The Quill Pen by Michelle Isenhoff

Author:Michelle Isenhoff
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Microsoft
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Micah shuffled his feet with embarrassment and glanced at the open ledger. “Sanjay, I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to extend you any more store credit.”

The sailor held out a handful of coins. “I got that message. I’ll pay off the rest of my account after I deliver Mrs. Crenshaw’s table.” Then his eye shifted to the bonnets. “What happened here?” he asked, rolling one between his fingers. “Your father rob a millinery?”

Micah snorted and began filling a crate with the items on the list.

Sanjay crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the counter. “You know, you missed a fine fish fry last night, son. No one can cook up a fresh catch like my Maria.”

“Must have been better than what my father dished out to me,” Micah replied.

“He find out you came by?”

“Yes, sir. I should have stayed for fish.” He glanced at Gabby, who gave him an encouraging smile.

Sanjay rapped his knuckles against the counter. “You sure are in some kind of predicament, Micah. You and your pa clash like a slaver and a British man-o-war.”

“I know.” Micah mused, “Maybe it would be best if I just left. If I just took to the hills and struck out on my own.” There. He had said it aloud, as if voicing it might push him to do it.

Sanjay’s features pulled close together. “It would be wiser to give yourself a few more years, Micah. The world is a tough place for a boy your age.”

Micah wedged a bag of flour and a box of salt into the crate. “If I wait, I’m afraid I might get buried so deeply in this town I’ll never be able to dig my way out.”

He dusted off his hands and leaned his elbows on the counter. “Sanjay, how old were you when you went to sea?”

The sailor’s lips pressed together tightly. “A year younger than you.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because my father was an angry drunk.”

Micah’s eyebrows jerked up like Father Holcomb’s. “He hit you?”

“On good days I avoided most of the blows. On bad days—” he shook his head, remembering.

Micah whistled low. Set alongside that, his own situation seemed almost idyllic.

“He beat my mother too, but she wouldn’t leave. When I couldn’t save her, I shipped as cabin boy on a vessel bound for England.”

“Did you ever go home?”

Sanjay shook his head regretfully. “I took to life at sea like I’d been born for it. When I was seventeen, I learned my father was dead, but it was several years before I could get home to my mother. By that time, she had passed on as well.”

“Golly, I’m sorry.”

Behind Sanjay, Micah could see Gabby listening intently, like a cat following the movements of a mouse in the grass. Her eyes gleamed with an expression he’d never seen before.

The sailor’s eyes seemed fathoms deep. “It was a long, long time ago.”

Micah pushed the crate toward the man, unsure what to say. “Your order is finished.”

Sanjay brightened. “Thank you, Micah. If you want a taste of my famous clam chowder, you know where to find me.

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