Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

Interstitial

Her head! Such pain. Excruciating like nails driven into her brain.

And shortness of breath, and extreme fatigue. So that the thought comes to her almost as a relief that she has died in this strange breathless place in the mountains, she has passed away.

A man whose face she can’t see is asking with some urgency: Darling? Can you open your eyes?

Gripping her hand as if to steady her. For the way down is steep, two hundred stone steps. Yet, she is lying very still in this unfamiliar place—atop a bed with a hard mattress—struggling to breathe. What an effort it is to open her eyes for the mildest light makes her cry out in pain.

Church bells, nearby. Exuberant, over-loud as deranged wind chimes.

It is a fairy-tale place. A fairy tale gone wrong.

What you deserve. How dare you imagine you can leave us.

Outside the windows of the beautiful old Quito Hotel, Quito, Ecuador. In the historic center of the old Incan city in the Andes, on a high hill amid rooftops of many colors. A nightmare of crammed-together dwellings, narrow passageways, crimson bougainvillea—a tropical flower unknown in the northern state in which Jessalyn has lived her entire life.

Wanting to show her beauty, he has said. The beauty of the world.

She’d only just glimpsed the church steeple rising out of the hillside, the previous day. Before the headache worsened. The sharp clear blade-like church bells tolling the hour had not tormented her, yet.

How beautiful! But how thin the air, in this place.

Her companion, to whom she is not married, speaking rapidly in a language she doesn’t know, speaking and laughing with the taxi driver who’d brought them from the airport, the hotel manager, hotel staff. All are charmed with him, the swarthy-skinned visitor from the United States who speaks their language like a native. And she, the white-skinned American woman beside him, smiling mute and foolish, hopeful.

You don’t have to go through with it, Mom. You can tell Hugo you don’t want to go with him. Ecuador is so far—what if something happens to you?

We will be worrying about you, Mom. All of us.

The plan this morning is to visit a very old church, within walking distance of the Quito Hotel, then to climb two hundred rock-steps in a hillside behind the church to an abandoned stone chapel from which (it is promised) they will have a muy espectacular view of the city. But through the interminable breathless night Jessalyn has become increasingly ill.

Altitude sickness! Quito is more than nine thousand feet above sea level. (Hammond, New York, is approximately five hundred feet.)

Can’t breathe, can’t think clearly. Eyes aching. Where is she?

Wanting badly to cover her head with a pillow, to muffle the aggressive church bells. But too weak for even such minimal exertion.

He is very concerned for her, the man. Speaking to her in urgent words she can’t comprehend. Too much effort to listen, still more to reply to him.

Hugo has closed shutters over the windows to keep out the bright-glaring sun. How vivid, how relentless the sun is in Ecuador, fifteen miles south of the Equator! They’d left an opaque gray January sky in Hammond, New York, to travel through much of the previous day to this glaring-blue sky in the Southern Hemisphere. Five degrees Fahrenheit there, seventy-two degrees here. Their plan is to spend three days on the mainland of Ecuador, then fly to the Galápagos Islands where they will stay for nine days. In Quito, Hugo has rented a car and a driver to take them to the equatorial monument at La Mitad del Mundo—“The Middle of the World”—and beyond that into the highlands of the Andes, to the town of Ibarra, where they are to spend a day and a night before returning to Quito, and from there to the Galápagos.

But Jessalyn is short of breath, paralyzed by headache pain of a kind she has never experienced before. Is her brain swelling?—pressing against her skull? Almost, she can feel the terrible pressure, increasing by slow degrees as her body flushes and sweats.

Fear of dying. In this remote place. Three thousand miles from home.

Hugo, that canny traveler, familiar with high-altitude travel, has taken care to provide Jessalyn with ibuprofen tablets and (bottled) water. (Of course, all drinking water must be bottled here. And beware of ice cubes!) Before leaving Hammond he’d acquired prescription medication for Jessalyn and himself: one capsule (Diamox) to be taken before leaving Hammond, another to be taken when they arrived in Quito, this morning a third (which Jessalyn could barely bring herself to swallow).

Fearful of vomiting, soiling the bedsheets. In this beautiful suite! The hotel staff has provided other remedies for Hugo to bring to the stricken señora: a dusky-tasting tea prepared from cocoa leaves, a dark, bitter chocolate bar.

Nothing seems to help. The dusky-tasting tea runs down her chin, impossible to swallow. Just the smell of the dark, bitter chocolate bar makes her nauseated.

So sorry! So very sorry.

She has disappointed Hugo, she knows. Though Hugo insists that this isn’t so.

Jessalyn tells him, Please go without me. I will be all right.

She can remain in the hotel room, in bed. In the darkened room which is in fact a very comfortable room. (Except for the damned church bells! But these will cease at night, at least.) Hugo can travel into the mountains as they’d planned, to Ibarra, and stay the night at the hotel there. She will be safe here alone, she is sure. (Personal safety doesn’t concern Jessalyn just now, she is so sick.) When Hugo returns in a day and a half surely she will be feeling better, and in any case they can fly to the Galápagos as they’d planned, which will bring them to sea level.

Difficult for Jessalyn to explain this. Her tongue is numb, words come slow and confused. But Hugo interrupts to say no, not a good idea. He can’t leave her, so sick.

But please, Jessalyn pleads. You have come so far, you will be disappointed…

Hugo insists, no. He is not such a child to be disappointed.

Hugo has traveled in South America, Tibet, China, Nepal, at high altitudes, and has several times experienced altitude sickness, but at much greater heights—beyond twelve thousand feet. He’d taken a variety of medications including local, herbal medicines, he’d managed always to keep going. To Hugo, Quito is not so very high; he had not anticipated that Jessalyn might be so severely stricken.

She is probably dehydrated, he tells her. If only she would try to drink the bottled water he has brought her!

Gamely, she tries. But begins to cough, gag.

Church bells are tolling (again). Is it a death, a funeral?—Jessalyn wonders.

Never an end. An infinity of funerals.

The bells bring no comfort as wind chimes bring comfort. It is her punishment to have traveled so far to this strange place in the Andes.

How short of breath she is! Half-recalling, she’d run up a flight of stairs. (Had she? No: the elevator had ascended slowly, an ornamental gilt cage.) Still, she is breathless from the effort.

The room is darkened like a cave. Her eyes are damp with moisture, the pupils dilated like the eyes of a trapped animal. Meaning to comfort her the man half-lies on the bed beside her. Tall, large, ungainly, heavy pressing against her. They are not married yet he is husbandly, or would be husbandly. This is the role a husband would play, such solicitude, such care. Except the bed sinks beneath his weight which is jarring to her, and makes her head hurt. He is stroking her forehead, her hair that has become damp and matted.

His hand, a heavy hand, too warm. Calloused fingers catch in her fine hair and in a haze of pain she is not always sure whose hand it is. Oh, she wishes he would not touch her! But she cannot bring herself to push the hand away.

Maybe shut her eyes and try to sleep. A cold, damp cloth over her eyes. Would that help?

He is returning from the bathroom with a damp cloth. Not cold but lukewarm. Again, she steels herself for the sudden sinking of the bed on his side. Wincing in pain—Oh!

If she doesn’t begin to recover soon, Hugo says. They will have to alter their plans.

Forget about driving into the Andes. Forget about Ibarra which is as high as Quito. If he can book a flight they can fly to the coastal town of Guayaquil where the altitude will be sea level. If he can book a hotel there, at this popular time of the year.

Jessalyn protests: she does not want him to change his plans. He has come so far, he has brought his photographic equipment… Two expensive cameras of which one is quite heavy. A tripod, in a backpack.

Jessalyn will be all right by herself, she is sure. If she can stay very still and not move her head, eyes shut. Without having to see or speak with anyone. A terrible malaise like filthy water washing into her mouth, filling her lungs, making her want to vomit up her guts, her very life. This malaise of which she cannot speak to her companion, it is her secret from him as (she is sure) he has secrets from her. But she is hopeful that the malaise will begin to lighten, if she is totally alone, and gives herself up to it unresisting.

It is a malaise that has something to do with the cemetery, that evening. The grave marker—JOHN EARLE MCCLAREN. How desperate the widow had been, seeking the lost husband in a wet cold place with no name.

