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higher and longer. It is a boat that can easily be sailed by one, though it would usually carry two, or even three. It looks frail, but Small Islanders have sailed and rowed boats like this into the northern sea for generations—and usually returned.
    â€œThe boatbuilder families will be angry. You know they don’t allow anyone else to build boats.”
    At this he does not smile. He crosses behind her and closes the door, puts the hammer and chisel down. Stands close to her, leaning down, his face close to hers. He still looks thin, after his illness, but then he always looks thin.
    She feels like a field mouse on the snow, hearing the whir of owl wings in the cold air above. He reaches down and unbuttons her coat, one button at a time, with a carpenter’s roughened fingers, until her coat hangs open. Then he slides his fingers under the coat, feeling for her, finding her.
    He is rough and gentle at the same time. It feels as if he is reaching right into the center of her. After a time, hebegins opening and closing her again, many times, on the dirt floor, next to the skeleton of his boat.
    When she comes back to herself, several things are in her mind. She lies there running over those things while she feels the two of them cooling apart where they were connected. She feels him shrink out of her and slip away.
    He gets up, finds the threadbare blanket he sleeps under, lies down and pulls it around them. On the roof and walls of canvas extending from the shed, shadows of new maple leaves move back and forth. The small leaves move away in the wind and then return to their original places, as if they know where their homes are.
    She rolls on her side, looking him square in the face and says, “If you want to go to Big Island, why don’t you just take the steamer?” As soon as the words leave her mouth, she is embarrassed and wishes she could reel them back in.
    He looks into her eyes, as dark as his own. He pushes the blanket off, gets up and stands with his narrow back to her, the bones of the spine showing clearly, the skin pale where the sun doesn’t reach. He walks around the unfinished boat, touching it here and there, bending over to pick up her clothes and bring them to her. He finds his own clothes, slips into his longjohns, overalls and boots. Strikes a match, relights the lantern. From the lantern lights a cigarette. Stands, lantern in hand, cigarette in thecorner of his mouth, smoke rolling up around his face, looking at his unfinished work without speaking.
    She came to this shed with a purpose in mind: to give him back the money he left in the blue envelope. Now that she’s here, she knows she can’t return it. He won’t accept it. She’s angry, not sure exactly who she’s angry with. Angry or not, she knows that the envelope in her coat pocket must go back down through the woods with her. As she walks home, she will think about what to do with his money, which she cannot keep but cannot return. She gets up from under the blanket and dresses herself.
    She looks at him where he stands examining his work as if he has forgotten she is there with him. Suddenly she is sure he will drown, like his brother. Everyone on the island knows that story. For her, there is no death worse than drowning. It’s bad enough when men fight in Harbortown, slashing each other across the throat and bleeding to death in the sawdust on the floor. But drowning is worse: There is nothing to say goodbye to. Even if the sea generously chooses to return his body, as it did his brother’s, it will likely be on some other shore.
    She pulls on the rest of her clothes, walks to the door and lets herself out into the night without disturbing him. She takes the path through the woods, being careful not to crush the green crocus shoots before they havetheir chance to bloom. The blue envelope in her pocket is a riddle, but she is good at riddles. She has liked them ever since she was a girl.
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