“But this is our home, where we are buried and where I will stay, alone if I must.”
“Minha esposa,” Miguel said.
“This is how you treat the woman who has loved you beyond death?” Rosa knew she could no more keep Miguel from going than she could keep him from gambling or the wine he liked so much when he was alive. “Go on,” she said. “Go chase your new island.”
“I will miss you,” Miguel said as they parted. Rosa made a sound of disbelief, but everyone knew she was sad to see Miguel go and would miss him very much.
~ ~ ~
Gaspar and Mariana watched the sunset from the new island. “We did it,” Gaspar said.
“I’m glad we came,” Mariana said.
“Me too.”
Miguel was out looking over the strange island, with his wife, Rosa, leaving the two lovers to themselves.
“I told you she would come,” Mariana said. “I am happy for Miguel.”
“Yes. Those two are full of surprises. I couldn’t have done it alone. It’s hard to believe we are actually here.” He gazed out over the landscape. “It won’t look like this for long.”
“Will it be beautiful like it was back home?”
“I think so, but it may take a little time. The soil must be developed; it may be quite different. It will be nice to see.”
Already the transformation was beginning to take place. The atmosphere around the island drew clouds and moisture, tiny plants took hold in the soil, and the wind, merely the breath of ghosts, dispersed seeds across the surface.
In time life would blossom and bloom, driven by dreams inspired by the hopes of the dead. They would think up the transformation Gaspar had already begun to make, because Gaspar wouldn’t let them forget that the impossible was always just beyond reach.
“It will work, won’t it?” Mariana asked.
“Yes, now that it’s begun, there is no stopping it—the garden will thrive and spread across the land.”
“I still don’t understand how it happened.”
Night was beginning to fall. “It was love, Mariana.” It had taken the love of a dead woman to show him the strength he had, to show him what they were capable of together.
Mariana reached over and took his hand. No one else might ever see the island. From Terceira or São Jorge, there might only be a stretch of empty ocean visible to those who lived and sailed on the sea. But it didn’t matter—now that they were there. The island was truly theirs.
“It’s a beautiful night, Mariana. I hope others will be as lucky to have what we have.”
The full moon shone on the surface of the sea, not in one particular place, but everywhere at one and the same time—a million moons and more urging the waves to gently lap against the shore of the new island.
PORTUGUESE IN THE AMERICAS SERIES
Portuguese-Americans and Contemporary Civic Culture in Massachusetts
Edited by Clyde W. Barrow
Through a Portagee Gate
Charles Reis Felix
In Pursuit of Their Dreams: A History of Azorean Immigration to the United States
Jerry R. Williams
Sixty Acres and a Barn
Alfred Lewis
Da Gama, Cary Grant, and the Election of 1934
Charles Reis Felix
Distant Music
Julian Silva
Representations of the Portuguese in American Literature
Reinaldo Silva
The Holyoke
Frank X. Gaspar
Two Portuguese-American Plays
Paulo A. Pereira and Patricia A. Thomas
Edited by Patricia A. Thomas
Tony: A New England Boyhood
Charles Reis Felix
Community, Culture and The Makings of Identity: Portuguese-Americans Along the Eastern Seaboard
Edited by Kimberly DaCosta Holton and Andrea Klimt
The Undiscovered Island
Darrell Kastin
So Ends This Day: The Portuguese in American Whaling 1765-1927
Donald Warrin
Azorean Identity in Brazil and the United States: Arguments about History, Culture, and Transnational Connections
João Leal
Translated by Wendy Graça
Move Over, Scopes and Other Writings
Julian Silva
The Marriage of the Portuguese
(Expanded Edition)
Sam Pereira
Home Is an Island
Alfred Lewis
Land of Milk and Money
Anthony Barcellos
The Conjurer and Other Azorean Tales Page 20
