The List on the Island
There were five names on the boat manifest and six life jackets on the beach. The extra jacket was dry. In its pocket, Tess found a brass key marked Harbor House, Room Six. Beyond the tree line stood the ruin of a hotel whose roof had collapsed years before.
The tourists reached it at dusk. Five places had been set at a long table. A guest register lay open beneath a working lamp, although no power line reached the island. Their names were already written on the page. Tess turned back to the manifest and noticed that every signature was in the same handwriting.
Each traveler remembered booking a different excursion. Each had received the same handwritten invitation afterward: Come back and finish what you started. Tess recognized the phrase from a letter she had never answered. Years earlier, all five had worked at a seaside rescue station. A storm had separated them, and the station keeper had retired without saying goodbye.
Room Six contained their old logbooks and a radio with a newly charged battery. The keeper's daughter had arranged the reunion, hoping they would help reopen the station. Her own boat had failed before she could reach them. Tess used the radio to guide her toward the sheltered beach while the others lit the old signal lamps. At dawn there were six people around the table. Nobody had to explain the spare life jacket. They were already arguing, warmly, about which repairs to begin first.