He Divorced Me at His Ship's Christening, So I Held the Ship novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Parade of Lights
In December the Santa Rita wore four thousand white lights from her bow to her stack.
Anselmo had strung them himself, grumbling in Portuguese, and the dock families had hung a banner from the wheelhouse roof.
MEDEIROS TOWING. IN THE HARBOR SINCE 1974.
We joined the Parade of Lights at dusk, in the middle of a hundred and twenty boats, under the Coronado Bridge.
Ruel's mother stood beside me at the rail in her church coat, holding a paper cup of hot chocolate with both hands.
His father, a quiet man in a Navy cap, stood at her other side and said nothing, and missed nothing.
"The boat is very clean," his mother said to me.
"Anselmo cleans it."
"Good. A man who keeps a clean boat will keep your secrets." She looked up at the lights. "I like your captain."
"He's right there, Ma," Ruel said from behind her.
"I know where you are. I am speaking to the girl."
I laughed, and Ruel's hand settled warm on my back.
His thumb pressed once at the base of my spine, and I leaned into it in front of his parents.
The radio on my belt crackled, and the same voice came out of every handheld on the boat.
"Medeiros dispatch, Medeiros dispatch, this is Braddock Marine Lines flagship, requesting a tug escort out of the channel at ten o'clock. Over."
Anselmo turned from the wheel with an enormous grin.
I took the radio off my belt.
I let the parade slide past us, music and horns and lit boats.
The voice came again, a little less certain.
"Medeiros dispatch, do you copy?"
"Medeiros dispatch," I said. "Stand by."
I clipped the radio back on my belt.
The whole boat cheered.
Ruel took my left hand.
He had a length of white line in his other hand, soft and new, a yard long.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Divorced Me at His Ship's Christening, So I Held the Ship are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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