At Cunningham, in anatomy class, they had asked me to leave the room during the lessons on glands. I’d leaned against the side of the building, staring out into the unfinished green, listening to the muffled voice of the professor calling out the body parts. When the class was done, the men had left and I returned to the room, alone, to the lesson written on the chalkboard, to name the parts to myself. Since no one was in the room with me, I’d practiced saying them in different voices—high-pitched, like a superior lady’s, or low and growly, like a cat’s.

I watched my husband’s hand move faster. In the dark of the cabin, his skin was so dim—like a gray stone glimpsed at the bottom of a well. His breath shuddered. The whole cabin, so close, became nearly unbearably hot. And then he groaned—like a body taking its last breath—and shuddered one more time and was quiet.

I looked at him. He was staring glassily at the beams of the ship. “I’m sorry, my love,” he said. When he reached to touch my cheek, his hand was damp.

I did not leave my bed the next day. I tried to stand in the cabin, but the roll of the ship nearly forced me to my knees, so I crawled back into the berth and shut my eyes.

Emmanuel left me to walk on the deck. Above the groan of the ship as it moved through the water, I heard his high shout or some of his laughter.

The ship was a trading one that sold only a few berths to travelers. In the morning, he pulled me out of our bed to walk the deck with him. He said, “You cannot lie down forever. It will make everything worse.” My legs did not feel like my own. I was scared, and I took just a few steps before going back down. I did not know if there were any other women on board, or if there were, if those women were colored. And in my sickness, I did not have the will to ask him.

That night, he did not even have to ask me to lie down. I did so gladly, eager to feel something besides the waves.

“Plumeria,” he said, “are beautiful flowers. Long and thin and white. They look almost like stars, or maybe the legs of jellyfish. They could be as at home beneath the water as on land. They smell strongest at night.” Here, he leaned over and smelled my lap.