But wasn’t that what they were doing? He pretended to be a man who hadn’t spent his life running away, and she pretended to be a woman who could reveal her true self. And yet they talked, so much, they didn’t notice when the seas changed from blue to gray. Whenever Samuel’s pain was at its worst, Maria went to his bed, her body folding next to his. She wrapped her arms around him so he wouldn’t thrash in his fits of anguish. He was ablaze with fever, although his other symptoms—the headaches and rashes and bleeding—were gone. Night after night, she went to him unbidden, despite her vow to do otherwise. It was a dream, she told herself. Only in the fleeting hours of dimming light, the hours when it is said the soul can travel freely, did she come to his bed without shame, wishing to be nowhere but where she was, in the wide and glittering sea.

As they neared Boston, and his health improved, Maria came to know Samuel’s stories, as she knew him. She hadn’t understood how her mother could love a man who could only speak words written by others, and was pleased that Samuel was nothing like her father. Here was a man who was filled with words, and Maria found she was intrigued. It occurred to her that Hannah had raised her to value words above all else. Samuel could not stop talking, and she could not stop listening. One night as they drifted off to sleep, she thought she heard him say Don’t leave me, but by daybreak she’d convinced herself she’d only imagined his plea. Men like Samuel Dias didn’t say such things, and neither did she; they had both been hardened by burnings, and had good reason not to trust the world.

Cadin often settled down beside the ailing man, making a nest in his quilt, allowing his feathers to be stroked when he usually only let Maria near. The bird was at least sixteen, and likely had aches and pains himself. Whenever Samuel turned his head, Cadin tried to steal one of the gold earrings he wore.

“One thief knows another,” Samuel warmly said to the bird. He had a deep affection for the creature by now. “What happens when you let him free?” he asked Maria.

“He comes back to me.” She felt choked up for some reason, which was not at all like her. She told herself it was the closeness of the room, the flame on which she cooked a broth of fish bones to strengthen Samuel’s constitution.

“Of course,” Samuel said. “Why wouldn’t he?”