Mackinac Island; http://www.cityofmi.org/

“Thar she is,” the captain pointed.

She stared at the lighthouse across a desert of stacked ice shards and patches of wet cold.

“How far are we?”

The grizzled man lifted a hand against the horizon as if measuring. “Ah, ’bout a mile, as the crow flies.”

Might as well be ten thousand, she thought. Years, too.

He’d left the engines idling but refused to get her any closer. Would not lend her a kayak, either. “Too chocked up,” he’d said.

She reiterated her urgency but still he would not be swayed.

“She’d give up her ice soon,” he nodded at the lake. His attempt at kindness.

Soon would be too late. She swallowed bitterness. The estate was scheduled to be liquidated the next morning. Without photo proof of her early childhood scrawls in the lighthouse’s attic, she’d lose the inheritance. Illegitimate in a whole new way.

For What Pegman Saw