Rachel and Bren have been sweethearts since she was fifteen.  Now eighteen, she moved into his cottage two months ago bringing Mary-Beth, her dooryard milk cow, with her. 

Tonight the couple sits in battered Morris Chairs, their feet touching on a single footstool before a turf fire.  An unlit oil lamp is on the mantelpiece.  The fire casts the only light in the room.  There are books on the arms of Rachel’s chair and on the floor beside it. Bren is packing a pipe, Rachel knitting. Centred on the wall above the mantle is a St. Brigid’s Cross, nothing more.  An oak cabinet stands against the wall on their right.  To the left, the kitchen door is open and warmth from the stove adds to that from their fire. In the shadow beside the door a ladder goes to the loft.  Behind them the Dutch door is latched tight, the windows curtained.  Outside, a gale is blowing up, battering out of the Atlantic to rattle windows and frighten poor Mary-Beth, alone in her stall.  The cottage is tidy, clean, and spare.  It smells of warm bread and fish stew.

          Lighting his pipe with exaggerated care, twenty-year-old Bren clears his throat ceremoniously and says, “Your dad and me were havin’ a word today, man-to-man.”

          Rachael smiles and says, “That’s a lot of talk for the two of you.  You mostly just wet your throats and fill your pipes.”

          “Don’t tease, Rach.  This is serious between us. I want to know your thinking.  He’s getting on and ye have no brothers.  Donal’s enlisted in the navy.  Your dad needs help.  His hooker’s a fine fisher, she’s beamy and yar, but he can’t fish her alone.  He wants us to be his partner.  There’s a bit he could teach me as well.  He’s fished the Grand Bank all his life.”

          “And what will you do with your catboat?”

          “I’d keep her for a while anyway. My cousin Sean wants her.  He’s coming home soon.  He’ll have a bit of money. We might work something out.”

          “And you and Dad would be partners, share and share alike?”

          “Him not havin’ a son.  A man needs a son.”

          “He hasn’t minded working me like one all my life since mom died.”

          “Yes, but you’re a woman now, not a girl to run after your dad.  Anyhow, I told him we’d talk about it.”

          “About him needing a son and me being a woman!”

          “No, Rach, your dad thinks we should be married proper.”

          Rachel snaps her head toward Bren, eyebrows raised “Did the two of you think you might talk to me about that?”

          Ben shakes his head and tugs his beard.  “That’s what I’m doing.”

          “If you want to marry me, Bren, you’ve got to say so, not my dad.”

          “I do, Rachael, I do.  You know that.”

          “And when were you thinking of telling me that Brendan Moran?”

          Rising to make his point, “Just now.  You’re a fine woman and I love you like fish love the sea.  I asked your dad about marrying you.”  Realising this addition doesn’t improve his effort at mitigation, Brendan stops and sits back down.  “I know I should have asked you first, but … well, I dunno, I was pretty sure you would.”

          Rachel pauses, smiles and shakes her head.  “That’s not much better, Brendan.  About that son a man needs, were you speaking for yourself there or were you still thinking about you being a son to my dad?”

          Brendan takes both her hands.  “I want a family, Rach.  I want my children with you.”

          “Much better, then we better talk to Father Seamus.”

          Brendan sits down and looks chastised, “You’ll do that, won’t you Rach?  He sails into me every time our paths cross.  I haven’t confessed since I left grade school.   I swear the man hunts me down.  He’s the devil on his push bike for popping up just when I least expect him.  I can’t go to confession after so long.”

          “For the love of God, Bren, what do you have to confess that he hasn’t already heard from me?”

          Cornered again, Brendan sighs. “I’ll go.”  He’d rather face the old priest than try to escape Rachel’s fierce logic.

          “Tomorrow – Then we’ll ask him to marry us.”

          Brendan returns to his pipe, puffing up a great, celebratory cloud of smoke; feeling he’s navigated these uncharted shoals to a snug harbour.  Rachel can be tetchy.  Rachel returns to her knitting for a few stitches, then says, “When you sell your catboat to your cousin, we’ll need to buy a few things.”

          “What do we need that we don’t have already?  We’re fine here.  I thought I might get a new suit of sails for the hooker.”

          “We’ll be needing a suit of sails for the baby, Brendan.”

          “Baby?”

          “He might be that son a man needs, but then she may be a daughter to keep me company.  We don’t get to choose, Bren.  A baby – we’re having one of our own.”

          “A baby?”

          “Come up to the loft, slow coach, and I’ll explain things to you.”

          “My baby!”

“Our baby.  It took the both of us, Bren.”   Rising, Rachel smiles and leans over his back to nuzzle him on the side of his woolly chin.  “Would you like a mug of tea, sweetheart?”

Rising and almost breathless, he says, “You sit, Rach, I’ll get it.”  He pauses, “Is there any whiskey in the house?”