Handwritten quote tattoo across a upper back

The ferry was cancelled again on Tuesday, so Mr Gunn has been carrying the post across in his own rowing boat. He says the gulls followed him all the way to the pier as if they expected a parcel of their own. Your letter came in the same bag. I read it twice at the kitchen table, once for the news and once for the part about your brother, which you wrote in pencil and then scratched out so hard the paper tore.

I will not tell you what to feel about Callum. That is yours to carry. But I will tell you about my father's writing desk, which came over from Lewis in a crate packed with straw, and the card he kept tucked under the lid. He copied the words out in his best schoolroom hand, and by the time I found it the ink had gone brown at the corners. It said that people who hurt us can only keep hurting us while we keep hold of the hurt, and that the past does not shift for anybody's wishing.

He never quite managed it himself. After the trawler went down he sat at that desk every evening with the lamp turned low, and some nights he still got up and walked the shore road until the stars came out. I used to think the card had failed him. Now I think he kept it close because he knew how easy it was to forget.

So I am sending it to you. Read it on the boat, then do what you like with it, though I would rather you kept it. Come home at Easter. The lupins will be out along the wall and the kettle is always on.

Love, Gran