Samuel was growing tired of the sea and its loneliness, something he had always been grateful for as a younger man. At night he stood on the deck and watched the creatures beneath the water and thought of the first ship he’d ever sailed upon, when the navigator his father had enlisted took him under his wing and taught him to read the stars. Back then, he could still remember everything about his mother and sisters. Now it was difficult for him to bring up their faces, although there were certain things that he would never forget, his sisters singing as they walked up a hill, his mother telling him his first stories, the bonfire on her burning day, the white hood covered with stars that she was made to wear, how empty the world was without her.

He had felt the same sort of aloneness once again when Maria told him to leave; the sharpness of her dismissal was still as fresh as it had been the day he left Manhattan. He was deeply hurt, and it was this emotion that had made him stay away, but it also caused him to walk past the house on Maiden Lane, even though he had no intention of stopping. Samuel had too much pride to go where he wasn’t wanted, and yet he was drawn there like a dog. He waited to see if there was a glimmer of life, perhaps a lantern when dusk fell, or smoke from the brick oven’s chimney. When he saw none of these things, he went closer, pulled forward despite his will. Spring in New York meant horseshit in the streets, and sewers running into the footpaths, and crowds of newcomers. The city was so alive Samuel Dias felt his aloneness all the more here than he did at sea. He went through the gate in the falling dusk, for he was a fool, he admitted that to himself, and his hurt drove him on. The garden was filled with weeds and the Tree of Heaven was in need of water. He went to the well and filled a pail, then watered the tree, but he could already tell it would do no good. This genus belonged in the tropics, and was never meant to be here.

He went to try the door and found it locked. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. All the while he’d been gone he had imagined Maria in this house, but now it appeared he’d been wrong, for the place was clearly abandoned, though he owned it still.

“You’re to be off the property.”

It was a man’s voice he heard, English by the sound of it. Dias turned to see a fellow with a horsewhip in his hand, then glanced around and spied a spade he could use if he needed a weapon. “Am I?”

“Sorry, brother, but this is private property.”

“I know. It’s mine.”