Anchor with hope scripture design

The boat came in on Thursday, though not the one we were watching for. The Mary Ellen limped past the breakwater with her mainsail in ribbons and no sign of Eli Parr at the wheel, only his brother Dan, grey as the harbour wall. Mrs Parr has taken to sitting on the bench by the chandlery with her knitting in her lap and not a stitch moving. I bring her tea in the chipped enamel mug and she thanks me and holds it until it goes cold.

You'll think me soft, but I went down to the quay after dark to see the anchor they keep by the slipway. It's the old one from the lifeboat that went out in '31, rusted to the colour of dried blood, with the ring worn smooth where generations of children have hung off it. Someone scratched a small heart into the base of the shank years back, and the salt has nearly taken it. I stood there longer than I meant to, thinking of the verse Father Ambrose read on Sunday, about hope being an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast. I never knew what steadfast meant until I saw that old iron lying in the mud with the tide sliding over it.

Dan says Eli's boat dropped her anchor in the lee of the Stones when the wind backed, and rode it out until morning. So he's not lost, not yet. Mrs Parr asked me to write to her cousin in Penzance, and I've said I will, though I don't know what to tell him beyond the plain truth, which is that we are all of us waiting on the tide.

Keep the lamp lit for me. I'll see you at Easter if the trains run.

Your loving sister, Nell