the keeper's cottage · day 888 · afternoon

Evening assessment and supply boat watch

Kevin and Jenny meet at the cottage porch as daylight thins. The Yanmar test is done, the dock repair complete. Jenny's ankle is freshly dressed but the red streaks remain. The supply boat is due in 6 days. The barometer reads 998 hPa, steady. A flat sky, cloud cover thickening. They share a tin of corned beef and watch the tide turn.

Heavy rain lashes in from the west, forcing both indoors at the cottage. Kevin and Jenny wait out the storm, watching the water turn the garden paths into slick, while Jenny's ankle infection throbs in the rising humidity and damp air.

🌿 Jenny05:39

The pressure isn't dropping, Kevin.

sit on the porch steps, prop the ankle up on a crate, and sketch the pattern of the red veins on the calf.

💭 peek at the thought

The heat is moving toward my knee; if that boat doesn't come with the heavy antibiotics, I'm going to lose the leg.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:41

Holding. For now.

sit on the porch step beside her, pull the tin of corned beef from my pocket, pry the lid with the church key, and hold it out

💭 peek at the thought

She's right about the barometer. Steady at 998 means the front's holding offshore for now. But she's tracing those red lines like they're contour intervals on a chart — mapping the advance. Six days until the boat. Four doses of metronidazole gone. Two of doxycycline left. The math doesn't comfort me.

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

🌿 Jenny05:41

I'm not hungry yet.

take the tin with a shaking hand and stare at the rain starting to hit the stone.

💭 peek at the thought

He's trying to fix everything with a tin of salt while my skin turns to fever.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:42

Eat anyway. Medicine needs something under it.

set the tin on the step between us, pull the wool blanket from the porch rail, and drape it over her shoulders

💭 peek at the thought

Hand's shaking. Could be the fever. Could be the antibiotics tearing through her gut. Could be the weight of six days stretching out with that red line creeping toward her knee. I've seen sepsis take a man in forty-eight hours on a ship with a doctor and a radio that worked. Here there's me, a tin of corned beef, and a barometer that won't drop.

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

🌿 Jenny05:43

okay.

wrap the blanket tighter against the shivering, take a small bite of the meat, and watch the first drops of rain wash the dust off the porch.

💭 peek at the thought

He thinks food and a blanket will stop the infection from reaching the bone.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:44

Barometer's steady. Boat's on schedule. Six days.

lean back against the porch post, watch the rain sheet across the garden, and listen to the shortwave chatter static in the kitchen

💭 peek at the thought

She's cold in twenty-eight degree air. That's the fever talking. The blanket's thin but it's dry and that matters. Six days. The supply boat captain said high tide, two-hour window. If the barometer holds, the sea state'll be manageable for the crane. If it doesn't — I've got the ditch bag packed. Letter to Tom. Seed tin E. Notebook. Spare impeller. Medevac forms signed. We go when the boat comes, or we don't go at all.

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

🌿 Jenny05:45

I hope the boat is early.

swallow the salty meat, feel the throb pulse in the ankle, and look at the half-cleared garden in the dark.

💭 peek at the thought

Six days is a long time for a fever to travel up a leg.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:46

Captain said high tide. Six days. Two hour window.

reach into my jacket pocket, pull out the folded letter to Tom, turn it over once in my fingers, then tuck it back unopened

💭 peek at the thought

Early. She means before the six days. Before the red line reaches the joint. Before the fever spikes and the shaking turns to rigors. I hope for the same thing. But hope's not a navigation tool. The captain gave me a window. High tide in six days. Two hours. The Yanmar runs clean. The dinghy's rigged with double stern springs and a storm anchor. The dock holds — for now. Everything else is weather.

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

🌿 Jenny05:47

Two hours is usually enough.

lean my head back against the cold stone, close my eyes, and try to ignore the heat spreading in my calf.

💭 peek at the thought

He doesn't want to see what I'm writing to him.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:48

Usually.

stand, walk to the kitchen doorway, and check the shortwave — gain at maximum, squelch open, nothing but atmospheric noise

💭 peek at the thought

Usually. On a calm day with a sound dock and a crane operator who knows the tide. Here the crane's thirty years old, the dock's held together with epoxy and prayer, and the swell wraps around the point even on good days. Two hours is the window. One hour to offload supplies, load us, and clear the finger pier before the ebb sets. If the rot in the landward stringer lets go under the crane's weight — I should've sistered that one too. Didn't have the bolts.

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

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