As winter had darkened their skies and whitened the streets, he'd stopped coughing. She had thought he was getting better, except that he couldn't seem to do anything. At first, when he walked the length of the house, he'd lost his breath. Soon he was stopping to breathe between their bedroom and the parlor. By the time spring came, he could not cover the distance unless he leaned on her arm.

He'd finally been home for the blooming of their wedding tree. As the year warmed, the tree had budded. There had been a few weeks when, if Ephron was not getting better, at least he got no worse. She sat by his lounge and sewed or did the accounts while he did scrimshaw or made rope mats for the doorsteps. They had spoken of the future and he had fretted about his ship and daughter. The only times they had disagreed had been over Althea. But there was nothing new about that. They'd been disagreeing about her for as long as they'd had her.

Ephron had never been able to admit that he spoiled their youngest child. The Blood Plague had carried off their boys, one by one, back in that hellish disease year. Even now, close to twenty years later, Ronica felt the squeeze in her chest when she thought of it. Three sons, three bright little boys, taken in less than a week. Keffria had barely come through it alive. Ronica had thought it would drive them both mad, to see the tree of their family stripped of every male flower. Instead, Ephron had suddenly turned his attention and hopes to the babe that had sheltered inside her womb. Attentive as he had never been during her other pregnancies, he had even tied up the ship for an extra two weeks to be sure of being home when the child was born.

When the babe had been a girl, Ronica had expected Ephron to be bitter. Instead, he had given all his attention to his young daughter, as if somehow his will could make a man of her. He had encouraged her wildness and stubbornness until Ronica despaired of her. Ephron had always denied it was anything other than high spirits. He refused her nothing, and when Althea one day demanded to go with him on his next voyage, Ephron had even consented to that. It had been a short trip, and Ronica had met the ship at the docks, convinced she would get back a girl who had had more than enough of the rough living conditions on the ship. Instead she'd seen a wild monkey up the rigging, her black hair cut back to no more than a brush, barefoot and bare-armed. Ever since then, she had sailed with her father. And now she sailed without him.

They'd had words about that, too. It had taken all her words and his pain atop them to convince him that he should stay home for a time. Ronica had assumed that, of course, Althea would stay home, too. What business had she aboard a ship without her father? When she had suggested as much to Ephron, he had been aghast.

“Our family live ship leave port without one of our blood aboard her? Do you know the kind of ill luck you'd be inviting, woman?”

“The Vivacia has not quickened yet. Surely Kyle, our marriage-kin, should be sufficient. He has been Keffria's husband for close on fifteen years! Let Althea stay home for a time. It would do her hair and skin a world of good, and give her a chance to be seen about town. She is of an age to marry, Ephron, or at least to be courted. But to be courted, she must first be seen. She appears but once or twice a year, a Spring Ball one year, a Harvest Gathering the next. Folk scarcely recognize her on the street. And when the young men of the Trader families do see her, she is in trousers and jacket with her hair queued down her back and her skin like a tanned hide. It is scarcely a suitable way to present her if we wish her to marry well.”

“Marry well? Let her marry happy instead, as we did. Look at Keffria and Kyle. Remember how the talk raced through the town when I let an upstart sea-captain with Chalcedean blood start courting my eldest? But I knew he was a man, and she knew what was in her heart, and they've been happy enough. Look at their children, healthy as gulls. No, Ronica, if Althea has to be kept on a leash and primped and powdered to catch a man's eyes, then he's not the kind of man I want sniffing after her anyway. Let her be seen by a man who admires her spirit and strength. Soon enough she'll have to settle down, to be lady, wife and mother. I doubt she'll find that kind of monotony to her taste much. So let's allow the lass a life while she can have one.” Having delivered this statement, Ephron had leaned back on his cushions, panting.

And Ronica, because he was so ill, had swallowed her ire that he could so disparage the life that she led, and thrust down the jealousy she felt for her own daughter's freedom and careless ways. Nor had she mentioned that the way the family fortunes were going, there might be a need for Althea to marry well. Sourly Ronica now mused that if they tamed the girl down, perhaps they could wed her off to one of their creditors, preferably a generous one who would forgive the family's debt as a wedding gift. Ronica shook her head slowly. No. In his own subtle way, Ephron had taken the argument right to her weakest position. She had married Ephron because she'd fallen in love with him. Just as Keffria had succumbed to Kyle's blond charms. And despite all the family faced, she hoped that when Althea married, she would love the man. She looked with heartsick fondness on the man she still loved.