“We love you.”

The square-ended skiff was finished. It was a strange-looking craft, in some small details. It had, for instance, a plug in the bottom which could be pulled out by a linked metal chain, almost like a bathtub plug. On a brisk flawless May day he hauled the skiff down to the water’s edge and stood surveying it with the eye of a craftsman and a boatman and a fisherman born. For a full half century and more, from the day he had left his native Norway he had loved the sea, he and his father and his grandfather and generations before them. During the month he and Ross had mixed cement and skillfully laid a new floor for Christine’s garage. He now weighted the boat with some of the residue of this mixture, but not too much. The boat was new and shining. Nobody has ever sat in it before, he thought with satisfaction. He himself, eager and alert, was neat and fresh and clean as the boat into which he now stepped as it lay on the water. Leisurely, with a look of utter anticipation and enjoyment, he rowed out to where he could see the mountains white-topped, the almost heartbreaking blue of the Alaska sky, the pines, the glistening water. It was lovely, it was complete. Now he rested his oars and he lashed himself firmly to the boat, pulling the ropes he had brought with him around his ankles, his knees, his waist. It was his favorite time of day, sunset came late now, later and later, soon the daylight days and the daylight nights would meet and blend. The sun was not streaming in bold brassy shafts, it shone golden and warm like Christine’s hair.

Now was the time. The handy old hand reached out, it pulled the plug with one firm jerk. The concrete-weighted boat sank so that for one brief instant he was standing upright in the water, he saw the mountains the sky the trees the water—the elements and objects he so loved. The water slid over him—ankles—hips—shoulders—head—like a soft silken shroud.

Though she rebelled at first in an agony of tears and self-recrimination, Chris understood after she had read his letter.

Until now, Christine my dear child, I always have had a mild contempt for people who leave Last Notes. They are like those who stand and stand at the door, saying good-bye, long after they should have left and done with it. I always had put it down to vanity—to a final fling of exhibitionism. But now I think I understand them a bit. There is no doubt that we have been exhibitionistic old parties—Czar and Bridie and myself. Characters, I suppose we’d be called, and have been. We’re a little passé. Power people nowadays function more quietly. They’re deadlier than we were, though they make much less fuss. Like the barbaric ritual known as war. The drums and the cannon and the guns and even the planes are old stuff now. Now it’s just one neat quiet package like a big cigar, a puff of thick smoke, and that’s it.