“New York would be good for him,” the old man insisted. By now, Samuel Dias was a wealthy man and could easily turn his attentions to another line of work, one that was within the realm of the law. He could import rum from Curaçao, or bolts of silk from France; he could find himself a warehouse, and an office nearby if he lived on Maiden Lane. “If he were here, you’d know when he was coming down with the fever. He’d be in your care.”

Maria threw Abraham a look. “That won’t happen,” she assured him, brewing herself a cup of Release Me Tea, a mixture that loosened love’s hold on a person, especially when combined with bitters and fresh radish root.

“He could be convinced,” Abraham said. “Especially if you helped me do so.”

In Abraham Dias’s opinion, if a man had to live on land, there was no better choice than Manhattan. Portuguese Jews from Brazil had come in 1654 when Portugal reclaimed Brazil from the Dutch, bringing the Inquisition with them. These original Portugals were greeted by governor Peter Stuyvesant, who had been unwilling to accept the group of twenty-three souls with no country and no home until he was pressured to do so by the original owner of the house on Maiden Lane, Jacob Barsimon, who had worked for the Dutch West India Company. The new immigrants were not allowed to build a synagogue, but the men met daily, and Abraham Dias had gone to these gatherings on Friday evenings in a small house near the harbor. In 1655 Jewish taxpayers had paid for nearly ten percent of the price to build the wall, later the site of Wall Street, to separate the city from the wilderness beyond. Although they were outsiders, Jews were watchmakers, tailors, butchers, importers of rum and chocolate and cocoa. Manhattan was a tolerant city, and if you didn’t provoke your neighbors or call attention to yourself, you could do as you pleased and worship as you liked.

“Let your son be who he is,” Maria told Abraham. “A man who lives at sea.”

“A man can change,” Abraham Dias assured her. After all, he was about to plant vegetables in the garden, his hands deep in the earth, which, at this late date, he found to be an unexpected pleasure.

Maria went to the North River on the west side of the city to buy haddock and cod so she might simmer a broth of fish bones for Samuel’s supper, to strengthen his constitution. He had been healing all through the month of his recovery and was much improved. In the afternoons he sat in the garden with his father in the pale green sunlight, listening to stories he’d heard dozens of times before, and enjoying each one. He’d recently helped his father put in a row of lettuce, which distressed Maria. Why would Samuel bother with planting vegetables when he wouldn’t be there to see them grow?