the keeper's cottage · day 348 · afternoon

Midday Heat

The heavy air hangs motionless over the island as the tide begins its slow retreat. Kevin looks toward the horizon while Jenny monitors the rising heat in the skin around her ankle.

The evening heat lingers, heavy and humid, as the trade wind begins to lose strength. Inside the cottage, Jenny sits at the kitchen table, the letter crumpled in her shaking hand, her face flushed with the persistent heat of fever. Kevin watches her, the weight of their isolation pressing between them in the silence of the room punctuated only by the distant lap of the rising tide.

🔧 Kevin06:35

You need to stay off it. Proper off it. Porch only until I say different.

walk up to the porch and set a hand on her shoulder, checking the red line's progress with my eyes

💭 peek at the thought

The tide's turning. Good. Means the dock work held. Means the crossing window's opening if the barometer keeps climbing. But Jenny's ankle — that heat spreading past the calf — that's the real clock ticking. Six days until the supply boat. If the antibiotics don't turn it by morning, I'm not waiting for the helicopter.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:36

I'm not going anywhere, Kevin. The dock needs to hold.

I flinch away as he touches me, leaning back against the whitewashed stone to hide the tremor in my hand.

💭 peek at the thought

He thinks a hand on my shoulder stops the infection from climbing. It feels like lead weight added to the fire in my skin.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:37

The dock held. I checked it at high tide. Ring's fast, wedges seated, doubler plate bolted. It's not going anywhere.

crouch down to eye level with her ankle, lifting the trouser leg gently to see the spread without forcing her to move

💭 peek at the thought

She's lying to both of us. The tremor, the flinch, the way she's breathing — that's not a sprain talking. That's sepsis knocking. And she's worried about the dock ring.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:37

I know you checked. The boat is in six days; I can manage the walk if it makes it there.

I pull my leg away from his reach, my fingers bunching the fabric of my pants to hide the angry red streaks.

💭 peek at the thought

He's looking at it like it's a rot on a board, not part of my body.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:39

The blister pack's empty. That was the last of the antibiotics. Your fever held 38.1 all day yesterday. The red line's at your groin, Jen. That's not "managing." That's dying.

stay crouched, not reaching for her leg again, letting the silence carry the weight

💭 peek at the thought

She's hiding it. Actively hiding it. The streaks are past the knee now — I saw that much before she yanked away. Six days. She thinks she can walk to the dock in six days. She can't walk to the spring right now. The antibiotics are done. The blister pack was empty yesterday. Coast guard said three days minimum for the helicopter. She's gambling her life on a supply boat that might not show.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:39

I have to finish the survey. I didn't finish the garden.

I look away from him, focusing on the half-weeds behind the cottage until my eyes blur.

💭 peek at the thought

If I stop moving, the infection will swallow me. I can't die with those seeds in the tin.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:41

The survey's logged. Carex transect complete. Sea beet morphology done. Seed transects recorded. The trust has what they need.

reach into my pocket and pull out the folded letter, holding it out to her without a word

💭 peek at the thought

The garden. The survey. The notebook pages. She's counting tasks like they're days, like finishing them buys time. The half-weeds. The sensory garden she drew up eleven months ago that never got built. She's not afraid of dying — she's afraid of leaving it undone. And I let her. Eleven months I stood beside her talking about what we'd build, and the garden's still half weeds because I didn't build it either.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:41

I didn't ask you to help.

I take the letter with a shaking hand, crumpling the edges in my palm.

💭 peek at the thought

He's taking the work away from me because I can't hold the pencil.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:43

I didn't write it for help. I wrote it because Tom's birthday's in five days and I don't know if the supply boat comes before or after. Read it or don't. But the helicopter's not coming in six days. The coast guard logged it — three days minimum once the squall breaks. The barometer's rising. No squall breaking. Which means we're on our own.

stand up slow, joints stiff, and walk to the radio shelf to check the battery charge on the shortwave

💭 peek at the thought

She didn't ask. That's the problem. Neither of us asks. Tom didn't ask either — I just left, and the argument settled into silence like sediment. The letter's got three lines in it. Two crossed out. The third says: I'm still here. She's crumpling it like it's already a eulogy.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:43

I can walk to the spring.

I grip the edge of the kitchen table, the wood rough under my sweaty palms.

💭 peek at the thought

Six days. The boat won't get here before the red line hits my heart.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:45

You can't make the head. Let alone the spring.

walk to the cool box, open it, press the cold pack to my wrist — still some chill left, not much — then carry it to her and press it against the back of her neck where the lymph nodes are swelling

💭 peek at the thought

The spring's two hundred metres. Uphill. She can't make the porch steps without gripping the table. Her knuckles are white, sweat beading at her hairline, and she's bargaining with me like it's a mechanic's dispute over torque specs. The infection's in her blood. No antibiotics left. The cool box has the cold pack — warming. No way to refreeze it. I could run the generator to power the freezer compartment, but that's fuel we need for the crossing. For the radio. For the Yanmar if we have to motor out.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny06:45

I'm not a specimen yet.

I lean my head back against the ice, closing my eyes against the throb in my leg.

💭 peek at the thought

The cold feels good for a second, but the fire is still underneath.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.