“I’ve never been anywhere,” she said. “Sailing from Sweden to South America was the most momentous journey of my life and I don’t even remember it. Before this summer, I’d been from Penedo to São Paolo to Rio and back. Every other journey I took was in a book. I wanted to see something of the world.”

“I know the feeling,” Kennet said, envisioning Marta’s great map of the world and her little box of tacks, all the green ones waiting for him. All the places he hadn’t been yet.

Zé arranged Liisa’s sojourn in Florida so Astrid could travel alone a month.

“You asked if it was expensive,” she said. “I don’t know. Zé paid for this trip.” She put up a cautionary finger. “And not as a bribe. He made it clear. This wasn’t, ‘I’ll give you this chance to see the world if you marry me.’ He said, ‘I’ll give you this chance to see the world and, then, see if you want to marry me.’”

She sighed. “Even with it made clear, I didn’t like the idea, but Nyck, it was my only chance. Not just to leave Brazil but to go across the equator to another continent. See America. And see Marta, because she’s always epitomized my idea of an independent, traveled woman. A woman who made her destiny instead of waiting for things to happen to her.”

“Marta wasn’t saddled with a manipulative mother,” Kennet said without thinking. “Cripes, that was rude. I’m sorry.”

“It was accurate.”

“You deserve more than a marriage of convenience.”

“I wish it were that easy.”

“It is. You’re not a pawn. You’re not a piece of property.”

“Nyck, please.”

“You’re a person, not a term of negotiation.”

Her hands went to fists on the tabletop. “I know, but…”

And all at once, all the pages in the book of her life were laid out before him. He could read the story as easily as his own. As if it were his own.

“You promised your father,” he heard himself say. “And you’re a lady of your word. Your father meant the world to you. He loved books and poetry. He loved being a host and giving travelers a haven. He made sure you were educated and could learn all you wanted to know. He gave you everything, and in the end, in your heart, you feel like you let him down.”

The words coming out of his mouth didn’t seem to quite belong to him. Some higher understanding spoke through him, and he knew what he said was true by the way tears slid down Astrid’s cheeks, the way her chin faintly nodded.