Hugo insists, he can’t leave her! Ridiculous.

His voice is too loud in the darkened room. It makes her head ache more sharply, it makes her sweat. So exhausted is Jessalyn, the very thought of staggering into the bathroom, to attempt to take a shower, leaves her weak with fatigue.

The bedsheets, crisp-laundered white cotton when they’d arrived the previous day, have become clammy-damp, smelly. Smelling of her (sick, fevered) body. She is ashamed, the man who has said he loves her is close beside her, on the bed, grasping her hand to comfort her when it is not comfort she deserves but pain, and the oblivion of pain.

What now? What is he saying? An edge of exasperation in his voice.

He wants her to eat! To try to eat. He has dared to bring food into the room, on a tray. But Jessalyn is not hungry, the thought of food is repulsive to her. The smell, sickening.

So tired, she only wants to be alone.

It is her fault. It is what she deserves. That she is here in this hotel, in the old “colonial” quarter of Quito, Ecuador. She has come here with a man who is not her husband, who has said that he loves her even if she does not (entirely) love him, a man of whom her family disapproves. Never in her life has Jessalyn done anything so reckless, so improvident.

Whitey had said—Toss the dice, darling. Do it!

She’d postponed immunizations (typhoid, yellow fever, hepatitis A, malaria) until two weeks before the trip, and some of these (probably) have had adverse effects, mild fever, nausea. The Hammond doctor had said to her, surprised, why, Jessalyn, where on earth are you going?—for Jessalyn had been Dr. Rothfeld’s patient for years, as Whitey had been.

Where on earth. With whom. Why.

Haltingly she told him. Perhaps, just slightly proudly she told him. Travel to Ecuador? The Galápagos? Staring at Jessalyn as if he’d never seen her before. This white-haired woman, Whitey McClaren’s widow? So recently a widow?

Must have been that Rothfeld knew no rumors of the widow’s Hispanic lover for he’d asked if Jessalyn was going on a cruise with friends and in the awkwardness of the moment Jessalyn allowed him to think yes, a cruise ship, the Esmeralda. Smiling to think that the doctor was imagining a luxury cruise ship of widows.

Hugo seems offended, hurt. That Jessalyn would ask him to go away and leave her. That she thought no more of him than that, a man who would abandon a sick friend in a country new and strange to her, whose language she could not speak.

Would Jessalyn’s husband have done such a thing? Abandon her? No? Then why would she think that he, Hugo, would abandon her? It is the first time in their relationship that Hugo speaks sharply to Jessalyn.

She has ruined everything now, she thinks, crushed. She has deeply insulted Hugo, she has destroyed his feeling for her that has been precious.

Her brain hurts so, it’s as if a plate has been smashed inside her skull. Sharp pieces of glass, cutting into her brain.

Oh I am so sorry, Hugo! Forgive me.

Too weak to cry. The black rushing malaise sweeps over her.

And where has Hugo gone? Barely Jessalyn can open her eyes to see, the room seems to be empty.

But it is a relief, to be alone. The man’s presence has been too much for her in this weakened state, she has felt oppressed, obliterated. Not enough oxygen in the room, Hugo has sucked it all up.

Especially, she has feared Hugo draining away her sorrow, her grief. Her loneliness, that has become precious to her.

Only in times of utter quiet does her loneliness return, as a kind of balm.

Though she is feeling devastated, she has driven the man away, insulted. (And if he doesn’t return? What will she do then? She is helpless without him in this distant place.)

Thinking now, of course Whitey would never have left her in the hotel dazed and sick, as she has urged Hugo to leave her. Not for a moment would Whitey have thought of such a thing.

Yet, Jessalyn had left him.

In the misery of this illness realizing that she had betrayed her husband, unwittingly. Poor Whitey had died—“passed away”—when Jessalyn hadn’t been at his bedside, to hold his hand and comfort him. She had been in the hospital and yet, by the time she’d been allowed to come to him, it was too late: his fever had spiked at 104.1 degrees Fahrenheit and his heart had failed. Jessalyn had not ever seen him alive again.

When she entered the room it was all over—the struggle of her husband to live. Medics had begun the preparation of his body for death. Tubes, needles had been removed from his exhausted veins. Machines monitoring his vital organs had been turned off. His life had ended so abruptly, Jessalyn hadn’t had the opportunity to say goodbye.

Had Whitey’s soul departed his body? Had Whitey’s soul remained in the room, lost, confused, waiting for Jessalyn to speak to him?

Oh God. What have I done.

Waves of horror wash over her. In her husband’s hour of need she had abandoned him.

It is her punishment, this illness. Why she has been brought here.

The church bells have ceased for the time being. It is past noon. The sun is fierce against the shuttered windows, a January sun at the Equator. Atop the bed with the hard mattress Jessalyn lies without moving, listening to the cries of birds. She wonders if they are bright-feathered, exotic birds—parrots? Cockatoos?

She has driven the man away, who’d loved her. Something reckless and greedy in her, terrible to acknowledge.

A small boat drifting. The canoe behind the house, at the creek. Whitey? Where are you? Sees her hand reach out for his, in a shadowy place.

She is in the canoe, this is a surprise. Always, she has feared canoes! A sudden move, a loss of balance, the canoe could capsize—easily.

Yet, her children had taken out the canoe, as well as the rowboat. Whitey had told her don’t look, don’t look out the window and don’t be ridiculous, the boys can handle that canoe as well as I can. Whitey had spent much of their marriage laughing at Jessalyn, tenderly.

Here is the situation: if Whitey can securely grasp her hand, and if Jessalyn can grip the inside of the canoe, he could tug her toward him in the water. It would not be easy, it would require patience and very often Whitey has been impatient.

Here is a narrow cave into which dark water laps. She has to lower her head in order to enter it.

Jessalyn? I didn’t expect to find you here. This far from home.

It is! It is far from home!—(her voice is gay, to disguise the fear she feels)—I didn’t realize it was so far. But I am here now.

Darling! Give me your hand.

There is a bedside lamp with a stained glass shade. It must be later. The same day, interminable.

The stained glass light is muted but still hurts her eyes.

Jessalyn?—suddenly close beside her, he calls to her. Wake up. Give me your hand—the man is stooped over her.

More roughly than she would wish, the man is helping her out of the dank smelly bed. Explaining where they are going, how they must hurry.

How is it possible, Hugo hasn’t left her? Had she failed to understand?

Her instincts bridle, it is wrong to put on clothes as she is doing, not-clean clothing, and her body slick and smelly with fever. And her hair unbrushed, matted. Dried mucus in the corners of her eyes. Surprising to her, the man is not repelled by her as she is repelled by herself.

Somehow, Hugo has managed to get Jessalyn dressed, and shoes on her feet. He has managed to get her on her feet and able to move as he supports her with his arm around her waist.

Descending by slow creaking degrees in the gilt cage elevator. Suitcases, Hugo’s backpack, a hotel porter speaking rapidly to them in Spanish.

Interior of a taxi. Hugo is helping her inside. Less than twenty-four hours ago they’d come from the airport in a taxi very like this, now they are departing Quito.

Almost, Jessalyn feels a pang of regret. Somewhere behind her and lost to her now, the shadowy cave where Whitey had awaited her. Yet, it has not happened that way.

Obscuring half her face, a pair of dark-lensed sunglasses that Hugo has secured on her, to shield her eyes from the white-glaring sun.

On this bumpy ride they are being taken in the taxi to the airport outside town. Descending a long winding hill past lush vegetation.

Hugo has been telling her laughingly no, of course he hadn’t left her. Only to make travel arrangements. Only to take a half-dozen quick photographs in the street. The taxi brings them to the airport which is a few hundred feet lower than Quito, miraculously the pain in Jessalyn’s head begins to lessen.

She is not so nauseated now. Hugo insists that she try to drink bottled water, in small mouthfuls.

The small plane taxis along the runway like a frantic shorebird. It does not seem believable to Jessalyn that the plane will ascend into the air, rattling terribly, one of its wings dipping lower than the other, and yet within minutes they are rattling/humming aloft, and the glamorous air flight attendants are on their feet in the aisle, bravely smiling. And here the miracle increases, for the air pressure in the cabin allows her to breathe once again. Almost, she can feel the tight-tangled blood vessels in her brain begin to untangle.

