The sea is very good at taking things from us: ships, men, and promises. But every now and then, it gives something back. I'm Captain John Harlow, and this is Letters from the Sea. This letter was written by a merchant sailor named Nathan Cole to his wife, Rebecca, after his ship found a little girl alone in the North Atlantic. She was seven years old, and around her neck she carried a key to a door that no longer existed. The letter. My dearest Rebecca, there is a little girl aboard our ship as I write this. Her name is Lucy. Three days ago, none of us knew she existed. Now every man aboard seems to know where she is at every moment, whether she has eaten, and when she last smiled. She was aboard a passenger ship called the Adelaide, which went down during a storm three nights ago. We began finding wreckage shortly after sunrise: broken crates, pieces of railing, and a chair with one leg missing. Then one of the men heard someone crying. Lucy was clinging to a cabin door floating in the water. She had tied one arm through the handle so she wouldn't slip away if she fell asleep. She was cold when we pulled her aboard, Rebecca. So cold that she had stopped shivering, but she was alive. Of the others, we found no one. For the first day, she would not speak. She sat beneath the forward stairs wrapped in my coat, watching every man who passed her. Then Thompson brought her some bread. She ate half and hid the rest inside my coat pocket. I found it there in the evening, hard as a piece of timber. When I asked why she had saved it, she said, In case tomorrow doesn't have any more. I didn't know what to say to that. So now I bring her a little more than she can eat at every meal. She still hides a little, but not as much. She wears a brass key on a cord around her neck. She says it belonged to the door of her house. Her mother tied it there before she sailed and told her that as long as she had that key, she could always come home. Lucy asked me yesterday whether I believed that was true. I told her that mothers generally know more than sailors. That seemed to satisfy her. She follows me about the ship now, quiet as a shadow, except when she laughs. The men have taken to competing over who can make her laugh the most. Even old Thompson stood on a barrel and sang a song about marrying a haddock. It was a terrible old song. Lucy laughed until she cried. I wish you could have heard it. Last night. She found the photograph of you that I keep inside my sea chest. She studied it for a long time and asked who you were. I told her that that is my wife, Rebecca. Then she asked, Is she your home? I nearly told her that home was that little house at the end of Willow Lane, the one with the leaking gutter and the gate that never closes. But I looked at your face in that photograph, and I understood what she meant. So I said, Yes, you are my home, Rebecca. And now I must ask you something that I have written three times and scratched out twice. There is no aunt waiting for Lucy, no grandparents that anyone can find. When we reach St. John's, they intend to place her in the care of the parish until someone decides where she belongs. But when she is frightened, she reaches for my hand. And each night before she sleeps, she asks whether tomorrow we're bringing her food. Rebecca, I know we have little. I know the roof still leaks above the kitchen, and I know the spare room is hardly large enough for a proper bed. But I also know that there is a curtain folded inside your sewing basket because you once said it would look pretty in a child's room. Perhaps I am asking too much. Perhaps the sea has put foolish thoughts into the head of a tired old man. But if you can find room in your heart and in our home, I would like to bring Lucy back with me. She has a key, Rebecca. She only needs a door. Your loving husband, Nathan. Rebecca's answer reached Nathan before his ship began the final voyage home. Her letter contained only one sentence: Bring our daughter home. When Nathan and Lucy stepped ashore, Rebecca was waiting on the dock. Lucy stopped several feet away and stared at her. Then she took Nathan's photograph from her pocket and looked at the woman's face in the picture again, and looked at Rebecca and said, Are you my home? And Rebecca knelt before her and said, Yes, if you'd like me to be. Lucy's key never opened a door again, but Rebecca hung it beside their door where it remained. This has been Letters from the Sea. I'm Captain John Harlow. Join me again next time when we open a new letter, and until then, may the wind be kind and may it always carry you home.
