Chapter 5: The Naktok Bay Research Grant

The grant letter arrived on a Thursday in September, which I remember because Nell was home for the weekend and she was the one who picked up the mail.

She set it on the kitchen counter without comment, the way she sets down anything she has already decided she has opinions about. The return address was from the Naktok Bay Coastal Monitoring Consortium, which is the kind of name that sounds invented but isn't. I had applied in March, during the specific window of a Saturday afternoon when Nell was back at Reed and the apartment was the particular kind of quiet that makes certain decisions feel less consequential than they are. I had not mentioned the application to anyone.

Nell made coffee while I read the letter. She is not a person who pretends not to watch.