Shelly hugged her husband. "Be careful, Billy."
"Come on, Shell!" Bill rolled his eyes. "You worry too much, Honey. Me and the boys will be OK. It's just a three—day trip. We'll catch enough halibut to be able to fix up the baby's room the way you want it."
"Billy, I love you and worry every time you go to sea, especially in winter."
"Shell, I promise I'll be careful. I may be the youngest captain in this port, but I'm the most careful. I learned at the helm of Daddy's boat, which I was practically raised on."
They hugged again. Bill planted a tender kiss on her cheek, rested his open palm on her slightly swollen stomach, "Besides, I need to be here. Little Billy will need his daddy." Shelly slapped him on the shoulder. "It's Billy Jean and you know it."
Bill laughed, "Not on my watch, Girl. I gave you a boy to take over as captain."
Their laughter broke the tension. "I have to go, Shell. See you in a few days?" He turned to leave and then turned back, reached into the pocket of his heavy coat and pulled out an envelope." I almost forgot. Here's my letter?"
Shelly took the crisp envelope and slipped into the pocket of her dress. "Thanks, Billy." It had been their custom since they started dating. Billy gave her a note before he went to sea. She wasn't allowed to open it until the next day. He usually wrote of love or sometimes something silly - both made her smile. She wrote a reply and left it on the kitchen table for him. Reading her reply was the first thing he did when he came home.
She watched as her husband walked the length of the pier to where the forty-five foot "Shelly Girl" and his crew waited. He gave a final wave and climbed aboard.
Shelly stood by their pickup truck and watched until the boat rounded the point and disappeared from view. "I love you, Billy." she whispered. "Be safe."①
That evening, five hundred miles to the south, a small winter depression moved north along the Atlantic coast of the USA. Experts found an unexpected change in the jet stream, which would make the small depression become a raging winter storm.②
Shelly woke in the morning and listened to the weather report on the battered radio sitting on kitchen table. The phone rang. "Hello."
"Shelly?"
"Hi, Gail!" She recognized the voice of her friend, who was the wife of one of Billy's crew. "Have you heard the weather?"
"Hang on a second. I just turned the radio on." Shelly's face paled as she heard the weather person say a major winter depression had moved into the area. "Oh crap!"
"That's what I said too."
"They'll be OK, Gail. They're experienced fishermen." Shelly said to Gail. "It was an attempt to convince herself that her man would be safe." ③
Off the south shore of Nova Scotia, Bill struggled to control the Shelly Girl in the growing waves. Wind and water attacked Bill and his crew from all directions. The forty-and fifty-foot walls of water were too much of a challenge for the young captain.
The force of the water flipped the boat over, tore the wheelhouse off and tossed Bill and his crew into the icy Atlantic.
The water, only a few degrees above the freezing point, soon overcame Bill's will to live. "Shelly!
He took a last painful breath of salt water and slipped below the surface.④
The crisp envelope bent beneath her fingers as she laid it on her lap and read. "Shelly, you are my life, my love and soon-to-be mother of our son-girl if that is what you really want. I'll always come home."
Shelly reached for the pen in her dress pocket. Tears dripped from her face and stained the paper she wrote on, "________."
Her note sits on their kitchen table still—never read.