The plane lurches!—at once, murmurs of alarm, and amusement at the alarm, ripple through the cabin.

Flying west, to the coastal city of Guayaquil. A quick flight, within an hour Jessalyn’s headache has faded. In the resort city she is able to walk leaning on Hugo’s arm, along the sun-splotched quay. Here are palm trees, crimson and purple bougainvillea. Paradise! To her surprise Jessalyn is very hungry.

Hugo is relieved that Jessalyn has recovered so swiftly. Several times he stops her to kiss her eyelids, her hair.

So worried about you, darling! Sick with worry.

Jessalyn perceives in Hugo a man who has been a husband and a father: a protector. She had not witnessed him sick with worry in the past.

She is giddy with love for him. Slipping her arms around him, in this public place. Kissing his mouth, the silly mustache. Love for the tall startled smiling man who’d brought her to a terrible place but has now saved her from it.

“MARRY ME, DARLING! TODAY.”

It is not the first time that Hugo has suggested marriage. And Jessalyn has not known how to reply.

But—I am already married. I thought you understood…

But today is different. Laughing together at lunch on the quay, in the open air. Both are very hungry, in fact ravenous. Jessalyn has never been so hungry in her life.

Awaiting their food, tearing at crusts of thick dark bread.

Hears herself say yes of course, she will marry him.

It is very sudden. It is not at all sudden, it has been prepared with the fanatic care with which a small garden is tilled, seeded, planted.

“But do you love me?”—wistfully Hugo asks her.

“Of course I love you. Yes.”

Hugo is astounded. But Hugo is tugging at his mustache, smiling.

“Oh, Jessalyn! Your family won’t approve. You had better consult them, darling.”

“No.” Jessalyn laughs, wildly—“I had better not consult them.”

A half-glass of wine has gone to her head. Indeed, her brain had almost killed her. Yet, her brain had not killed her. Whichever words she utters to this man gazing at her with adoration will become miraculously true.

It is so, Hugo Martinez has become precious to Jessalyn. Sometimes she feels that she has known him a very long time. That he has been waiting for her for a very long time.

And there is the prospect, of which Jessalyn doesn’t want to think, of Hugo one day becoming ill, being hospitalized. And if so, Jessalyn must be the wife.

For there are places where if you are not a spouse or a relative, if there is not a legal contract defining your relationship, you may not be allowed at the bedside of your stricken companion even if you are all that he has.

Even now in the sun-splotched restaurant on the quay she is thinking of Whitey marooned in a hospital room, white walls, white sheets, shut doors, in the middle of the night no one there to hold him, comfort him.

It will not happen again. Not another time, her husband will die alone and not in her arms.

Not altogether seriously at first Hugo makes inquiries at the U.S. consulate on the Avenue Rodriguez Bonin near their hotel. The consulate is housed in a handsome old brick colonial town house set back in a meticulously landscaped park and surrounded by a five-foot wrought iron fence. Broad avenues lined with royal palms and bougainvillea, opulent rose gardens, stucco mansions with orange-tiled roofs, expensive vehicles parked conspicuously at the curbs—this is a wealthy part of Guayaquil where everything resembles an advertisement in a glossy magazine.

Not Hugo’s kind of place, actually. Nothing that excites him to photograph. Yet, it is where he finds himself on this quest to be married.

(And how many times has Hugo Martinez been married? Jessalyn knows at least once, very likely twice. Beyond that?—she has not inquired, and she has not been told.)

All they need are their U.S. passports, they are informed by a smiling young receptionist in the consulate. The waiting time is twenty-four hours.

And so, twenty-four hours later Jessalyn and Hugo return to be married by the deputy chief of mission in his sun-filled office at the consulate. Do you, Jessalyn Sewell McClaren, take this man, Hugo Vincent Martinez, to be your lawful wedded husband… And do you, Hugo Vincent Martinez, take this woman… It is so vivid a scene, the deputy chief’s midwestern voice so warmly enthusiastic, the crimson stripes of the American flag so neon-bright, cries of tropical birds (parrots?) outside the window so piercing-sweet, Jessalyn has to instruct herself—But it is real! It is really happening.

Like the second, or was it the third, mammogram. Hold breath, hold breath, don’t release breath, continue to hold breath—Now. Relax.

Returned again to breathing. As she and Hugo manage to push rings (newly purchased, plain silver matching bands) onto each other’s finger and Hugo stoops to kiss her happily on the lips.

(Jessalyn has moved her older rings to her right hand. Practical, pragmatic, an act of betrayal? Yet, it is accomplished.)

“Don Bankwell”—deputy chief of mission at the U.S. consulate at Guayaquil—is an exceptionally friendly fellow American specially empowered to conduct marriage ceremonies for U.S. citizens as well as to perform other legal services for Americans abroad, which he clearly enjoys, and why would he not enjoy such an enviable job, in this sunlit residence on Avenue Rodriguez Bonin, far from the howling-cold January American Midwest; not likely to be an ambassador, or even a consul general, but rather a trusted assistant, one day (perhaps) to serve in a great capital city like Paris, London, Rome, if he remains well-liked by his superiors at the State Department, and praised by Americans traveling abroad who are likely to be from time to time well-to-do and influential Americans, with friends in the State Department to whom they might report impressions of “Don Bankwell.” And so Bankwell is eager to flatter Hugo and Jessalyn, and to introduce them to his administrative assistant, a dazzlingly beautiful young Ecuadorian woman who prepares the wedding documents and is a witness to the signatures.

Does it happen frequently, that Americans are married in the consulate at Guayaquil?

“Not what you’d call frequently,” Don Bankwell says, “but yes, from time to time. Americans traveling abroad may suddenly have a strong desire to get married. Especially in tropical places. Nearing the Equator we start to feel that things are losing their reality. For the Equator itself hardly exists, it’s more of a sensation. You begin to think, maybe nothing is real. But marriage, the actual thing—that will seem to most people real, permanent.” So the deputy chief of mission declares, in his broad midwestern accent.

Jessalyn and Hugo are impressed. Marriage will seem, to most people, real, permanent. Yes. Yes of course, that must be so.

All things come to an end and melt into the stream. Husband and wife may vanish but their marriage is a permanent historical record.

Here is a remarkable coincidence: on a wall in the consulate reception area are several prints of photographs by Hugo taken years before in the Amazonian rain forest and given an exhibit, with other photographs of the Amazon, in the Whitney Museum, New York City, 1989. Hugo is astonished to recognize the several framed prints on the wall, and the deputy chief of mission is thrilled.

“You are this photographer? Martinez?”

It is such a pleasant surprise, staff workers are called to see. Too bad, the consul general isn’t in his office! They have all been admiring these photographs, it seems, for months, if not years; and here, the handsome mustached photographer, in white cord suit, blue-striped shirt, sharp-creased trousers and open-toed sandals, stands smiling before them, accepting compliments and congratulations like a king, or a bridegroom.

So friendly, the deputy chief insists upon taking the newly married couple, and the gorgeous Margarita, around the corner to an outdoor restaurant for champagne.

“It isn’t every day that I marry a great artist,” the mission chief says gravely. “And such a beautiful gracious señora.”

Margarita keeps a close eye on the deputy mission chief as if she fears that the American diplomat, middle-aged, going to fat, clearly and hopelessly in love with her, is in a tremulous state this morning.

Champagne!—a second round of toasts.

Even before the champagne Jessalyn has been feeling light-headed. A wave of vertigo.

If she were to shut her eyes and then open them, would she have any idea where she was?

Oh, Whitey! Where have you sent me.

Staring at her (new) husband: in his cord suit, striped shirt open at the throat. Very dashing, handsome. Is he a (Hispanic) film star just slightly past his prime? Or, rather—a world-renowned artist? His warm coffee-colored skin is flushed with pleasure, his dark eyes very bright. In moments of agitation he has a habit of plucking at his mustache. A wife will (eventually) try to discourage this habit, but not quite yet.

Jessalyn has made this man happy, has she?—perhaps then, Hugo will make Jessalyn happy in turn.

