Three small waves on the inner wrist

The last bus stopped outside the chip shop again, so I got off two stops early and walked the rest along the canal, which is the closest Leeds has to a shoreline. Mum says you can hear the sea from Whitby if the wind is right. Here there is only the hum of the ring road and a man selling roses outside the Wetherspoon's who keeps asking if I'm lost.

I found the postcard you slipped into my coat pocket at the station, the one with three wobbly lines on the back where you tried to draw the tide coming in. You never could draw water. You always made it look like hair. So I've been practising on the back of a receipt, sitting on the lock gate with a biro while the barges knock against the stone. I think I've got it now: one wave tipping into the next, each crest pulled a little sideways, as if they're all racing for the same patch of sand.

The woman at the parlour on Kirkgate says she can do them as a fine single line, no shading, nothing fussy. She asked if I wanted them somewhere I could hide them from my boss. I said no, somewhere I can look down and see them, the way you look at the coast from the cliff path before you've even got your boots off.

I'm going in on Thursday, after my shift. When it's healed, I'll post you a photo, though it will look like nothing to anyone who hasn't stood on the Sands with us in October, soaked to the knees and shouting at the gulls. Tell Dad the sea's still there. I'm just walking towards it the long way round.

Love, Jo