The doors of the 4:45 closed on the minute. Across the water the airport came on light by light.
The coast dropped into the dark below the wing. From the third-floor window, between two roofs, there had been a strip of water; at night the lit ferries crossed it, right to left, in under a minute. The stairs had turned left at every landing, and every landing’s button had bought one flight of light.
The bus from the airport took the shore road. The hill came up on the left with its lights banked.
The tape ran barrier to barrier under the plane tree; at the dark end it cleared the ground by a crouch. The street door gave at the second push.
Inside, the button glowed orange. The light bought the first flight. The stairs turned left, and left again; the smell was wet stone and a dust newer than the stone.
The flat door on the third floor stood open. The switch inside did nothing. The wall still held the day’s warmth.
The doorframe kept its pencil lines. Once a year for a run of years a hand had stood a child to the jamb and laid itself flat to the crown to take the hair out of the count, and marked the pencil where the hand had been, and written the year beside it small, and each mark had come higher than the last, up toward the hand that set them — and the hand had been a year gone, and the highest stood at shoulder height now, and by six the jamb and the marks and the wall behind would be down in the street.
The feet found the old place at the jamb.
Between the two roofs the strip of water was there, and a lit ferry crossed it, right to left, in under a minute.
The light below had gone out. The button on the landing bought the way down, and lasted to the street door.
Outside the tape had not moved. Downhill at the pier, the last ferry had its lights on. Uphill, the corner.