I noted all this but did not dwell on it. For it was not the death of a culture that concerned me on this day, but the death of a man. With my mother five weeks in her grave and my sisters in the care of our kinfolk, I moved alone now through a world of abandonment and aberration. Life had unfolded cruelly for me and mine and, through Mother’s constant testimony, I knew full well who deserved the blame for all our wrongs. Though not yet sixteen, it had fallen on my shoulders to bear the mantle of retribution. I might never lance a whale, as I had once sworn, but, nonetheless, I would make my mark.
I inquired about and soon confirmed that Enoch Gosset still served as lamplighter. His wife had died three years before, and his adult sons had moved off the island, leaving him fittingly alone
