The Widowed Don Hired a Doctor for His Son, and She Brought Two Boys Who Wore His Face novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Every Man He Led
Nico's POV
I was on the wharf at Pelican Island before the light came up.
The boats were still tied.
On the eighth of December the Vasari wharf does not go out, and every captain on it knows why.
The ice house was lit.
A square of yellow lay on the planks, and in it, in the cold, stood the men.
I had not called them.
I had sent a word to the old ones, three nights ago, through the priest, and they had told the rest.
Forty of them stood on the dock in the dark with their hats in their hands.
The Portuguese captains stood on the left, and the Sicilian ones on the right.
There were old widows with coffee in thermoses and a boy of sixteen who had come with his father.
I had known most of them all my life.
"Gentlemen," I said.
"Dominic," said the oldest, a Portuguese named for a saint and a hundred years of weather.
"You asked us to come before light."
"I did," I said.
"Is it the doctor?" the old man said.
"It's me," I said.
I stood on an upturned crate under the lamp, a thing my father had done, and I had never wanted to.
"I'm going to ask each of you a question," I said.
"Then I'll ask you to a supper.
"I'm going to ask you by name.
"Captain."
An old man stepped forward.
"In March, six years ago, you lost your boat in the storm, and I bought you a new one.
"Do you owe me?"
"I do not, Dominic," the old captain said.
"Who told you that?" I said.
"Serafina, the week before the funeral," the old captain said.
"She said the family would not take it back."
"She said that to you?" I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Widowed Don Hired a Doctor for His Son, and She Brought Two Boys Who Wore His Face are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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