Ornamental lion head in profile

The gale came in on Tuesday with its mane up, the way it does off the Skerry, and I stood at the lamp room glass watching the spray stand in ridges like the chevrons your father painted on the boathouse door. He always said the sea had a pattern if you looked long enough, and I never looked. I was too busy counting oil. Now I count waves instead, and there are never two alike.

The relief boat didn't come Thursday. Mr Hollis from the Trinity office writes that the lamp must be replaced before winter, so Donal and I keep the wick trimmed ourselves. Donal is nine and thinks it a grand adventure. He has drawn a lion on the back of the logbook, all fierce profile and fur, the mane filled with triangles and diamonds like your old schoolbook margins. He says it guards the light. I told him lions guard nothing but their own pride, and he said that was exactly the point.

So I am writing to say the light is still burning. Last night I climbed the iron stair with the can and rag and thought of you on the Cape run, how you said the southern stars hang like lamps nobody lit. The Skerry light has not gone dark in thirty-one years, and it will not go dark now while there is a Pryce on the rock to trim it.

Come home when the ice is off the bay. Bring the tin of tea you promised, and tell Donal his lion is very fine.

Your loving mother, Nan