Stay Strong semicolon lettering on an arm

She wrote STAY STRONG in capitals that leaned into the wind, then stopped over the gap where the next words should go. "What's the little thing called," she asked, "the one that's half a stop and half a comma?" I told her it was a semicolon. The Post Office code had no word for it, so it would have to be spelled out, S-E-M-I-C-O-L-O-N, and that came to five shillings more than she had in her purse. She sat with that for a long minute. Then she counted out the coins from a knotted handkerchief, pushed the form under the grille, and said, "Leave it in. He'll know what it means if I don't have to explain it."

The *Marigold* was out past the Mewstone with the herring boats, three days from home. Her reply came up the wire on the Friday, relayed from a trawler's wireless: HOLDING ON. SEMICOLON RECEIVED. MY LOVE BACK ATCHA. Mrs Venn read it twice, then charged Ada nothing at all, which she never did for anyone.

Ada came in every morning after that to ask if anything had arrived, and every morning I said no, and she nodded as if she had expected nothing else. On the last Friday of the month the wire chattered again. I wrote it out and held it up to the window so the light fell through the paper, and she folded it into her apron pocket without reading it, because she already knew how it ended.