Every drawer in the keeper’s house had a letter in it, and every letter had a drawer’s worth of excuses folded inside it. Some were addressed. Most were only aimed. Hollis read them the way you’d read a tide chart — for what they promised and when.

The earliest bore dates from before the harbor was paved, when the island was still three miles wider at low water and the lighthouse keeper was expected to keep the cemetery books as well as the oil tallies.