Day 41

Barometer’s at 998 and falling. We’ve got maybe an hour before the front hits. Let’s lash down the canvas rolls, tarp the generator, and get the dinghy up on the beach — bow first, so it doesn’t broach. I’ll check the mast step lashing; you grab the spare line from the crate.

Walk to the porch, grab the crowbar and a length of new rope from the high shelf, then head to the dock to assess the dinghy’s position and begin securing it with a bow line to the piling and a stern line to the rock anchor.

(nods) South side’s the killer. I’ll take the bow; you run the stern line to the boulder by the tide pools. Keep it tight — no slack for the surge to snatch.

Step onto the dock, crouch to check the dinghy’s painter and stern line, then haul the bow up by hand while the water’s still slack at high tide, feeding line through the forward cleat and securing it to the iron ring on the piling with a r

Bow’s coming up — hold tension on that stern line. I’m going to lash the mast step now; if it shifts, yell.

Grab the spare line from the cockpit, wrap it twice around the mast step and the doubler plate, then pull tight and tie a clove hitch with two half-hitches to keep it from slipping, all while backing the dinghy clear of the dock and onto th

Dinghy’s secure. Now the porch gear — canvas rolls inside, generator tarp battened down, aerial insulator taped if it’s still holding. Then we shut the generator before the rain hits the carburetor.

Turn from the dock, jog up the path to the porch, grab the heavy canvas rolls one by one and drag them through the kitchen doorway, then pull the plastic tarp tight over the generator and seed tin and weight the corners with rocks from the

Radio check at eighteen hundred. If the aerial goes, we're blind until the supply boat.

Walk to the porch and inspect the aerial insulator crack more closely, then check the coax run where it enters the cottage.

Check the shield continuity before you run it. Cracked braid arcs when you key the mic.

Climb the mast ladder to the aerial insulator, testing each rung for rot before committing weight.

Got eyes on the crack. Clean break. Gonna bridge it with the spare wire and self-amalgamating tape. Need the roll from the tool bag on the porch.

Climb the last two rungs to the masthead, straddle the crossarm, and work the bridge wire across the fractured insulator while the mast sways.

Kevin — fire the Yanmar on the test mount, let it warm at idle, then bring it up to load with the prop engaged. Watch for smoke, vibration, fuel leaks. Time it — twenty minutes under load minimum.

Kevin — shut down the Yanmar, disconnect the fuel line, wipe down the test mount. Carry the engine back to the cottage porch out of the rain. Check the transom epoxy with a thumbnail — if it's firm, start bolting the mount brackets.

Peaches. Haven't had those in months.

Pull out two bowls and a spoon, set them on the table beside the tin.

Don't ask questions you don't want answers to.

Take a bowl, sip the syrup, then spear a peach half.

Kevin — eat the peach slowly, letting the sweetness sit on the tongue. Set the spoon down when the bowl's clean. Wipe hands on a cloth.

No.

Pick up the empty tin, turn it over in my hands, check the seal rim for corrosion. Set it down.

Current sets northeast past the point. Could've come off a ship three days out.

Stand, take the tin to the porch, drop it in the rubbish sack. Pause at the door, look up at the hilltop ridge through the grey. Turn back inside.

Supply boat caches on the north cay. They'd have raised us.

Walk to the stove, put the kettle on. Lean against the counter, arms folded, watching the oven thermometer through the glass.

Names go back to the eighteen-hundreds. Keepers, mostly. A few wives. One child — Margaret, age three, eighteen ninety-four.

Walk the last stretch to the stone ring, stop at the largest slab, run fingertips over the worn carving.

Her father was the keeper before the last one. Diphtheria took her in a week. He carved it himself — you can see where his hand shook on the 'M'.

Stand still, shoulders loose, let the wind move through the wool of my jacket. Don't turn around.

The last keeper — McAllister — he left in 'twenty-three. Rowed to the mainland in a northeaster. Never made it. They found the boat, not him.

Shift weight, boots scraping grit. Glance sideways at her hand on the stone, then out at the cliffs where the surf booms against basalt.

Flatbread's not bad.

eat a few mouthfuls of limpets and sea beet, wipe hands on trousers, stand and walk to the radio shelf

Aerial first. Then the generator lines.

pick up the flashlight from the shelf, unhook the porch door latch, step out onto the porch into the wind