The Keeper

Mara had kept the light for eleven years, and in eleven years it had never once gone dark on her watch — not through the November gales, not through the year the supply boat didn't come for six weeks, not through anything. Now there was a letter on the table, and the letter had a date on it, and the date was in nineteen days. "Automated," the letter said, as if that were a kindness. As if a lamp that switched itself on didn't need someone to stand at the top of the stairs at 4 a.m. and listen to the sea deciding what kind of night it was going to be. She read it twice, folded it along its old creases, and went up to trim the wick anyway. Nineteen days was still nineteen nights.