Kendra Sunderland Here: To Stay

Instead, she began to fix things. Not just the lighthouse—though she rewired the old Fresnel lens and got it spinning again for the first time in nearly two decades—but small things. She repaired the broken bench outside the hardware store. She left jars of homemade blackberry jam on neighbors’ porches. She showed up at the town council meeting and volunteered to rebuild the dock that had rotted away in the last storm.

Kendra stood at the back of the VFW hall, her hands in the pockets of a worn pea coat. “Because I need to belong somewhere. And I decided it’s here.” kendra sunderland here to stay

And the lighthouse beam swept on, steady and true, into the deep and endless dark. Instead, she began to fix things