Lupin sprig on a upper back

The lupins came out on the dunes behind Skerry Point the week you left, all at once, as if someone had spilled a crate of blue paint along the top of the sand. Dad would have called them weeds. I went up after the tide turned and counted spikes until the wind made my eyes run.

The boats are down to six now. The Morag came round the Ness on Tuesday with her hold half full of mackerel and a crack across the wheelhouse glass that Tam says he'll fix when the price picks up. Mrs Gunn has taken to leaving a pan of soup on her step for whoever gets in first, which is usually me, because I'm the only one who doesn't sleep past five.

I pressed a spike between the pages of Mum's old seed catalogue, the one with the pencilled leaves. Each leaf has seven fingers spread like a hand, and I kept thinking of how you used to say they looked like the gloves drying on the rail, splayed out and too stubborn to close.

Send word when the ferry's running again. Bring the good scissors and bring yourself, and we'll go up together before the seed pods split and the whole hillside rattles. Your sister, Ailsa.