Follow your heart script lettering

The boats went out without you on Tuesday and the harbour has gone quiet in that way it does when the wind drops and nobody can decide whether to be glad. Your mum has moved the kettle onto the back ring so the gulls don't get at the biscuit tin. Mr Abernethy asked after you at the chandlery. He says the Maggie Rose needs a second hand for the Dogger run, and he'll pay you the wage he'd have given your uncle, which I told him was generous. He said it was honest, which I suppose is the same thing up here.

I know what you're going to say about the wage. I know you've been sat in the back room of the Ship with those brochures from the college in Hull. I'm not writing to talk you out of it. When you were four you stood on the breakwater with your shoes in your hand and told me you'd go wherever the water went, and I believed you then and I believe you now. Your dad's note is still in the drawer under the tide tables. He wrote it on the back of a fish receipt the week before he sailed for the last time: follow your heart, and mind the weather. I used to think the first half was the grown-up bit and the second was the bit you actually needed.

So I've left the drawer unlocked. Take the receipt if you want it. If you go to Hull, go on the Tuesday train so you're not stood on the platform all afternoon like a fool. And if you come back, come back in the morning when the boats are in, because I'll be on the quay with the kettle on, pretending I wasn't watching the horizon.

Love, Mum