When the time came to release it, it didn’t want to go and I was more than willing to keep it with us forever, but my father disagreed. “You can’t keep a wild thing. They’ll always crave their freedom.”

My father took down two large pieces of metal and clanged them together, causing such a ruckus that I put my hands over my ears. The tamandua ran as fast as it could, out of our shed and into the woods.

Was I like that tamandua?

“Hey there, little renegade. I heard you had quite an adventure.” The sound of Griggs’s voice brought me back to the present.

His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and sweat dripped from his brow as he used a hooked blade to dig into the side of José’s ship, the Rio Pardo. When he heard me approach he turned to me with a smile. “How are you holding up?”

I smiled despite myself. “I’ll survive.”

He nodded. “Come have a seat. Keep me company while I work.”

I sat on a crate watching as he repaired the caulking on the ship. Meticulously, he pulled out the oakum with his blade, discarding it in a crate next to him. “Can you hand me that cotton next to you?”

I passed him the long cord of cotton, which he put in place of the oakum he had removed. Using his knife, he forced it into the gap between the planks, working until no more would fit. He cut off the excess and picked up two brushes. “All right, you are going to learn how to finish caulking a ship.”

“I’m going to do what?” I took one of the brushes awkwardly in my hands.

“Basically, make sure the ship doesn’t leak, because Lord knows your José is quite hard on his toys.” He opened his mouth to say something more but stopped. “I have also found that when life has gotten you down, the best therapy is a little ship caulking.” He adjusted the brush in his hand so he could brush the tar on parallel with the boards of the ship. “Do it just like this. Slow and steady.”

I mimicked his actions as we worked together in silence, Griggs digging out the old oakum, me replacing it. Then together we painted the tar onto the ship. With each move, the pain ebbed away until all that was left was the ship, the tar, and my friend. My old life was gone, I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, and frankly, it didn’t matter. I had left my cage behind.

Later that evening I sat on our bed brushing out my hair when José stormed into our tent. “I can’t believe this!” He rattled off what I recognized as a string of Italian obscenities. “I can’t believe the idiocy of that man!” He threw his hat to the ground.

“Who?” I asked.

José turned to me, a dark vein protruding from his temple, accentuated by his red face. “General Canabarro!” he yelled in frustration as if I should already know what he was talking about. “That allocco!” he grumbled as he slumped onto the bed.