Merry awoke just as the first red bursts of dawn streaked through the shutters and across her white bedspread. It reminded her of blood splatter and she watched the gory hue turn to a bruise of blue and purple and finally the pure, clean brightness of a new day, disappearing into the covers. She felt a shift in the universe and tears pricked her eyes.
After dressing in her work attire of a flowing teal-blue caftan and matching head scarf, Merry exhaled deeply on the threshold of her sunroom. The crystals sparkled in the early morning sun rays and the scent of sage from last nights smudging ritual still lingered. There was no need to consult fate. The Ouija Board, Tarot cards and tea leaves would all revel the same truth: her mother was dead.
When a man gets to a certain age, it is time for him to set out on his own, or at least that is what he tried to tell himself as he readied his boat for the journey. He had been sailing these seas with his father since the day he could walk, he knew them better than he knew the land. Of course, where he was going, he would eventually leave his home waters, and that is where the test of his strength and abilities would come in. 
I’d awoken with a sore throat and a fever, so mother made me stay home. Daddy went to work and my sister left without me to walk the short distance to school with the kids from the block. I spent the morning on the couch bundled up in blankets, engrossed in one of the “Little House on the Prairie” books and sipping ginger ale through a straw from a nearby TV tray. Mother went about her daily housewife routine of making beds, starting a load of laundry, arranging the front window drape pleats, and raking the shag carpet.
It was spring of 1982 and I was months from high school graduation. On the horizon was a summer serving as crew on a 101 ft schooner and the beginning of college in the fall. It was also a dull and dreary day sitting in the teeny boatyard office of the marine electrician where I worked as an assistant after school.
Elizabeth frowned at her monthly planner entry for August 15th. The heart with the number “5” inside was drawn before the new year, when things were still good. She planned on serving him with divorce papers soon and wanted to keep things amiable until then. A present was just the thing.
The Littletown League of Women Voters mayoral candidate debate had just begun when the fire alarm was sounded. After 30 minutes and an “all clear” from the Fire Chief, the crowd filed back inside. It was apparently a faulty alarm but they had dragged in the hefty fire hose as a precaution and it now lay smack dab down the middle of Uncle Joe’s All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffet. It would remain until the investigation was complete in an hour or so, and the debate needed to get underway and wrap-up before the restaurant opened for the Early Bird Special crowd.
The petite redhead sidled up to the man in uniform sitting at the far end of the bar, leaning in to showcase her ample bosum. “Hey, Sailor, buy a thirsty girl a cold drink on a hot day?”
Tasha stood on the bow of the boat, sipping from a steaming mug of tea and watching the sun rise. Only an experienced eye could tell that a storm was brewing from the particular hue of crimson creeping across the eastern sky. There was a lot of truth in the saying, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.”
