Dotwork mandala on upper back

I've been up on the flat stone above the cove every morning with Grandda's pricking punch. You remember the sundial he meant to set there before his knees gave out. I've been putting it in dot by dot: a centre ring, then the petals fanning out, each one scalloped at the edge, each scallop a row of pits no bigger than a barley grain. It takes a whole tide to finish one petal. The gulls think I'm soft in the head. Ruaridh says the rain will wear it away by winter, and perhaps it will, but the sun comes round regardless.

Yesterday the shadow of the gnomon fell across the eighth petal at exactly noon. I stood there with the punch in my hand like a fool, because that was the petal you were sitting on the day you left, counting gannets with your back to the wind. I didn't mean it to fall that way. Stone doesn't care what anyone meant.

I've left the ninth petal bare. Not dotted, not even marked. It's yours to finish when you come home, and if you don't come home, the shadow will go round to it anyway, and I'll let it.