The Harbour Promise

Oban, 1924 — The Shop That Nearly Gave Up. When the harbour fell quiet, Eilidh Fraser watched her little grocer’s shop inch toward empty shelves and quieter days. She would sit on an upturned crate after closing, stirring thin soup with her 1910 apostle spoon and doing the numbers in her head. It rarely added up to comfort. But every morning she opened the shutters anyway, greeted whoever came through the door, and tucked away a few coins “for better times.” Slowly, the harbour woke up again — first one fisherman, then three, then a whole crew asking for credit and paying it back. Now made into a ring, the spoon holds the memory of the season she kept the doors open — and herself going — when it would’ve been easier to quit.