Chapter 4: Dawn Stitches

The storm let go of the north tip a little before six.

It did not end. It leaned away and left a grey light and a dripping silence.

I stood at the station door with Tilda asleep on my shoulder and looked at what was left.

The north village jetty was gone, with its boards floating loose in the cove.

Two fishing boats lay on their sides in the shallows, and a palm had come down across the only road.

Farther out, a bar of pale sand ran where the causeway should have been.

"It'll be under again at noon," Fraser said behind me. "The tide's turning."

"I know. I drew that causeway."

"I know you did."

He said it without any edge, and that was worse.

I looked down, because my right hand had started to throb, and found the palm opened across the heel in a clean red line.

I had not felt it happen. The guardrail on the causeway must have caught me when I went down.

"You're bleeding on the baby's blanket," Fraser said.

"I'm bleeding on nothing, it's fine."

"It's not fine. Sit."

He pointed at the bench by the heater, and I sat, because I was too tired to be proud about it.

A fisherman took Tilda from me without being asked and carried her to the cots. She slept through the handoff.

Fraser came back with a green kit and pulled a stool up to my knees.

"This needs four stitches," he said. "I've done a hundred of them on deckhands."

"On deckhands."

"They complain less than architects."

"I'm not complaining."

"You will."

He cleaned the cut with something that stung, and I did not make a sound.

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