The recording contained three bell strokes, then her grandfather saying goodbye. Lea had always believed he was already aboard the ferry. A sound technician preparing the file for an exhibition noticed a second set of strokes faintly behind his voice.
The old timetable explained the difference. One bell warned passengers on the quay; another sounded aboard. Her grandfather stood between them, still ashore, speaking into a recorder he later mailed to his family. His journey did not begin until the following morning because the evening sailing was cancelled.
Lea found a lodging receipt tucked into the timetable. On its reverse he had listed things to tell them later: soup, wet shoes, woman with a yellow case. None appeared in his subsequent letters. The recording had compressed a complicated departure into a clean farewell.
For the exhibition, Lea wrote a caption that restored the overnight wait. She listened again before approving it. The distant second bell no longer sounded like a farewell repeated. It sounded like the town continuing around a man who had said goodbye before knowing how long he would have to remain.