Bruno
I give the captain orders to leave the port immediately, I can't risk being in this damn place for another minute. Kaled knows by now where we're heading, it's only a matter of time before he sends more guards our way.
As soon as the engines start, I walk to the stern of the ship with Ben; his little arms are wrapped around my neck; it feels like a tiny little thing next to my size, so fragile, so cute.
After a while, I can finally watch the water with some peace of mind, I take a deep breath and I try to calm my breathing.
“The sea,” points Ben with his stubby little index finger. He’s buried in my neck.
“Do you know what the name of this sea is?” I ask, obviously, he doesn't know, but I have to start a conversation with the child, I need information and I know I have to star with easy questions.
He shakes his head quickly, hitting my jaw a little.
“This is the red sea.”
“Red?” he asks, leaving the comfort of my neck. “It's not red! It's blue!” he looks truly baffle.
Now, I don't have to explain to the boy the origins of the Red Sea's name, I would have to say complex words like the seat contains a cyanobacteria called Trichodesmium erythraeum, which turns the normally blue-green water a reddish-brown, so I'll just play along.
“Well, the man who named it decided to call it that.”
“But that's silly, he doesn't know the colors!”
“I know.” I chuckle.
His head returns to the space between my neck and my shoulder.
“How much longer till we get home?” he asks with his tiny voice.
“Well Ben, we still have a long way to go, you’ll have to be patient.”
He quickly pushes down, like he’s desperate to touch the floor.
Do kids always sneak out like that? Damn.
He starts walking around the boat and I feel I'm about to have a panic attack for every step he takes near the edge.
Being a parent must be very stressful.
“Ben, please be careful, don't fall off.”
“I won't, I'll sit here,” he explains as he tries to aim his butt into a turn old bucket. He looks at his target from between his legs and when he is sure enough that his butt is going to land on a safe surface, he sits down.
I look at him for a few seconds, holding back the laughter.
“Ben, do you remember how you got to that horrible place?”
He looks at me closely and thinks for a second. I know that because he’s placing a finger on his cheek, like a grown-up.
For God's sake.
“They took me away.” he says without clarifying absolutely nothing.
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Mom told me to wait in the car, she said she just had to leave something in the mail, but a man got into Mom's car and took me somewhere else. I…I explained to him that it was Mom's car, that it wasn't his car, I thought he had made a mistake, but then I realized that it was a bad man."
“How did you figure it out?” I don't want to know, but at the same time I need to.
