Watched by the Lighthouse Keeper

Nell Carver came back to Bainbridge Island for three days. She stayed because of the logbooks. Forty years of entries. Every one of them about her family. Every one of them ending the same way: She went to the water again. Her grandmother wrote them. Or someone did. The handwriting in the final pages belongs to the quiet lighthouse keeper who brought her dinner and never once looked at the books. The last entry is dated three days from now. Some islands keep their histories in stone. This one keeps them in ink, and the ink is still wet.