Chapter 6: A Hand's Width

Monday night, the water went out farther than it had gone all week.

The Lucia lay against the ring bolt in the cleft with her engine ticking.

The iron door stood in front of us, with four clear feet of wet black ledge below it.

Tiago had brought a second bar, a can of penetrating oil, and a mallet wrapped in an old towel so it wouldn't ring.

I had brought a headlamp and every order I knew.

"Oil the pin," I said. "Then wait. Don't lean on it yet."

"Yes, Captain."

"Then lean," I said.

He leaned.

We worked for most of two hours, taking turns, and not talking much.

The door fought us.

It shrieked and it stuck.

Once it jumped an inch and slammed back so hard that a rock fell off the cliff into the pool.

At the end of the second hour, Tiago set both bars into the gap and braced his boot on the rock.

"Captain. Pull," he said, in a tone I had not heard from him before.

I grabbed the second bar with both hands.

We pulled together.

Something deep in the hinge gave way with a crack, and the door swung outward a full hand's width.

I stumbled back against his chest.

The air that came out of the gap was cool and dry and old.

It smelled of cedar and lavender and a faint trace of lemon oil.

It was Gran's linen closet.

It was every afternoon I had spent as a little girl at the foot of her chair.

I put my hand over my mouth.

I hadn't cried in January, when she died in the room above the library with my hand in hers.

I hadn't cried at the funeral, or on the day Lavinia boxed up her dresses.

I had been so busy being careful and grateful and good.

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