I looked out across the western shore, sitting on the dock as the cold waves nudged against the rubber soles of my boots. Caked with the mud from the Castletownsend market grounds and smelling of freshly cut bracken, spices, vegetables, and especially fish, I tucked my jacket closer and shivered in the morning's windy awakening.

No complaints for the cold, I thought bemusedly. Any shivering was due entirely on my own account: my feet were slightly wet, as the liquid found ways through the holes created by wear and age. A habit picked up as a child, never full stamped out by my father, ages ago.

Coughing slightly in my hands and rubbing them absentmindedly, I looked out once more, squinting in vain to look for a mast, a sail, anything that resembled a ship

Far too distracted to hear footsteps approach.

“I don't know why you keep coming out here Robert.”

I sigh, repeating lines in a dance of words that have gone on in the same fashion for nearly three months, “Because I made a promise O'Mally, ‘ya sod. A promise.”

The familiar click of dissatisfaction followed by a swallowing of whiskey from a flask was the reply. Brennan Duignan O'Mally was a man that spoke his mind between profuse amounts of alcohol. The general consensus among the other men working the docks or boats was that it was something he inherited from his father. At least, that was how he obtained the flask. The silence, as always, was temporary at best.

“He's not coming back Robby,” the voice stated in a far gentler tone.

“He will someday,” my declaration more automatic than firm.

I could sense the hand reaching for my shoulder before it even made its way halfway there.

“He's my son!” I shouted, knocking away the arm in one swift motion, emoting more grief than malice in the measure.

The grim silence returned, followed by a groan as Brennan sat beside me, his eyes glazed over the nearby thin line of fog where the earth met the sky. I often was perplexed by how I befriended this man, who was often the subject of ridicule after losing his boat to shallow water and drunkenness two years before. I suppose it was due to the fact that we were both failures in a way. We each possess different levels of defeat in our maligned senses of honor and dignity as men. He failed his family, losing both his wife and his son in one fell swoop after that fateful day of alcohol induced irresponsibility.

Another sip from the flask.

“She wrote me last week,” he added, somewhat following my thoughts in his usual uncanny perceptiveness that the moonshine brings to him. “Took his first steps ‘bout a month back. Me boy.”

Every so often she writes to him, but the letters are sporadic at best.

I suppose it's my turn now.

“I don't know why I still look ‘Bren. I suppose it's that irrational side of me that keeps me coming every morning after I haul in my catch. I'm old now, I have the time. Willy carries most of it up for me, and does the dealing with the market folk. I never was good at business. Patrick was.”

“Ah, Patrick. The whole reason for this mess,” Bren muttered between sips. “You still think he's out there then? Somehow alive after that storm three months ago?”

“A promise is a promise.”

The click returned this time, harsher. The swig from the flask was longer as well. Just as he was good at being blunt, the man could ram his feelings down the gullet without even saying a word.

“And the promise, yes. The promise. All I can get out of you. What exactly is this promise?”

A momentary pause. This is the point where I usually shut down; shut myself away from Brennan and the outside world. Just as he failed his family, I failed my son. Patrick. My only son. He was the sole remnant of any significance that recorded the existence of my wife Maggie and our union. She's gone now, long gone, but my son was my crutch. He was my reminder and connection to life.

That line was cut three months ago.

A torrential storm ripped apart the coastline, stretching out as far into the water as it did over land. A team of boats was caught out on the increasingly violent waters created by the imposing squall. Patrick led a small rescue party out to intercept and claim whatever survivors they could from what would be a terrible disaster. Instead, they only disappeared into the oblivion that the storm generated. Instead of saving a few lives, nothing returned but items of clothing and miscellaneous flotsam bobbing near the docks.

“You don't usually stay quiet this long,” he said.

“I don't usually think this long,” I said with a grin. “I suppose I can tell you now. Hell, there's no harm in it.”

He put away the flask and stared off into the fog again, “I'm all ears sir, on what little honor is left in me bones.”

“Patrick and I always had a promise. If either of us were lost and they could never bring us back whole, we'd share some time together out here and talk.”

The reply was quiet but understanding, “Ah. So you weren't waiting.”

“Perhaps I was sir, perhaps I am. These small moments in the morning keep me going, keeps giving me a purpose. A reason to step out each day and breath the air and enjoy my work and life. My wife is gone, and so is my son. But Bren, you see, they never are truly gone unless you kill them here,” I said gently, tapping first at my head and then at my chest. “As long as they're alive there, they'll never truly be gone.”

"I never took you to be a religious man Robert.”

I laughed at that for a moment, and then replied with an equally inquisitive tone, “and I never took you to be someone who listened very often. But no, it isn't religion exactly...what I believe. It's faith, pure and simple. Something I inherited from my father besides his debt. In a way…in a way that was a better gift than he could have ever given me.”

This time it was Brennan's turn to laugh, rising from his sitting position and reproducing the flask, taking a large taste and saying, “gods Robert, I haven't had faith in ages. But it's good that between the two of us, one of us does. I'm heading back to market to make sure I'm not cheated out of some coin.”

I waved him away, but instead of the usual retreat to the market to purchase some fish and whiskey he stayed behind for a moment. I looked up at him, and noticed his face was lined with emotion. Something that usually never blemished his placid features.

“Something wrong Bren?”

He blinked for a moment, and shuffled his feet. I finally noticed that he was handling the recent correspondence from his wife in his hand. The edges were already wearing a bit: he must have read it dozens of times, if not more. Never before had I seen a man so stern and caustic in his demeanor cry. I suspect I never would again.

“S-so…um…” he stuttered, “T-Try to have enough for both of us eh?”

I nodded absently, “I will Brennan.”

I could hear him walking away, the usual force in his steps reduced to a beleaguered tapping against the ancient wood below.

“I promise.”

The footsteps stopped for a moment. I then heard him screw the flask closed, easing it back into his pocket.

“Thank you Robert.”

Perhaps a promise is truly enough.

After his form disappeared back into the fog, the sound of his footsteps followed. I turned back to the horizon and produced a flask of my own, though less used and produced than Brennan's. Standing up, I raised it to the heavens, and muttered something that has become a prayer of sorts over the past three months. As always, my voice betrayed me in a quiver or two. This time, however, I ammended the prayer for two instead of one.

“Here's to you Patrick. Here's to you my boy. You may have saved some of us after all.”

After taking a small sip, I poured a portion into the water. I sealed up the flask and put it back into my pocket, thinking silently to myself all the way back home.

Maybe this time he'll be waiting for me. If he isn't, I know he is somewhere.

And I know I'll see him again.