He’d insisted upon buying a dress for Jessalyn that morning, for her to be married in. White linen with short sleeves and a scooped neckline, the better to show off the bottle-blue glass beads he also purchased for her at a boutique on the avenue, where they’d picked up the matching silver rings. And an exquisite white lace shawl draped over her shoulders, as a bridal veil.

Poor Whitey had not known what to buy Jessalyn for birthdays and special occasions. A sort of shyness had paralyzed him. How very different Hugo Martinez who has given Jessalyn dozens of gifts during the relatively short time he has known her—handcrafted jewelry, scarves and shawls, hats, even dresses. Even a pair of “hiking sandals”—rubberized sandals with closed-in toes, very ugly but practical, ideal for the Galápagos. (How did Hugo know her size? He’d taken one of her shoes to the sporting equipment store.) Nothing shy about Hugo whose confidence in his own good taste is considerable.

Hugo examines the wedding certificate with its gilt seal of the United States of America—Jessalyn Sewell McClaren, Hugo Vincent Martinez. The date of the marriage is January 11, 2012.

Hugo asks the mission chief, is this actually legal? Will it be recognized in the United States?—Bankwell assures him yes of course, it will be.

Shaking hands in parting. Don Bankwell is flushed with drink, moved nearly to tears. Beautiful Margarita will guide him back to the consulate, brew black coffee to sober him up. Gracias! God bless you.

After the champagne celebration Jessalyn purchases postcards in the hotel lobby. She will write home to her family at once. She has no intention of deceiving them.

To each of the children, a separate card. Though the message is identical:

AND WHAT HAVE THEY FORGOTTEN? Hugo suddenly realizes.

“We need prenuptial contracts. You are too trusting, dear.”

Prenuptial contracts! Jessalyn wonders if this is one of Hugo’s jokes, for Hugo has a whimsical sense of humor; but she sees that he has spoken gravely. In response, Jessalyn can only laugh nervously.

Hugo persists: “It’s the first thing your children will ask about, Jessalyn. Especially your older children who are suspicious of me enough as it is.”

Jessalyn tries to protest but her voice falters. Weakly she says, “But it’s too late now, anyway. We are already married…”

In fact no, it is not too late. A prenuptial contract executed after a wedding has no less legal standing than one executed before. And the date is still January 11, 2012.

Hugo insists upon returning to the consulate before it closes that afternoon, to borrow the services of a secretary/typist and a notary public. It isn’t required for them to see one of the diplomatic staff, or Don Bankwell, only just the friendly Ecuadorian receptionist who recognizes the newly married couple and is willing to provide them with a secretary and a notary for a small fee.

Jessalyn is embarrassed at the prospect of such a contract. But Hugo says it’s good for both of them, for instance she can’t claim his house as shared property in the event that they are divorced, or any of his estate until the present day, and he can’t claim hers.

Jessalyn sees that Hugo is joking. The (awkward) humor must lie in the fact, if it is a fact, that Hugo Martinez’s estate is worth much less than Jessalyn’s estate, but Jessalyn wonders if that’s so. Surely Hugo’s photographs are worth a great deal?

But Jessalyn understands Hugo’s seriousness. He wants to show not Jessalyn, but her family, that he isn’t after her money.

He isn’t after the house on Old Farm Road. Or Jessalyn’s shares of McClaren, Inc. Or whatever wealth her deceased husband has left her, bound up in a trust, or scattered among investments.

And so she agrees. What’s the harm in signing a prenuptial?—there is no harm.

Basically, you are saying that all of your life previous to this marriage is walled-off from the new spouse. He/she cannot plunder it unless by a subsequent decision of your own you alter the terms.

Jessalyn could rewrite her will making Hugo a prominent heir. Hugo could rewrite his will. Jessalyn feels a shudder of dismay, thinking of such matters. Whitey’s will!—in the near-catatonia of her initial grief she’d envisioned her husband’s will as an oversized formal document and had searched for it in Whitey’s desk drawers in vain, tears spilling from her eyes; when Thom searched he found the will within minutes, correctly filed in one of Whitey’s drawers: a document of stapled pages of ordinary size.

Hugo dictates the prenuptial contract, stark in its simplicity, less than a page in length, and the secretary types it. The notary public will affix her seal.

“Señora?—please sign.”

A new document to sign. Jessalyn obeys. It is all very formal, very proper and “legal”—though financial matters, and the talk that surrounds them, are the death of the soul and she is feeling just slightly dispirited, on this day when she should be so happy.

Out on the avenue Jessalyn tells Hugo in sudden passion that she hopes they live a long, long time together and that they die at exactly the same moment, so neither will have to deal with the other’s estate.

Hugo laughs, startled. “Don’t think of such morbid things, darling. That isn’t like you.”

“But I always think of such things,” Jessalyn says, slipping her arm through his, “—don’t you know me at all?”

NEXT MORNING in their airy white hotel room overlooking the Pacific Ocean Hugo plaits her hair: “For the first time, darling Jessalyn, as your husband.”

Brushing the shoulder-length white hair, parting it in the center of her head, carefully braiding the strands together. Hugo is utterly absorbed, as in a trance of oblivion. Jessalyn leans her forehead against his shoulder feeling too weak, too deeply moved to speak. If Hugo plaits the hair too tight, Jessalyn does not register the fleeting pain.

“Mi hermosa esposa, I love so much.”

“My dear husband, I love so much.”

They cannot possibly survive, Jessalyn thinks. Almost, she can envision the high white ceiling of the hotel cracking, collapsing. An earthquake?—does Guayaquil have earthquakes?

Expecting then, for such is Jessalyn’s morbidity, that something terrible will happen to them on the drive to the airport or if not then, on the seven-hundred-mile flight west to Galápagos Islands National Park in the Pacific Ocean.

To the airstrip at Baltra Island where with other “eco-travelers” they board the Esmeralda, a brilliantly white cruise ship holding one hundred passengers.

Eight days in the Galápagos! It will be the adventure of Jessalyn’s life.

For weeks Jessalyn has been reading books Hugo has provided her with such titles as Galápagos: Enchanted Islands and Galápagos: Endangered Species but she is still not fully prepared for the beauty and rawness of the region, or the physical arduousness required of tourists; she is dismayed by the wave-rocked dinghies that bear passengers from the Esmeralda to the islands in the Gulf of Chiriquí early each morning, and often involve “wet” landings—jumping out of the dinghy into the surf.

Nearly turning an ankle on one of her leaps onto a rock-strewn beach with other dinghy passengers. Oh!—the shock runs through her body, unaccustomed to such physical exertion.

Absorbed in his camera settings Hugo has gone ahead up the beach and another American tourist helps her regain her balance.

Ma’am? Are you all right?

Yes thank you. I am—all right.

Didn’t sprain your ankle, did you? You’re sure?

Oh yes. I am sure!

In a bulky orange life vest, in a long-sleeved white mosquito-resistant shirt, khaki shorts to the knee, the rubberized hiking sandals that tug like weights on her feet. In dark glasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat without which she would be blinded and helpless as a mollusk in the blinding tropical sun. Her neatly and practicably plaited hair will not be a distraction in the wind and she wears a backpack that Hugo has purchased for her. Hugo insists that she carry her own bottle of water on the island excursions, as he will carry his.

Hugo has a way of scolding her, if affectionately. Tugging at her braid. “Remember to drink plenty of water, mi esposa. I can’t always be watching you.”

Each morning they awaken early in their small spartan cabin in the Esmeralda. Each morning Jessalyn raises the blind to stare out the single horizontal window at darkened waters overtaken within minutes by an explosion of astonishing light, of indescribable hues. Always the ship is rocking, off-balance. Jessalyn has taken seasickness pills, that seem to have had some effect. At breakfast she has little appetite but is impressed to see how Hugo eats, with much zest.

Her heart is suffused with tenderness for the man who reaches for her in the night, in his sleep. Slipping his heavy warm arm over her as if to secure her. Though it is difficult to sleep beside him, he sleeps so deeply, his breathing is so deep and sonorous, while Jessalyn feels as if she is floating like froth on the surface of sleep, easily awakened.

Hugo buries his face in her neck. He calls her dear, darling. He calls her mi amada esposa—my loving wife. Jessalyn wonders if, in his deepest sleep, her husband knows who she is; if he confuses her with other women, as he might confuse himself with the other, younger man he’d once been.

