…

At the end of this leave, Henry has to go home.  He promised his sister.  They have lunch before going there, and she questions whether he has a girlfriend and a reminder of Jane.

After enduring his sister’s driving, he’s back home.

First, his mother, second his brother, Harry, who’s changed, third, his father, who seems to accept they agree to disagree.  Lastly, he meets Amanda, Harry’s long-suffering girlfriend, and she tells him Harry has changed.

It’s too good to be true, but he stays.

Everyone is walking on eggshells.

Here’s the thing.  Henry has always used his family as an excuse to leave, rather than have to face their constant nagging, that he give up the sea, that he get over Jane, that he get a proper job and stop wasting his life.

It seems like forever that he had to endure his father’s disappointment.  Harry had once shouldered that responsibility until he went to war and came back broken.  It was just another excuse for Henry to leave because Harry had made life hell for him, simply because Henry was wasting opportunities Harry could now not have.

Until he realised that wasn’t the case, but he had to emerge from the sea of self-pity first.

Now Henry resents him because he has.  It’s an odd situation.

…

…

We are at the end of Henry’s sojourn and nearly four months have passed, what seems like a lifetime for both.

Michelle is back at work and using drugs to deaden the experience.

Henry is dreading going back home, because he has nowhere else to go, and he will not be seeing Michelle.  That ship, pardon the pun, has sailed.

Felix, The Turk’s enforcer (The Turk is the man who owns the parlours that Michelle and her friends work in, and the man to whom Michelle has an obligation when he forgave her drug debt) goes to see him and tells him Michelle is off to see Henry.

She had found out where and when he was returning and planned to meet him and tell him the truth, and maybe why they could not be together.  The Turk is sure she’ll return.  Now she’s back on drugs, he says Henry will be disgusted and that’ll be the end of it.

In her current state, far from how she looked back in Morganville, he might be right.

…

…

We are at the end of Henry’s sojourn and nearly four months have passed, what seems like a lifetime for both.

Michelle is back at work and using drugs to deaden the experience.

Henry is dreading going back home, because he has nowhere else to go, and he will not be seeing Michelle.  That ship, pardon the pun, has sailed.

Felix, The Turk’s enforcer (The Turk is the man who owns the parlours that Michelle and her friends work in, and the man to whom Michelle has an obligation when he forgave her drug debt) goes to see him and tells him Michelle is off to see Henry.

She had found out where and when he was returning and planned to meet him and tell him the truth, and maybe why they could not be together.  The Turk is sure she’ll return.  Now she’s back on drugs, he says Henry will be disgusted and that’ll be the end of it.

In her current state, far from how she looked back in Morganville, he might be right.

…

…

This is just not going to work

I had in mind right about now to find all the reasons why this romance would not work.

Michelle is not telling him the truth about her situation.  We want to believe she had found the love of her life, but is it that she has found something that she’s not had before, and it’s too late?

Her path was chosen for her, perhaps, when she allowed others to lead her down a path that eventually led to self-destruction.  Yes, she has tried to escape, twice, but inevitably she finds her way back, thinking the city is large enough she can make a new start.

She is wrong.  Why didn’t she move to the other side of the country, or even overseas?  Perhaps it was an obligation she felt to help those who had helped her escape.

The big question here is whether we let our past define us.  Do we try and find a way out of the wreckage, and try to get back on track?  It seems the situation is hopeless, or so we are led to believe.

However, the last date was when she was supposed to tell Henry it was over, that she could not be his girlfriend., but couldn’t.  He had to hear that from another source.

And, what he hears, leads him to believe there is no future for them.

Ships are great places to hide away from the rest of the world.

Henry has to endure a short period when he cannot bring himself to tell anyone what had happened, and then, at the end of the tour he takes a position on another ship, roaming the ocean for at least three months, island hopping.

He needs a sojourn, time to think, and any letters she sends, for what reason he cannot fathom, are consigned to the bottom drawer, unopened.  He is, he tells himself, done with her.

But never far from his thoughts, he decided to learn as much about her as he can, and turns to the newspaper archives, and the reporter who wrote most of the articles, none very flattering about her, and then talks to her about Michelle.

