Geometric lotus on the ribs

The compass you left on the drafting table has been going round all week, and so have I. Mr Pargeter wants the ventilation plans for the new chapel hall by Friday, and every time I set the point down the rain starts up against the window and I think of you out past the headland with nothing but a sextant and that bad chest. Mum asks if you have written. I tell her the post is slow.

I have not told anyone about the flower. I drew it on the back of a rate demand while the kettle boiled, a lotus with its petals stacked like the pages of a hymnal, shaded in tiny stabs of ink until it looked like frost on a pane. Then I could not stop. I ran rays out from its heart, drew rings round it with the compass, and set dots wherever two lines met. Pargeter found it on my board on Monday and called it popish, then asked me to draw one for his gatepost.

Last night I sat up with the flower and a bottle of ink and thought about where the dots go when a line runs out. The last one, at the bottom where the circles pull together, is a full stop, Tom. It is what you press down when you have said all you meant to say and the rest is only waiting. I have pressed it three times now and crossed it out twice.

I am sending you this copy so you have something that stays put on a ship. If the sea gets rough, count the circles. When you can see them from the harbour wall, you will know I have stopped waiting and started drawing the way home.

Your loving sister, Ada