How we sift through ourselves, with others. Clasping at hands that turn transparent, that dissolve in our touch. Crying out No! Wait! Don’t leave me, I can’t live without you—and in the next instant they are gone, and we remain, alive.

There is no housekeeping for their cabin—no maids to clean. Jessalyn who cannot abide messiness takes care to straighten the bedclothes, hang up Hugo’s clothes flung across the bed, left atop a bureau. She takes care to hang damp towels neatly in the bathroom the size of a telephone booth, a narrow stall crudely hidden behind strips of translucent plastic. She cleans out the sink with wadded tissues and cleans the mirror, which Hugo never fails to leave splattered. It is awkward, such intimacy. In a weak moment Jessalyn thinks—But why did I want to get married again? I was learning to be happy, alone.

In the cabin they are always in each other’s way! Hugo says, laughing, “I thought you were over there, darling, and here you are—here.”

Jessalyn says, “Are you sure there isn’t more than one of you? Every time I turn around you are looming.”

And always the ship is rocking, night and day. Always seeming about to settle, then rising again, lifting and lowering, off-balance. Except that it varies in its force and rhythms the ceaseless motion would be comforting.

Hugo seems scarcely to notice even the rougher rocking. Jessalyn is aware of little else.

It is the adventure of my life. What remains of my life.

Of course—I am happy. I am alive.

Each morning passengers disembark from the Esmeralda in wave-buffeted dinghies quaintly named for Galápagos creatures—Sea Lion, Tortoise, Dolphin, Iguana, Frigate, Albatross, Pelican, Cormorant, Howler Monkey, Boobie. Like children at camp, or inmates in an institution, they line up dutifully to be issued safety vests and walking sticks. In the water the dinghies lurch, careen drunkenly. Suddenly you can’t see the sky, for the choppy sea surrounds you. Passengers clutch at the edges of the dinghy with white-knuckled fists hoping not to look terrified. Jessalyn tries to laugh, she is so—breathless! Telling herself that there is no actual danger, Hugo would not have brought her to a place of danger, for he adores her.

Those fins in the water?—the tour guide points, and the dinghy passengers stare at the waves, trying to discern quick-darting dark fins.

Sharks. But probably baby sharks.

Some lift their cameras and cell phones, to take pictures. Baby sharks!

Are there often fatal accidents in the Galápagos, on these expeditions?—one of the more assertive passengers asks the tour guide; and the guide, a dark-skinned man in his early forties, looking as if he were part Indian and part Asian, says with a courteous smile that there are few accidents and virtually none that are fatal, if people follow safety rules.

None. If.

It is an ambiguous answer, Jessalyn thinks. But no one else seems to notice. For them, the answer is simply none.

PREDATOR, PREY. SURVIVAL, EXTINCTION. “Genetic memory.”

In the Galápagos such divisions are stark. You are a predator, or you are prey. If you fail to survive, you become extinct. You do not exercise what is called, in some quarters, “free will”—rather, you behave by instinct, guided by something called “genetic memory.”

If you survive, it is at the expense of others, who fail to survive. But if you survive, your survival is only temporary in any case.

Indeed, the islands are monuments to death. The bodies of animals are left where they have fallen, for no one in the park service will touch any of the animals. Bones stipple the landscape. In trees there are skeletons of birds, feathered wings trapped in branches. If you look closely on the rocky beaches you see the decaying, desiccated, or skeletal remains of creatures—sea lions, fur seals, turtles, iguanas, shorebirds. On the wind, over-ripe smells of corruption mixed with fresher, cooler air from the open sea.

Jessalyn thinks, dismayed—But what a place he has brought us to, on our honeymoon!

Yet each morning Jessalyn is exhilarated, hopeful. Each morning an astonishing dawn. Each morning new islands, and each island distinct from the others.

She finds herself thinking of the squint-eyed feral cat Mackie. In the Galápagos Mackie would have managed to survive, this is the predator’s landscape.

Missing Mackie, as she misses her faraway home. A perverse nostalgia of which Jessalyn could never speak to another person, certainly not dear Hugo, for those nights of utter misery when the widow took comfort in a feral cat purring in a little nest at the foot of her bed, washing his whiskers clean of the clotted blood of some small devoured creature.

She smiles, recalling. Sophia is overseeing the house in her absence—will Mackie shift his affection to her? Jessalyn feels a pang of loss…

“Come along, darling. D’you need a hand?”

It is not altogether like Hugo, to be so solicitous. Usually, Hugo encourages Jessalyn to blunder along as best she can in such rough circumstances; he is a firm believer in what he calls women’s emancipation—the emancipation from femininity, which is weakness and dependency upon men, which is a trap.

“Thank you, Hugo! I’m fine.”

Not entirely true but uttering fine provides a certain small measure of satisfaction in this inhospitable place.

Jessalyn and Hugo have been assigned to the Frigate dinghy, which is one of the earliest to depart from the Esmeralda. At an hour of the morning when the air is still porous with mist and the tropical sun is just burning through layers of luminous cloud. And always there is wind.

Sixteen passengers in the dinghy. And the tour guide, who introduces himself as Hector—(his surname, Jessalyn cannot quite hear)—who has been a guide in the Galápagos National Park for nineteen years.

Hector is terse in his manner though friendly-seeming, courteous; carrying himself with a sort of military bearing, in the khaki Galápagos Park uniform: long-sleeved shirt, shorts to the knee, hiking boots. He informs the group that he is of Kuna Indian descent from the Kuna Yala archipelago, with a degree in evolutionary biology from the University of Ecuador; his particular interest is the ecology of coastal plant communities in the islands.

From her reading Jessalyn knows that their guide must be a descendant of Spanish holocaust survivors. A surpassingly ugly history, the ways in which the sixteenth-century Spanish conquistadores plundered the continent that would come to be called Latin America, wiping out most of the indigenous tribes of Central America in the name of religion—Roman Catholicism. It is striking, it is ironic, that their guide is himself a survivor of a massive near-extinction, a man-caused genocide.

Jessalyn wonders if Hector thinks of himself in those terms. And what does he think of his Caucasian-American charges?

A trip to the Galápagos for eight days is not inexpensive. Hugo has paid for the trip, over Jessalyn’s protests. Even so, it is probable that her older children believe that she is paying for most, or all, of the trip.

Hector tells them of the fragility of ecosystems, that what appears to be solid and permanent is vulnerable to profound change. Introduce a new species of animal, insect, or plant to the Galápagos, and the results can be catastrophic. If plant communities are damaged, insects may be threatened, and creatures (like lava lizards) that prey upon insects may be damaged. Only recently did park authorities rid the islands of several devastatingly intrusive species—cats, rats, goats—at an expense of millions of dollars. European sailors had introduced these animals to the Galápagos in the nineteenth century, and their numbers had multiplied enormously, threatening indigenous species like giant tortoises, penguins, birds.

But how did you get rid of these cats, rats, goats?—Hector is asked by one of the tourists, who sounds startled.

Hector says that the information is included in the guidebook they’d all been issued, if they are interested in details. He assures them, “humane means” were used wherever possible.

However, the Galápagos environment is naturally pitiless. On the average of every four to seven years as many as 60 percent of Galápagos species die of starvation, despite the nutrient-rich nature of this part of the Pacific Ocean.

Overall, as many as 90 percent of all species that have ever lived have become extinct.

Jessalyn is stunned by such statistics. Sixty percent? Ninety percent? It does not seem possible.

She has never been a religious person. Casually, her family had seemed to believe in “God”—a Christian god, benign and abstract, in no way interfering with actual life. The question of “creation” had not engaged her intellectually but she sees now, in the wildly rocking dinghy approaching a rock-strewn shore in the Galápagos, in the Indian guide’s matter-of-fact recitation, how absurd, how pitiful, for human beings to have imagined a special destiny, and a promise of immortality for believers, just for them.

One’s own existence, so small. One’s grief, happiness, love or failure to love—of so little consequence.

In this place in which suicide is a redundancy: a joke.

Beside her, Hugo is peering at his camera, adjusting the lens, with some difficulty in the rocking boat.

Jessalyn kisses the man’s creased cheek. Jessalyn presses beside him, for warmth. Jessalyn asks if he finds the Galápagos overwhelming, or—inspiring?

