Dillon called whenever he could.
He always said the same things.
He couldn’t wait to hold his babies.
He was counting the days.
My mother, who had spent thirty-four years on ships and knew what a long contract did to people, would shake her head after those calls.
“Words are cheap at sea,” she liked to say.
“Watch what he does when he’s on land.”
Back in the autumn of 2021, we had been through a very bad season, Dillon and I.
It was something I did not talk about, and something we had put behind us.
After it, my mother had sat the two of us down at her kitchen table and made Dillon read something aloud before he signed it.
He had cried.
I had never asked to see it again.
Three months after the twins were born, I read in the crew-family newsletter that the Seaborn Vista would soon return to the Port of Tacoma.
