No Regrets

ship was called into service as part of the Merchant Marine fleet. The
Andrea Luckenbach
was ordered to rendezvous with other vessels during the invasion of North Africa.
    But that was not to be. The massive ship never made the invasion. Rolf Neslund would have the dubious record for most times torpedoed. The
Andrea F. Luckenbach
took a hit from a submarine and sank, taking twenty-one of his men to their deaths far below. Although many people were unaware of it, those serving in the Merchant Marine had a higher mortality rate than those in any of the armed forces, losing one out of every twenty men to enemy attacks. But not Rolf Neslund. Once again, he survived unscathed.
    Undeterred, Rolf moved to another Luckenbach ship and commanded it and others anywhere he was needed. On one trip from South Africa to Brazil, he and his men saved the entire crew of a company boat that was sunk seventy miles off the Cape of Good Hope.
    By the time the war ended in 1945, Rolf was in his mid-forties, still a long way from retirement. He had finally had enough of life on the ocean, however, and became a Puget Sound pilot again. When he finally retired from the Puget Sound Pilots’ Association thirty-four years later hewould do so as the oldest—and, arguably, most beloved— member in their history.
    Blond and ruddy, Rolf Neslund was a ladies’ man—at least when he was in port long enough to meet women. He looked a great deal like a movie star of the forties: Paul Henreid, the actor most remembered for lighting two cigarettes at once in a three-handkerchief movie entitled
Now Voyager.
Henreid’s character handed one smoldering cigarette to sloe-eyed Bette Davis in a movie scene considered one of the most romantic of all time. It was the kind of gesture Rolf was capable of, too.
    When Rolf wore his captain’s uniform with four gold stripes on his left sleeve, his cap loaded with more gold braid and insignia, he was handsome enough to rival any screen hero. This was the man who had dazzled eleven-year-old Elinor and who fascinated her again as an attractive grown woman.
    Rolf Neslund was a man full of the lust for life, one with scores of friends, and he took the time and trouble to keep his friendships alive. For many years, he sent out 550 Christmas cards, painstakingly addressing them himself. He also made sure that elderly friends and relatives had birthday cards each year. Everyone liked him.
    Margot Neslund became chronically ill, and Rolf persuaded Elinor to move in with them in their home north of Seattle. Margot needed someone to care for her, and who better than her own sister? Elinor had grown up to become a willowy blonde, quite pretty in a quiet way.
    Rolf was a virile man and the forced celibacy that came about because of his wife’s long illness was proving difficult for him. He was in his fifties when Elinor moved intothe Neslund home. Rolf was not blind to Elinor’s attractiveness and he saw that she watched him when she didn’t think he was aware of it.
    It was probably inevitable that Rolf and Elinor would become intimate, living so close together, each of them longing for passion and sexual fulfillment. Whether Rolf’s wife was aware in the beginning that her sister and her husband were having an affair is questionable. She probably knew and chose to look away. But Elinor took good care of Margot, and the first Mrs. Neslund may have made up her mind to leave things alone and pretend not to see. At least for a time.
    By the time Margot Neslund finally realized the affair wasn’t going to end and filed for divorce, Elinor was pregnant, an obvious condition that made it impossible for Margot to rationalize her suspicions away.
    While the Neslund divorce was in the works, Elinor held her head up, ignoring the buzz of local gossips. She and Rolf were married in Finland that year—1958—and she gave birth to a son, and named him after his father: Rolf. Two years later, she was pregnant with a second son, Erik. At sixty, Rolf Neslund was the father of two young boys.
    Elinor was living temporarily in Norway, and Rolf was often working as a ship’s pilot in one faraway port or another. What Elinor didn’t know—nor, perhaps, did Rolf— was that she and Rolf were not legally married. At the time of their Finnish wedding ceremony, Rolf’s divorce from Margot was not yet final.
    Elinor had high hopes for their marriage when Rolf sent for her and little Rolf to come to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She