“Overwhelming,” says Hugo, after a moment. “And inspiring.”

Does he think that human life is so inconsequential, as it appears to be here?

Again Hugo doesn’t answer at once. He is adjusting something on his camera, Jessalyn’s queries are distracting.

“Yes. Or, no.”

“Yes and no?”

“No. But yes.”

Peering into his viewfinder. Adjusting the viewfinder. For the photographer, the viewfinder puts all things that matter into scale.

“SEÑORA? BE CAREFUL, PLEASE.”

What is it?—Jessalyn draws back in alarm.

She’d been about to step on what appears to be a miniature dragon. Seeing the creature suddenly, so camouflaged by its dull-glittering scales it is virtually indistinguishable from the coils of calcified lava beneath it.

On the paths around her, tourists are taking pictures of these large, slow-moving lizards—iguanas. On his long impatient legs Hugo has gone ahead, farther up one of the trails. It is midday, thrummingly warm. They have disembarked upon a volcanic-lava island with minimal, stunted vegetation, overrun with iguanas, smaller lizards, slow-scuttling red crabs. On higher ground, on cliffs overlooking the beach, vividly feathered shorebirds—blue-footed boobies, cormorants, gulls and pelicans.

The terrain of the island is astonishing. Very hilly, sculpted-looking, the calcified lava resembling coiled intestines of the hue of coal. At first glance the landscape looks dead but when you look closely you see that it is covered in iguanas that are near-invisible, camouflaged amid the coils of rock.

So many! Hundreds, thousands? Jessalyn feels a thrill of horror.

The prehistoric-looking creatures are of varying sizes, strewn across the terrain. Warming themselves in the January sun oblivious of lizards and crabs scuttling over them. Their hinged mouths are slightly agape, their tongues flick like raw nerves. They are dense-bodied, armored in scales, the largest the size of a Jack Russell terrier. They have survived hundreds of thousands of years and will very likely outlive Homo sapiens, Hector says. Hector seems somewhat bemused by the iguanas, describing their mating rituals. He passes his hand over the eyes of the iguana that Jessalyn has almost stepped on and the creature scarcely blinks.

A rudimentary consciousness, when not aroused to sexual excitement or fighting with another male. The island iguanas appear “tame” but it is misleading to call them “tame”—“They behave as they do because they have no genetic memory of human predators.”

Hector explains that with the exception of the giant tortoises, which will retract their heads into their shells quickly if you approach them, all of the creatures in the Galápagos are indifferent to the presence of human beings, because they have no “genetic memories” of human predators—sea lions, penguins, shorebirds, pelicans.

Jessalyn asks if human beings have “genetic memories” of other human beings, as predators?—and Hector says, with a barking laugh, “But of course, señora. It is hardwired into our brains—what is called ‘xenophobia.’ The Neanderthals lacked such an instinct, and Homo sapiens destroyed them.”

Was this so? Or did the Neanderthals die of other causes also? Jessalyn has only a vague memory from long ago, when she’d been an undergraduate fascinated by natural history, as she’d been fascinated by poetry and philosophy; a long-ago life, scarcely a fossil-memory now, before love, marriage, motherhood had grasped her in their snug comforting coils.

But what a curious world, the Galápagos!—Jessalyn thinks. Like the looking-glass world in which the child Alice wandered into a forest where no creatures had names and where, as a consequence, wild animals like fawns didn’t know that human beings might be their enemies.

Someone in Jessalyn’s group asks if man is the predominant predator of all predators and Hector says no, actually not, in biological terms Homo sapiens is an omnivore, and not a carnivore, capable of living without eating meat if necessary.

In terms other than biological—?

“Well, Homo sapiens is very aggressive. War-making. In that way, predatory.”

Adding then, as if this is a personal, quirky notion and not a statement of the Galápagos Park authority, “And man is a being that looks upward. Always, upward.”

Jessalyn, who has been feeling overwhelmed by the Galápagos environment, feels heartened by this remark. The mere word upward in this barren place is stirring and uplifting to her.

Of course, the Galápagos is hardly a barren place. It is ignorant, short-sighted to think so.

Teeming with life. In the swirling dark waters, teeming with microscopic life. In the sculpted-intestine lava rock, teeming with lizards, hideous scuttling red crabs.

Everywhere you look, shorebirds shrugging their wide wings, quivering with appetite.

Life is appetite.

But is appetite life?

But where is Hugo?—Jessalyn is missing her photographer-husband. Like several others in the group he doesn’t stay within Hector’s earshot. He is an experienced hiker, the trails are not difficult for Hugo. He is not often beside Jessalyn on a trail for long, for he becomes impatient with the slow pace of the group, and with the often-inane questions put to the tour guide by the other tourists.

Some of these are families, with quite young children. All are earnestly taking pictures, and have to be reprimanded by Hector, from time to time, for drifting off the trail and coming too close to living things.

Jessalyn shades her eyes, peers ahead. Hugo has been hiking up the trail, which has turned steep, and is out of sight. (Not recommended, Hector has warned. Please keep in my sight at all times!) Naively Jessalyn has imagined that she and Hugo would spend time together in the Galápagos, perhaps walking hand in hand—she sees now that this is unlikely.

They are together on the Esmeralda, in their cramped cabin almost too much together, and in the dinghy Hugo sits close beside her, but as soon as the tour group sets out on an island trail, led by Hector, Hugo and a few others (male, of varying ages) are eager to slip ahead, to set their own pace; Hector doesn’t try to rein them in, for they would likely rebel against him.

Of course, Hector respects Hugo: the two men have a rapport of sorts, recognizing each other in a way that circumnavigates the Caucasian-Americans among them. If they wished, they could communicate in rapid-fire Spanish. For a man of his age Hugo is very fit: his shoulders, arms and legs are ropey with muscle, he has been hiking (as he has said) for most of his life, and is usually brimming with energy. He rarely becomes out of breath, he rarely leans on his walking stick. Taking photographs excites him as a hawk is excited by sighting prey on the ground below—he simply must get to it!

But Jessalyn knows, Hugo can become very tired, suddenly; in her arms, he is capable of falling asleep within seconds, as a small child sleeps; a sleep so profound it feels exhausted, stunned. But when he awakens, he is suffused with energy, you might say with himself.

Jessalyn smiles, thinking of Hugo as a sexual being. He is very affectionate, very easily aroused, and very easily satisfied.

And how happy he has been, in this desolate place! Nothing more thrilling to Hugo than to rise early, clamber about on the decks of the Esmeralda to take photographs of the mist-shrouded ocean dawn, as the extraordinary Pacific sky lightens, and climb to the highest peaks of islands to take photographs in places few others would dare to venture.

Jessalyn is exasperated with Hugo, and Jessalyn is very proud of Hugo. She loves him, for Hugo is the most loveable of men, but she is not in love with him. She doesn’t think so.

Or maybe yes, in fact she is. Maybe she has become, these last few days, since the wedding ceremony in the consulate, in love with Hugo Martinez.

As Whitey is less present in her life, Hugo is more present. Whitey is a sun, but a waning sun. Hugo is the new, luminous moon, coming into its fullness.

Without him, where would I be?

Without him to love me, who would I be?

But more, she would have no one to love. Tenderness stirs in her, like life itself. So long as Jessalyn is alive, she must have someone to love and to care for.

She respects women who live alone, who have renounced even the yearning for another. But she is not so strong, she does not want to be a brave widow.

Hugo has forced her to inhabit her body more fully. He has said, a woman must be as fit as a man. More than any man, for a woman will wind up taking care of a man. (This is a joke.) Your soul is not cotton candy to melt in the lightest rain but something beautiful and resilient like silk, he has said extravagantly. But Whitey hadn’t liked seeing his wife struggling with a task, shoveling in the garden for instance, dragging a heavy chair, hadn’t liked his beautiful slender wife panting with effort. Whitey had strolled about the lawn, declining to drag away fallen tree limbs—“That’s why we hire a lawn crew,” he’d said. “That’s why we pay them good money. That’s why we have more money than they do—to hire them, and shift money to them.”

Whitey had meant to be funny, Jessalyn supposed. Now, his words didn’t seem so funny.

