“He said some of his memory returned during the night. Nothing personal about him, though. And he asked when you can be talked to.”
I went straight to the galley and got a mug from the cabinet, filling it with the dark brown brew from the coffeepot. “Some people think I’m unable to speak without coffee, Alberto. But as you can see, that isn’t quite true.”
The first sip was good—the second one better.
“It’s not that he can’t speak,” Savannah said. “He’s just a little grumpy without his java.”
“Are we going for another boat ride today?” Alberto asked.
“Do you like boats?” Savannah asked him.
“Yes,” he replied. “This one is like a big house.”
I wondered what he was comparing it to. How had he lived before being set adrift by Bumpy? Had Carmel Marco and Alberto’s father been good parents? Had they lived in a house?
Savannah ruffled his thick black hair. “Sea Biscuit was my home for a long time.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Since before Flo was born,” she replied.
I sat down at the dinette with them. “We might be going on a really big boat this weekend.”
“How big?”
“Bigger than all of my and Savannah’s boats put together.”
He pointed out the starboard hatch, where a small, coastal cruise ship was tied up. “Bigger than that boat?”
I looked across the river. The cruise ship had three decks. It wasn’t like the mega cruise ships that hit all the big tourist ports like Miami, Key West, and Nassau. It ran up and down the Florida coast, visiting smaller towns.
I nodded emphatically. “Almost exactly that size.”
He smiled broadly.
Savannah got up. “I’ll get lunch going. Tank and Chyrel are up on the bridge, and I saw DJ stretching over in the cockpit of Gaspar’s Revenge”
“Have you seen Paul yet this morning?” I asked.
“He and Tony went for a run,” she said. “They should be back any time.”
I followed her into the galley and spoke low. “How much Spanish do you think he remembers?”
She smiled at me. “He’s as fluent as a native speaker would be. Remember? Paul said most amnesia sufferers retain language skills. Alberto is bilingual.”
Just then, I saw Tony and Paul running along the sea wall, headed toward the ramp down to the dock.
“I’ll be right back.”
“You don’t even have a shirt on,” Savannah called after me as I went up to the side deck.
“Hey, Jesse,” Tony said, as he and Paul walked the last few yards to the boats.
I dropped down to the dock. “How was the run?”
“Rough,” he replied. “Paul sets a grueling pace and he got more sleep than I did last night.”
“Paul, Alberto is suddenly speaking Spanish…like fluently.”
“He hadn’t before?”
I shook my head. “No. And I mean rapid-fire Spanish.”
“That’s probably normal,” he said. “Being bilingual, I would think it would be, anyway.”
“We know his name now,” I said. “It’s Alberto Marco, not Mar. And we know who his mother was. Both his parents are dead.”
“And you want to know if it’s safe to divulge that information to him?”
“Yeah.”
Paul rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. “Hard to say. But like I told you yesterday, he’s an intelligent child. Why don’t you ask him if he feels like he’s ready to hear some bad news?”
“That’s it?” I asked. “Just ask him?”
“Preface it by telling him you’ve learned something of his past that isn’t good. He’ll know if he can take it or not.”
“Thanks,” I said and turned back toward Sea Biscuit.
Paul grabbed my arm. “Jesse, wait.”
I turned back around to face him.
“How about waiting a bit? Let me get a shower and allow everyone to eat lunch first. I’d like to be there in case he says yes.”
“Savannah’s making lunch now,” I said. “Why don’t we all meet up on her flybridge. It has the biggest table.”
I went back aboard Sea Biscuit and told Savannah everything that Paul had told me.
“I’ll put together a bunch more sandwiches,” she offered.
“Fifteen minutes,” I said. “Up on the bridge?”
“That’s the only place we can seat all eight of us. But we’ll need to break out a couple of deck chairs. You go get a shower and get dressed. I’ll handle it.”
I kissed her on the cheek and hurried down to the aft cabin. It only took me ten minutes to take a quick shower and put on a pair of cargo shorts and a faded Rusty Anchor T-shirt.
When I got up to the bridge, everyone but Paul was lounging around the big table, eating deli sandwiches. I got two deck chairs out of the storage locker at the back of the bridge deck next to the dinghy and set them up at the empty front end of the table.
Paul came up the ladder carrying a box. I recognized the custom chess set Pap had made and given to me years ago. It was a hinged wooden box with dark mahogany and white oak squares. When opened, it created a chess board. The pieces inside were all hand carved teak.
Without a word, Paul opened the box and scattered the chess pieces on the table, then placed the box, velvet side down, next to them.
He looked at Alberto. “Checkers is such a simple game.”
Alberto looked up at him, then back down at the pieces scattered on the table. He put his sandwich down on his plate and picked up one of the pieces—a black rook. He placed it at the corner of the board nearest him.
While it was the correct piece and he’d put it in the right place, it was also the nearest corner to him. So, I didn’t read a lot into it. Paul sat down and picked up the white queen, placing it on the center black square on his back row.
“That’s not right,” Alberto said, and moved the piece over one. “The queen takes her color.”
“Oh yeah,” Paul said, with a grin. “I forgot.”
They played fast as everyone else ate and watched. Paul opened with a queen’s gambit, which Alberto foiled before Paul’s third move—queen to king’s bishop three.
Paul looked up at
