Pink ribbon and rose bud on a forearm

The rose came up through the cracked step at number nine the week after the storm, just as you said it would if I left the bucket out and stopped hoping. Mr Pascoe found it first and wanted it dug out, but I told him a thing that comes up through salt and grit has earned its keep. It is still a bud, closed tight, the red of the pillar box outside the post office. Its stem is tangled with a pink ribbon I took from the parcel Mrs Heaton sent from Penzance, and I cannot tell you why I wound it there except that my hands wanted something to do.

Every guest who comes down for breakfast asks about the rose. The Dutch couple think it is a sign. The schoolmaster thinks it is a nuisance. Only the girl in room four, who has slept with her window open since Tuesday, stood at the step a long while and said nothing at all. Then she asked if she might take one of the black beads from the string my mother left in the sideboard drawer. I said yes. She came back down with her palm closed around it, and she looked at the sea the whole morning.

You wrote that a house by the sea is only ever a waiting room. Perhaps. But the bud is still shut, the tide still comes in twice a day regardless, and I have decided to let all of it take its time.

Write soon and tell me whether Father's cough has settled.

Your loving sister, Edie