Penguins, shorebirds, gulls. Continuous chattering, squawking. Everywhere on the rocks are glarIng-white bird droppings. And animation in the air. Swift changes of course, feathered creatures diving into the water to spear prey in their beaks. All is food hunting, food consumption. Life begetting life. It is a blunt depressing fact or (perhaps) it is a beautiful fact, to be contemplated intellectually.

Jessalyn recalls—Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. Yet in time, comedy yields to tragedy. And tragedy to forgetfulness and oblivion.

Hector is leading his group in another direction. Trying not to think about Hugo, dear Hugo who has been out of sight for at least a half hour, Jessalyn is drawn to the remarkable penguins, so seemingly tame, and blue-footed boobies feeding their noisy young, on their white-streaked boulders above the sea. And cormorants whose bodies have grown too heavy for their limbs to lift.

Beautiful birds, wind rippling their feathers. Some are asleep on one leg, the other drawn up gracefully beneath their bellies. Such peace despite the animation in the air, eyes shut.

The previous day they’d hiked on an island inhabited by sea lions and their young. Not so much like lions as walruses, though smaller than walruses, fattish, graceless, with large black eyes that seem almost human. A pack of sea lions barking, braying, moaning, groaning and grunting. And yet in the midst of these, some were sleeping. And cubs were nursing. As in the interstices of lichen-covered rocks a decaying sea-lion corpse of massive proportions overlooked the inlet of living sea lions like a not-fully-banished deity.

It was Hugo who’d made that observation—not-fully-banished deity. Squatting to take photographs of the corpse amid the rocks, in juxtaposition to sea lions sleeping, nursing, playing on the beach oblivious of the death of an elder in such proximity.

Jessalyn shrank away, repelled by the rotting stench. But for the photographer, all is material. Young life, death. Beauty, decay. Beauty in decay. Wistfully Jessalyn observed the man who is her new husband, from a little distance.

Recalling how, at the start of their knowing each other, she’d been merely a figure in a composition to him—widow.

And that figure, in that composition, Untitled: Widow which Hugo Martinez has gone on to print and reprint, to exhibit and to sell, will outlive her.

Of course, Untitled: Widow will outlive the photographer, too.

In the midst of remarks by Hector on plant communities on the island—the relationship between the sea lions and crucial vegetation—suddenly there is a rainstorm: Jessalyn and some others huddle beneath a spindly-limbed tree as the sky bursts into rain like hot spit, rapid-fire and percussive.

Fortunately, Hugo has insisted that Jessalyn wear a rain jacket on the excursions, lightweight plastic with a hood; it is not much effort for her to pull the hood over her head, and wait out the rain.

Steam rises from wet-gleaming rocks, boulders. Cries of shorebirds seem amplified. A fresh smell of bird droppings is very sharp.

Hillsides of iguanas scarcely move, glittering now in the sun as sunlight returns with an eye-aching acuity.

Somewhere not too far away, Hugo is taking photographs. And these will be (Jessalyn knows) beautiful, striking. And yet, back home, in the house on Cayuga Road, there are hundreds, thousands?—of beautiful and striking photographs by Hugo Martinez, many of which he has not yet gotten around to filing, let alone framing. In the console computer in his studio, attached to a state-of-the-art printer, are even more photographs in digital storage, not yet printed out because (as Hugo says with comic despair) he is years behind. Jessalyn has wondered if he will ever catch up?

To Jessalyn’s dismay Hector is summoning his Frigate group, to return to the dinghy and embark for another island. Like clockwork: as one dinghy arrives, another departs. Jessalyn hurries to search for Hugo whom she has not seen in—has it been an hour now? Asking people she meets on the trail if they have seen a “tall, older man with a mustache”—“carrying a camera”—trying not to show her alarm.

For Hugo will be annoyed with her, or embarrassed, if he knows that she is looking for him, and that she is worried about him.

Vaguely she is told that he is farther up the trail. Older man with a mustache, hair to his shoulders, carrying a camera?—and is he also Hispanic?

Seeing the not-quite-disguised surprise, or suggestion of surprise, in the faces of those to whom she has appealed, that a so-very-white American woman would be in the company of a Hispanic male.

Jessalyn hurries up the trail, which is rocky, and steep. In terror of turning an ankle at such a crucial time. It is difficult to breathe in the humid over-bright air.

In Quito, the air was too thin. Here at sea level, the tropical air is too thick.

When she finds Hugo at the very top of the trail she sees that he is seated on a rock-ledge, dabbing at a bleeding knee with a wad of tissues another hiker has given him. Sighting Jessalyn he calls out smilingly to her, to assure her that he’s fine; just a little fall, no bones broken, he’s been resting before he started back down. Jessalyn feels faint at the sight of the bright blood.

The other hiker who has remained with Hugo, a younger man, offers to help Hugo to his feet but Hugo waves him away with thanks. Of course—Hugo is fine.

Jessalyn kneels before Hugo and examines his knee. He’d fallen hard, it seems: already the knee is swollen and discolored. If the kneecap is fractured or broken—! But Hugo insists that it is not, repeats that he’d just been resting, regaining his strength before starting back down.

Jessalyn sees that Hugo is quite upset. And that Hugo is determined to appear to be calm, even bemused.

To Hugo’s embarrassment the Indian guide has followed Jessalyn up the trail, and insists now upon helping Hugo to his feet. Hector is kindly and yet forceful. He tells Hugo that their dinghy must leave soon, and he, Hugo, cannot be left behind.

Hugo is apologetic, his face flushed, abashed. He has been deeply mortified. He would have liked the guide not to see him like this and he would like very much to decline Hector’s help, but he needs it; he would not be able to descend the trail unassisted. Heaving himself to his feet with a sharp intake of breath, as Hector and Jessalyn come to help him, slipping their arms around his waist. How warm Hugo is, sweating through his shirt! Normally graceful on his feet Hugo now staggers, and is uncertain. When he leans his weight on his right leg, he winces. Jessalyn bites her lower lip to keep from crying.

There is the danger, if Jessalyn begins crying over this trifle, she will not be able to stop.

From the foot of the trail the guide’s young assistant comes running, to help as well. By this time people are observing poor Hugo, making his way painstakingly downhill, leaning on Hector and Jessalyn.

The tall mustached handsome man with the camera!—in the dinghy Hugo had always seemed so much at ease, so practiced and unconcerned about buffeting waves, shark fins circling the boat.

At the dinghy Hugo is red-faced and panting but insists upon climbing in by himself. He is using his walking stick as a cane. His body trembles with the strain of keeping his body erect without putting weight on his injured knee.

Discreetly, Hector keeps away. He has seen too many affluent North American male tourists turn nasty when they have needed his assistance; better to allow them to limp leaning on their wives, who can be despised but then forgiven.

Once settled inside the dinghy Hugo seems to feel better. Tries to joke to his fellow Frigates about being clumsy, taking a chance on a rock that turned out to be loose, most stupid mistake a hiker can make. Another time he checks his camera—thank God it wasn’t broken.

Jessalyn’s heart is suffused with sympathy for Hugo, the experienced hiker who has had an accident, the swaggering (aging?) male who has lost his balance and his composure in front of witnesses. From her shoulder bag she takes fresh tissues, to press against the wound, a series of abrasions just below the knee that continue bleeding, though not so profusely as before.

A stream of blood down Hugo’s leg, glistening in the thick dark hairs of his leg, seeping into his rubberized hiking sandals.

Poor Hugo!—Jessalyn would embrace him, weep over him, but he would be mortified by such a display, and she dares not become emotional in such a public place.

The dinghy will drop Hector and the others on the island of Puerto Ayora but continue on to the Esmeralda, so that the ship’s doctor can examine the afflicted man. Hugo exclaims wonderingly—it happened so quickly! A rock had come loose on the trail, his attention was distracted, he’d lost his balance and, in falling, tried to prevent the camera from being smashed… Yes, I know, Jessalyn murmurs, holding his hand as one might hold a boy’s hand. (Which boy? Bold brash Thom, of course.) Hugo is disappointed to have cut the day short yet relieved that he has been brought back to the Esmeralda—he wouldn’t have been able to continue in the condition he’s in.

