Scallop shell tattoo on the ribs

The wind has got into the dunes again and laid the marram grass flat, so Mam says we'll not be picking scallops off the bar until the tide turns on Thursday. I went out anyway at first light with the basket and the old rake Dad left in the shed. The shells came up grey and full of sand, but two were perfect, fans opened like a hand, ribs running from the hinge to the lip as if someone had ruled them with a pencil. I kept them both. One is for you.

Mr Haskell at the harbour office says the Margaret Ann is due back from the Dogger grounds on the evening tide, and that the skipper has a cough and a temper to match. I told him you would have the cough cured by a week of Mam's onion broth. He laughed, which he does not do often.

Don't laugh at the next bit. Yesterday I walked out to the old pilgrim cross on the headland, the one with the carved shells worn almost smooth, and I remembered what Nan used to say: every ridge on a scallop runs back to the same hinge, so you will always find your way home if you follow one. I counted them on the shell with my thumb. Twenty-one ridges. I have not decided whether that is lucky.

Come home for the next spring tide, or send word if you cannot. I will leave the lamp in the front window the way we did when you were small, and I will keep the second shell on the sill until you tell me where to post it.

Love, Ada