Lee would remember nearly everything. He would remember that the day had been very routine: he had gone, as usual, to watch the fishermen haul in their catch, and then he had rescued Sarah from a bone-crushing giant who had wanted to turn her into delectable stew. Sarah, despite her persistent fear of all things Lee adored (frogs, dragonflies, grasshoppers, fighting…), was always brilliant at being in distress, and even more brilliant at being rescued. Lee would remember her dogged resistance to mussing her dress, and laughing with her while the minnows nibbled at their toes.

He would also remember the distinct sound of wood splintering as half a dozen cutlass hilts battered the workshop door. He would remember the shrill neighing of the horses as the stable was breached, and the piercing clang of the village alarm bell that hadn’t been used for years even before he was born. He was only five, but he would always be able to recall the quaking of his mother’s heart as she held him still, hidden in the attic in the largest trunk. He had been afraid, but he knew. This wasn’t pretend anymore. And if Lee wanted to be anything when he grew up, it was a hero.

And so the little boy broke away from his mother’s protective grasp and ran down the attic steps to the workshop floor, but by then the scarred faces and tattooed limbs of the bad men were lifeless, and his father had gone out into the street with the rifle that was supposed to stay always on its two hooks above the fireplace. Halting in the doorway where the heavy oak door hung by one last broken hinge, Lee saw the fishing boats burning, and followed with wide eyes the long strides of the tallest man he had ever seen. Rain dripped from his jacket and the plumed feather of his hat, and the scabbard belted to his waist nearly dragged on the ground. Slung across his broad shoulders was Sarah.

The bakery exploded in a column of flame, showering the buildings nearby with burning rubble. Lee saw the baker running, running, to reach the tall man, and he called Sarah’s name, but his voice was carried away on an ashen wind and his breath knocked out of his body by the impact of the grenade blast that would leave him, for the next three days, temporarily blind. Lee would remember. It was only a matter of minutes-- a clap of thunder, a glimpse of an outstretched hand. And then, darkness.

But Luke would only remember, when he grew older, his father’s shadow outlined in a flash of lightning in the doorway to his bedroom. The island had been lashed by howling winds and torrents of rain for days now, and all the ships in the cove were being tossed about like his own paper boats in the washtub. Luke would also remember, faintly, that the smell of fire and smoke clung to his father and then to himself as he was taken from bed. He wouldn’t remember seeing his mother, that night. He wouldn’t remember any of the other men, or the tall trees lying broken and black along the road down to the harbor. He wouldn’t remember anything but the view from the porthole in the Captain’s cabin, and the little girl huddled asleep beneath it. “Your sister,” his father had said, and then he was gone, out into the storm.