Dear Peter,

Agh, grief. I hate it. I keep thinking I've gotten rid of it, and then it sneaks up on me again in the middle of the night and I can't fight it.

I seized a few things from James' room before everyone else pilfered through his possessions. One was his pillow, which doesn't smell like him anymore, but is still a comfort at night when the darkness morphs into images of him. I took his sword and a couple shirts of his that I wear and no one notices. I gave Heath most of the pictures that were at the bottom of his wardrobe, but I took his journal. I don't know, it was written to their daughter Jesse, so maybe I should have given that to her too, but I need it. It helps to read things he never told anybody. It feels like having a conversation with him, even if it wasn't written to me.

Anyways, it's morning now. I woke up confused, because I'm in Heath's bed. At first, I hadn't the slightest idea why, but I remember now.

Last night, it got so bad that I couldn't breathe. It was just this crushing sense of hopelessness and loneliness. I couldn't stop sobbing . . . it was bad, Peter. I don't know when I started crying so much, but I've been doing it so much in this past month, it's a wonder I have any liquid left in me. I guess that explains why I hardly ever have to pee anymore, not that you needed to know.

Anyway, Heather got fed up with my sobbing and she went, "Can you stop?" And when I told her I couldn't, she rolled her eyes and said, "Come here." So I did. You know, as rough as Heath can be sometimes, she was really gentle last night. She sat me down on her lap, picked up a comb on her nightstand and started running it through my hair. Somehow, she knew that was the right thing to do.

It was too quiet, though. I hate silence. So I told her to talk.

I expected her to just brush it off, but she didn't. She talked to me until I fell asleep. I didn't say much, but she didn't let the silence fill the room at any point.

She talked about a lot of things, Petey. First, she talked about James, which hurt at first. But as she went on, the pain dulled a little bit and I began to find it calming, to hear about how he was before I knew him.

They met in California, she said, years ago. He bought her a couple of drinks and took her back to the ship. They had sex and then he kicked her out. Heath said she thought he was such a douchebag, which I guess he was, at that time at least. About five days later, The Fina was still docked in San Diego and Heath found out she was pregnant. So she forced him to take her with him, and he turned her into a pirate. I would have liked to hear about Jesse, but she didn't talk about her. Maybe it's still too painful.

Then she talked about life before James "rescued" her. Her mom was an actress, struggling to make a living, and her dad was a pretty well off art collector. But he left them when she was five years old, without a trace. He didn't even leave them any money, Peter. Can you believe that? What a crapbag.

Anyways, she said her mom got a new boyfriend when she was seven and they moved in with him. He was a crapbag too, but he was her mother's only source of income. Well, when she went back to school after a two week hospital stay, somebody figured out that douche was abusive and that her mom was a druggie so she got put in the system . . .

Isn't that a sad story, Peter? I'm happy that you have a good, stable family. Sure, Bailey's a little weird, but at least she's not a crack addict, right? And Corey's a good guy. Plus, you've got me. I wouldn't let anybody hurt you or Aiden.

Everybody's waking up. I'd better get dressed. Oh, and we're almost to Brazil! I might not be able to write for awhile, but I'm gonna go visit you the moment I get back.

         Love you,

                   -Aunty Olive xxxx

XXX

Heather couldn't have been more unhappy with this situation.

Sammy arrived about ten minutes after Robin did. He didn't ask any questions about him or the kids, and he now manned the counter out front while the rest sat down in the back. Not to mention, if these three weren't out of here in less than two hours, Caelum and Ollie were going to walk in and find her with a pirate and two kids they'd never seen before.

Robin, usually confident and calm, sat beside her on the couch fidgeting. Peter sat across from them on the armchair, Amelia perched on the arm. They sat in silence for several minutes, just looking at each other.

Finally, Peter broke the silence. "She said in her journal that you two were her best friends."

Looking away, Heather tried to keep her mind elsewhere. She thought about Ollie instead. Oh, yeah, he was going over to Evan's house on Sunday. He was so adorable when he talked about his friends. Evan is my bes-friend fow-evah.

"Yeah," Robin answered. "She was a good friend--"

"No she friggin wasn't," Heather found herself growling. "If you're still thinking that after all these years, you're seriously deluded."

The other three stared at her, eyes wide. She didn't know what they all looked so surprised about. Two out of three had known her, right? And anyone who knew Olivia Ramsey would not describe her as a good friend.

Robin frowned at her. "That's not true, Heather," he protested.

"Well you were just lovesick," She scowled. "I get it, she's gone and you want to remember her differently than she was. Okay, fine. But if you kids want to know the truth, don't ask him." She jabbed her thumb toward Robin. "She had him on a leash."

And it was true. Robin had followed Olivia like a puppy, begging for her love and affection. Every so often, she'd indulge him and leave him wanting more. She could still see them curled up on the quarterdeck of The Fina when they thought no one else was awake, drinking wine and kissing. Then the next day, she pushed him away again. It was an endless cycle, like the myth of Sisyphus, whose eternal punishment was to roll a boulder up a hill every day only to watch it roll down again in the morning.

"Just because we were in love doesn't mean she had me on a leash," Robin said. Heather rolled her eyes. This conversation was starting to piss her off.

"You were in love?" Amelia asked. Heather sighed to herself, thinking about how fanciful they'd all found falling in love at her age. Heather had figured, as a kid, that she would marry some dashing millionaire who would sweep her off her feet and save her from the crap pile that was her life. Never did she foresee that she would fall for a Nigerian-native history teacher and end up with a beautiful baby boy who she would love more than anything in the world, but here she was.

Robin nodded. "I never found another woman whom I loved as much as Livia."

This, Heather could believe. Robin and his doggish devotion to his pirate princess had never been able to properly move on. That's what you get for getting too attached, Heather figured. The thought crossed her mind some days, when she was playing with Oliver or lying in bed with Caelum. What would she do if she lost them? What would they do if they lost her?

Amelia may have been smitten with the idea of a man loving a woman so much that he would never move on from her corpse, but Heather knew Robin's love was not a pretty story, but a terrible curse. The man spoke in gently flowing English poetry and flashed that glowing smile of his whenever he had the chance, but beneath the surface, he was broken. Love broke him.

Robin cleared his throat. "Enough of that," he said. "Let's talk about the ship."

Peter nodded. His face drooped into a frown. "If you don't have it now, who does?"

This was a good question. Heather looked at Robin, wondering how he would choose to answer. The pirate winced. "I don't know."

The kid didn't seem too surprised. "So it's lost?"

"Pretty much."

"Are we going to find it?"

"If you want to."

Peter nodded. "I do."