High flying model, absolute success, met the wrong man, got into drugs, and spiralled downwards from there.  She ended up addicted, and eventually a prostitute.  Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it explained everything.

And yet, the person he met, the girl he fell in love with, was so far removed from that description, he could not understand anything.

Meanwhile, Michelle, oblivious to the fact he had overheard her conversation, cannot understand why he does not communicate with her, and cannot be found.

Time passes, and she cannot keep the man who runs her life now at bay for much longer, and then, it’s back to the snake pit with her friends; and the drugs, sitting on the kitchen bench, are a strong reminder of how she used to shut it all out.

Will the temptation get the better of her?

It’s a pivotal part of the story, and in the traditional romance, it’s the ‘boy loses the girl’ usually to a misunderstanding.

…

…

This is just not going to work

I had in mind right about now to find all the reasons why this romance would not work.

Michelle is not telling him the truth about her situation.  We want to believe she had found the love of her life, but is it that she has found something that she’s not had before, and it’s too late?

Her path was chosen for her, perhaps, when she allowed others to lead her down a path that eventually led to self-destruction.  Yes, she has tried to escape, twice, but inevitably she finds her way back, thinking the city is large enough she can make a new start.

She is wrong.  Why didn’t she move to the other side of the country, or even overseas?  Perhaps it was an obligation she felt to help those who had helped her escape.

The big question here is whether we let our past define us.  Do we try and find a way out of the wreckage, and try to get back on track?  It seems the situation is hopeless, or so we are led to believe.

However, the last date was when she was supposed to tell Henry it was over, that she could not be his girlfriend., but couldn’t.  He had to hear that from another source.

And, what he hears, leads him to believe there is no future for them.

Ships are great places to hide away from the rest of the world.

Henry has to endure a short period when he cannot bring himself to tell anyone what had happened, and then, at the end of the tour he takes a position on another ship, roaming the ocean for at least three months, island hopping.

He needs a sojourn, time to think, and any letters she sends, for what reason he cannot fathom, are consigned to the bottom drawer, unopened.  He is, he tells himself, done with her.

But never far from his thoughts, he decided to learn as much about her as he can, and turns to the newspaper archives, and the reporter who wrote most of the articles, none very flattering about her, and then talks to her about Michelle.

High flying model, absolute success, met the wrong man, got into drugs, and spiralled downwards from there.  She ended up addicted, and eventually a prostitute.  Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it explained everything.

And yet, the person he met, the girl he fell in love with, was so far removed from that description, he could not understand anything.

Meanwhile, Michelle, oblivious to the fact he had overheard her conversation, cannot understand why he does not communicate with her, and cannot be found.

Time passes, and she cannot keep the man who runs her life now at bay for much longer, and then, it’s back to the snake pit with her friends; and the drugs, sitting on the kitchen bench, are a strong reminder of how she used to shut it all out.

Will the temptation get the better of her?

It’s a pivotal part of the story, and in the traditional romance, it’s the ‘boy loses the girl’ usually to a misunderstanding.

…

…

Absence is supposed to make the heart grow stronger.

But…

This is no ordinary romance.  There’s a great big ocean between them, in more ways than one.  Getting off that ocean, getting to the port, and getting to the girl is proving a very hard task indeed.

Ships have a mind of their own.

Then the planets align…

This date starts out badly.  Henry is running behind time, and, the meeting place is, well, far from being private.  It’s like he’s in the middle of a spy novel, finding himself surveilling the crowded public square …. For what?

She’s there but hardly acknowledging his presence.

Then he feels the presence of another, hiding in plain sight.

Something is amiss.  Michelle is on edge, and from the, the date goes downhill.

They get some time ‘alone’, and words are spoken, but they’re not anywhere near what he had hoped to hear.  There’s fallout from the last date, and we learn a little more about who and what Michelle is, and why she is acting this way.

In a desperate attempt to win her over, Henry proposes marriage.

It doesn’t work.

They part, but not before that old adage ‘eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves’ which sends him into a deeper spiral of despair.

…