place we had there had a workshop, and there was a sign up from the twins that read, “Dad’s Place”. I spent a lot of time out in that shop. I probably was fixing a broken step or putting together some kind of a crawl space for all of Malcom’s cats.
The twins must have been twelve or thirteen years old. They wanted to attach motors to their bicycles. I helped them both out. We worked on everything all together as a team. We connected the throttles to the handlebars and got them going.
The twins were driving those motorbikes all over the place. And, next, you wanted a try. You didn’t know anything about throttles, so Ben pointed out, “The handlebar turns.”
That was the last thing he told you.
You turned the handlebar. The bike jerked all over the grass. You sped around the farmhouse and you were yelling the whole time about how you couldn’t stop, with the twins running behind you, telling you to hold on to the bike the entire time. You went in a big wide circle around the house. You ran right into a tree, and you got all those scratches and scars up and down your arms. There were tears pouring down your face. I walked over and you wouldn’t let me know. You said you were okay.
“Honey, you’re crying. Why don’t you just cry?” I asked.
“If I cry you won’t ever let me do it again,” you told me.
I remember that very well: If I cry you won’t let me do it again. That’s the attitude. That’s the spirt, kid.
I’ve been thinking things over. I looked up at the machinery and the massive size of the ship I am about to head out on. I was wondering what adventure the new voyage might hold for me. And I made a choice on my own that this will likely be the last voyage I will ever make. This sailor’s clock has ticked itself out.
I am choosing the right route by retiring. I have made sure everyone onboard my ships got home for more than sixty years.
Every step on earth is different. Every step depends on the circumstances you face.
I became an adult at aged sixteen, in the Navy. Later, I got a good life behind me with my merchant marine’s license in the Engine Room, eventually to sail as Chief on any vessel. That’s why I’m not risking everything for no real reason, at this point. I am dreaming of being better prepared for what life deals out.
Friendly Floyd did a mighty good thing with his life, and I hope you put in a good word for him for every curse you give me about the same man.
Honey, people can really tell when you are mad. It’s terrible to be around you, when you are.
One last thing. After your Uncle Phineas passed last month, things have become a bit surreal. I miss my brother. He was the baby of the family. Even if he had grandkids who were all grown up, he was always the baby of the family.
Before he died, the twins invited him and I out to a big-deal dinner, the same thing they had invited all of us to go to for years. I never had any time for it. I had no intention of ever going. Then Phineas’ eyes light up about meeting the big names the twins told him would attend. It sounded to him like every celebrity on the planet would be at that party. We agreed to make it.
“Yea. If you want to go, we’ll all go. Rent you a tuxedo and anything else you want.” That’s all I said. It set off a whirlwind. The whole family jumped on it, even the little one, Ted. I pulled up in my big black Cadillac car. There were some old movie producers standing outside, smoking cigarettes and talking.
Ben abandoned us. He walked off chasing one of the guys down from The Shaft. Phinneas and I casually walked by. The boys helped us all get a picture together and the man’s signature on a napkin. Phinneas thought that evening was the best thing he ever got to do. The twins were macho the entire night.
I think about these old days a lot. Nothing more to say other than good-bye to my wonderful brother, Phineas.
Fiona, you know how much I love you. I’m proud of what you did. You showed Friendly Floyd you were the real deal and outsold him and Malcom combined with your own movie deals. You proved every last one of them wrong for throwing in the towel on your ambition. You made it happen. And that’s how people will remember you.
Being a famous person is sometimes important. And a hell of a lot of people are very, very important people at least once during their lives. A regular person can become important really quick, you ever notice?
Being big and important, that’s not me. I don’t happen to have that in my DNA.
Aoife and I are happy we dived back in. Marriage Number Four has worked out fine. It’s the longest streak we ever have had going.
Best part of being this old is that I haven’t had to sit up, night after night, wondering what is going to happen next. It takes a lot out of me when I think about the people I love. I keep remembering that night with my little brother, how happy we all were. Just one night made all the difference for Phinneas.
I don’t want to leave you nor anybody else high and dry. I should have taken more time with each of my kids. In the end, if I had, they wouldn’t have lived as good. The last thing I have to offer are stories about days in my past.
Wives and friends, and children and their friends, and brothers and sisters, they all ask for my gests and for the lore. Everybody swears by a true story about sailors upon an open sea. In the end, it is pure romance that has kept me happy. Plus, everybody on the planet wants love and music and alcohol. Looks like they are going to have all of it, in time. Life is like that for a person who tries to do something with their life.
A lot more things will go everyone’s way, Fiona, so enjoy your life and take it easy.
From a sailor as well as,
From your dad,
Meade
WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED BY CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN
ISBN 979-8-9909558-0-6 e-book: “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter”
© Corinne Devin Sullivan. 2024. All rights reserved.
Publication made by: CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN BOOKS “The Sound Is The Sailor’s Laughter” Published in the United States of America 2024. First Final EBook. Design by C.D.S. Website: www.corinnedevinsullivan.com