Mandala and rose on a forearm

The tide tables you sent came yesterday, pinned inside the lid of the tea caddy where Mother used to keep the good needles. I have read them so often the paper has gone soft as a handkerchief. Half past four on Thursday, the gull-grey morning you always said was the best for leaving. I have not been able to make the sum come out, so I am writing instead.

The brass fitting for the harbour clock came apart in my hands on Monday, all forty little teeth of it, and Mr Pelling swept the lot into a biscuit tin and told me to find the missing crescent before the council man came. There was no crescent. There was only the star wheel, turning on its own in the dark of the case, and the chain of tiny links that Father had hung from the escapement, which he said kept the hours from running off the edge of the day. I threaded it back through my fingers until the pads were raw and then I found the moon, lying face down under the bench, no bigger than a fingernail.

I am sending it to you with this letter. Keep it on the chain you wear to the chapel. If the tide turns the way the tables say, I will be on the quay before the first bell, rose in my coat and the pencil behind my ear, and I will wait for you to tell me which way the wind is going.