I peel off my shawl, my travelling apron, and make tea for her. Everything is in its place, the kettle, the pot, the tin of tea, the tea-cosy and spoon, just where they have always been. I pour tea into chipped cups, the same cups that have hung from rusty hooks beside the fire for all my life. My hand reaches for the tin of sugar on the cupboard, the old milk jug on the shelf above that, knowing they will be there. All is as it was, as it should be.

But the doctor has been.

The others are back?

Aye. She sniffs at the washing on the floor. Back four days past an’ already out on the Lily. I don’t know how …

I control my voice. An’ Granda?

Silence. We have never talked about it, all this time, Kitta and me.

Well?

See for yourself when he stomps in.

What of the village? The others?

Them? Sayin’ nothin’. Nothin’ still. But the looks … She exhales, pushing something bitter from her lungs. Scared to think it really happened, scared to think they would have done the same themselves. So they say nothing. But they canna wipe it off their face, what they’re not sayin’.

I put a hand over hers and we drink our tea.

She touches the bandages on my poulticed fingers. Unty Jinna has somethin’ better. Go an’ see her tomorrow. Few weeks an’ ye’ll be right.

I know what she’s thinking: Few weeks an’ ye’ll be gone.

Are ye all right, our Kitta?

She gets up and scoops the clothes off the floor, a great bulky armful. Told ye afore, didn’t I? Ye never listen, do ye? My hand’s better now, better than it were.

I pull my shawl around my shoulders again and step outside. The wind is howling through Tiller Street, a blast from the frozen north.

All this air, and I canna breathe.

~

That night, I sit on the wall, my skirt tucked under my knees, looking down to the boatie shore. The Lily Maud is in, and I smile to see how tall Will has grown. A man, now, like Archie and Jamie, but for the gangly legs and arms.

Da looks hunched, a muffle of lines and wool, and I canna tell whether it is just from cold or something more painful. He moves slowly up from the shore and I suddenly think: He is an old man already, my father, and a man I hardly know.