For those of you who have patiently waited for continuation of Cabin With a Balcony, I may finally be able to continue.  Thank you for your interest; I hope you enjoy.  Others who may just be reading the site for the first time may go back to January, 2015 for the beginning segment.  Critiques are welcome!

CABIN WITH A BALCONY

Chapter 6, Cruise Day 3

Captain Rogers sat in deep thought.  He arose from his desk and began pacing back and forth.  To some it would seem he sought to solve the world’s problems by the determination of his stride and furrowed brows.  He was thinking he had not gotten this far without taking a few chances, that nothing or no one would stop this shipment from taking place; therefore it could mean losing Robert.  Funny, he thought, Robert doesn’t know that this is also my final deal.  I am going to retire to Aruba, relax with my “savings” and watch the world go by.  To hell with all these difficult people.  Robert is getting to be a softie like his dad.  William did everything he possibly could to keep me from “ruining my life”.  I knew he had to go down with the ship that I helped sink.  What’s one more Goulet in the scheme of things?  What little remorse the captain might have felt had been destroyed long ago.

As Robert walked toward the lounge, his thoughts were about his father.  Now that he had mentioned him it would be difficult to get him off his mind.  He began to replay memories.  Sure, his father had been away at sea a lot.  Sure his mom worked a lot.  Robert was left alone much of the time, but it couldn’t be helped.  Robert’s father was a man of honor; proud to be a ship’s captain, and both parents tried to instill honesty, character and behaviors they believed would keep him in good stead in life.

What went wrong?  Robert slowed his walk after asking himself this very real question. He had never asked himself this before.  Why, he thought, am I thinking this now?   Nothing has gone wrong; things are just the way they always were.  Sure, he’s getting a little nervous, and more careful, but it is just time to move on.  He had brought Betty Lou into the picture to throw off suspicion.  He had been too abrupt that day in the lounge.  If it seems that he cares for her…so what?  Maybe he does.  Her quiet innocence touches him somehow.  He smiled to himself when he remembered her sweet explaining about the dinner and show responsibility for Judy Lane.  Their time together made him feel like he used to when he had a family.

Robert consoled himself as he reached the lounge doors by remembering he did try to obtain the college degree his father had always wanted for him.  His father’s ship sank when Robert was only nineteen.  Mom died the next year; a heart attack, but he was sure it was from heartbreak at William’s loss.  Next came flunking out of his third year due to his introduction to selling drugs by his father’s old friend.  Father surely could not have known the captain that Robert knows   Robert knew deep down that drugs were not the answer, but he made himself believe that his father may have thought it was o.k. temporarily.  He had asked himself many times why his father thought this man was a friend.  He only remembered a statement long ago made by his father to his mother, that David Rogers could sure use a friend.  A small, still voice prompted the sinking doubt and disappointment he could imagine in his father’s eyes, but sounded further and further away as he opened the door, and the lounge voices silenced the guilt.