Point Resolute

Nobody alive remembered how long, exactly, the barn had been there. Yet, it was an unspoken banner for the residents of the island-- proof that something can be made in an inhospitable place, in the spots where storms converge.

The point had a history of broken hearts; stories abounded of heartbroken youth throwing themselves off the point when arranged marriages were enforced over true love. But the barn had a different reputation.

Cobbled together from the bone-bleached skeletons of errant ships dashed upon the rocks below, the barn was a three-sided refuge in a place where wood was scarce. No homestead dared to stake a claim on this rocky, stormy side of the island; instead, the slapdash shelter was a place for wayward livestock to hide from inevitable winds and rain when they wandered too far from the island’s leeward parts.

At times, the barn was a refuge for other souls beyond the four-legged wool bearers that had full range of the island. During tourist season, when the manor-born and manner-bred returned to the mansions that ringed the coastlines with beaches, the children of the full-time residents would come here for a lunch in the shade, lest they be roped into helping their parents with the gardening and housekeeping of the estates.

At times, it was a place where precious flowers were plucked by island boys with pretty faces and even prettier promises.

Most of the time, though, the barn sat empty. Defiant. Waiting to shelter the next soul in need of help.

It was here that Virginia met Ella.

Ella was small and round, red-cheeked and pleasant. She was one of the summer people, and though Victoria knew one of the large mansions on the cove belonged to her family, she didn’t know which one or whether her family was responsible for cleaning the home and caring for its gardens. The girls appeared on Point Resolute on the same foggy day. When the rain appeared, they took shelter together.

The first day they talked until the barn’s shadows became long on the late solstice evening. For the rest of the summer, they stole away every chance they could get. That summer, at 14, Ella got her first kiss. Victoria had kissed some of the local boys, but this was different. Better.

They cried the last day before Ella had to return to the mainland. Though they thought that they could meet again the next summer, the war changed the plans for everyone.

It was five years before they saw one another again. This time, Victoria had started cleaning houses with her mother and was engaged to a local boy. Ella was in college and had her choice of suitors. She was studying astronomy and asked Victoria to watch the lunar eclipse from the point with her big, coppery telescope. It was long after everyone had gone to bed and long before the local bakers started their shifts, so the island felt like theirs alone. That night, after they watched the moon turn crimson, bathed in shadow, they spooned in the shelter of the barn until dawn.

The next two years meant two weddings; first Victoria and then Ella. Then children took more of the girls’ time. When Ella’s oldest decided to marry on the island, Victoria’s son was a waiter at their reception. For decades, the barn waited.

Ella’s husband and parents all died in the same year. To the surprise of her circle, she sold her city home and that of her parents and planned to take residence in the island home for the entire year. Victoria was still working; she had been a widow for quite some time.

By then, the dark locks of both women had softened to driftwood grays. But the hike to the barn was like going back in time. This time, the world had changed enough that they could at last consider a future together.

Sixty summers after their first encounter, Victoria and Ella married under the shelter of the barn. Even the notorious weather of the point didn’t dare to spoil the moment.