Back at the Esmeralda Hugo makes an effort to be good-natured, stoic. He allows the ship’s doctor to sterilize and bandage the wounds, that are shallow; he allows Jessalyn to fuss over him, kiss him. She assures him, as others had: the rocks were slippery from the rain, the trail was steep. She assures him: she loves him, he has made her so very happy.

Drowsy with painkillers Hugo drifts off to sleep in the semi-darkened cabin. Soon he is snoring, in uneven gasps. Jessalyn sits on the edge of the lumpy bed, holding his hand; her fingers through his, though he is unaware of her. They are wearing matching wedding bands! How strange this seems, somehow reassuring. There is this bond between them, then—is there? Neither would abandon the other on a volcanic-lava island in the Pacific.

The Ecuadorian silver rings are quite elegant in their simplicity. Hers is just slightly loose, Hugo’s fits snugly. It would not surprise Jessalyn to learn that Hugo has a wedding band or two in a drawer somewhere at his house.

Jessalyn wonders about the tact of wearing her old rings on her right hand. Surely, someone will notice, and comment dryly? But the rings are too precious to her to put away. The engagement ring with its small square-cut diamond which Whitey had purchased for her, at an age much younger than their youngest son is now…

Jessalyn thinks, she cannot bear another loss. Hugo had only slipped and fallen, bruised and battered a knee, indeed it is nothing serious (the doctor has said) but she remains badly shaken. Her heart is beating erratically, as it had beat (she recalls now) when the news had come, Whitey had been hospitalized with a (suspected) stroke.

If something happens to Hugo she will swallow all the pills she can acquire, as soon as she can. As she’d failed to do when Whitey had died, out of cowardice and confusion.

She had failed to save Whitey. Failed to keep Whitey from dying. With this man, she must not fail.

This man is so precious to her, it’s as if her beating heart were exposed to the air. She has not felt so vulnerable since the children were very young. Each baby, so vulnerable! The soft spots on the infant’s head, how terrifying! She’d been afflicted by horrific fantasies of the newest baby falling and by some bizarre fluke striking a soft spot of the skull, piercing the thin bone… Fontanelle. The very word had been frightening to her, she can hardly bring herself to recall it now.

But the babies had not fallen, in quite that way. Numerous falls over the years but none lethal. In fact, the babies had done very well for themselves, considering their fontanelle-vulnerable beginnings. Even Virgil, the most accident-prone of the children, had never seriously injured himself. And the mother had forgotten, in time. The mother had simply forgotten. Blessed forgetfulness, that wipes away the fears that so cripple us.

BEAUTIFUL!—the melting-red tropical sun is beginning to sink beyond the horizon, that seems very distant, thousands of miles away.

With the sinking of the sun there emerges an astonishing luminosity of clouds, minute cloud patterns that appear sculpted. Those dream-images that rush beneath our eyelids in the early stage of sleep and leave us hypnotized.

Since Hugo’s fall that morning he has been unusually quiet. He is abashed, chagrined. Wants to laugh at himself—wounded macho pride. Indeed, wounded Hispanic-male macho pride.

Slept for two hours (sweaty, twitchy sleep) then dragged himself to the ship’s library, leaning on a walking stick. (Of course, Jessalyn accompanied him.) Since the fall Hugo breathes more audibly than usual, wincing as he walks. But he insists that the pain is abating, it’s mostly a swelling, a lurid bruise the size of a tennis ball his fingers can’t resist touching, stroking.

The ship’s doctor was reasonably sure that there is no actual break or fracture in the complicated bones of his knee: Hugo will know definitely when they leave the Galápagos and return to civilization, to a medical center where he can have the knee X-rayed. Until then it is only reasonable to stay off the leg as much as possible, to walk sparingly and always with a cane, in fact two canes.

Not “canes”—walking sticks, Hugo insists. There is a distinction!

Gloomily Hugo says, “A premonition of the future.”

It is not quite the accurate term, is it?—premonition? Poor Hugo, Jessalyn squeezes his hand, to indicate that he is exaggerating, it is really nothing, cheer up!

So the wife will cheer up the gloomy husband. As the husband will cheer up the gloomy wife.

(But no: Jessalyn is resolved never to be gloomy. Or to give that impression, for who wants a gloomy wife?)

Since the wedding they have been discussing where they will live when they return to Hammond. Hugo believes (strongly) that it would be best for them to acquire a new residence, a new property, to sell their old houses (maybe) and start a new household together; for always in Jessalyn’s house on Old Farm Road he would be a visitor, a guest; he would not feel at ease, and she would not be able to think of him as her husband. Still less is it likely that they could live in Hugo’s ramshackle house on Cayuga Road, with the shifting population of tenants and the offices of Liberation Ministries; except of course, Hugo’s studio is there, and he does not want to move his studio.

Jessalyn says, of course she understands. Hugo has had that studio for decades, he should not move if he does not want to move.

Jessalyn does not want to move out of her house, not just yet. Jessalyn feels just a slight prick of panic at this possibility—No! Whitey would not understand.

It is Whitey she would be leaving behind. Hugo is quite right, to understand that the deceased husband prevails in the house, and will never fade away. Yet, Hugo can’t bring himself to utter this claim.

The house on Old Farm Road is so large, very reasonably others could live there, with Jessalyn (and with Hugo). A halfway house it could be. Not all of the house but part of the downstairs. There are eight or nine bedrooms. Certainly there is space for at least one of the unjustly incarcerated men freed by the Liberators, ideal for this purpose would be a guest suite with a door opening at the rear of the house… When Jessalyn first mentions this possibility to Hugo he says it’s a very good idea, very generous of her, but in the next breath he adds, “Your children will be upset, however. They will never allow it.” Jessalyn tries not to be annoyed by Hugo’s conflation—your children. He should know very well by now that only the elder three are prejudiced against him, the youngest two are fond of him and are surely happy that he and Jessalyn have married.

“Sophie and Virgil won’t object. I don’t think so. Virgil might even want to be involved. I’m sure he’s sympathetic with the Liberators.”

And Whitey, what would Whitey think? God damn he’d have been surprised, indeed shocked, initially disapproving but in time, knowing Whitey, his generosity, his affable resignation to what he’d called expediency, political or financial expediency, a fancy way of saying whatever the hell came next, essentially Whitey would have been impressed that his wife, his widow, dear sweet unassertive Jessalyn, has so extended the perimeters of her life, as she has dared to travel to a part of the world he’d never seen, nor would have imagined seeing; as she has dared to remarry, and to keep herself alive. He’d have been happy for her, that his spirit might prevail in the house—Think the best of me, Jessalyn. I tried to be the best person I could be and if I was not, I can be that person now. If you love me remember me in that way.

IN THE SKY AT DUSK, a new moon of the delicate pale-orange hue of a cut melon. So beautiful!

It is a full moon glimpsed through skeins of slow-moving clouds, dimpled with shadow, luminous. Difficult to think of such glowering light as merely reflected, lacking its own life.

They have dragged deck chairs close together so that they can sit hand in hand, bathed in this strange pale-orange moonlight. Between them, two glasses of delicious dark red Ecuadorian wine.

Wanting to be alone they have ascended surreptitiously to the third level of the Esmeralda. Some areas of the ship are popular, others near-deserted. This is an area that is totally deserted though the view of the sunset has been spectacular.

Many Esmeralda passengers gather at the prow of the ship where there is a cocktail bar, guitarists playing festive Latin music. Others gather downstairs in a large bar, adjacent to the enormous dining room, where American pop-rock music plays continuously, grating to the ear.

Hugo especially wants to be alone with his wife, just for now. Away from the unwanted solicitude of others. He has purchased a glass of wine for each of them with the assumption that, if Jessalyn doesn’t finish hers, he will be welcome to finish it as usual.

Jessalyn laughs, wine goes quickly to her head. She wonders at the wisdom of drinking, after an exhausting day in the Galápagos.

Hugo has been limping more noticeably when he doesn’t think that anyone is watching. He has gripped the stairway railing, to haul himself up to the third deck. Jessalyn pretends she has not seen.

It is like sighting Hugo in the hospital, in the Oncology ward. Or someone who resembled Hugo. Best to pretend you do not see.

Drinking makes Hugo melancholy but also elated, prone to laughter.

What a joke it is!—on his honeymoon, his God-damned knee is ruined.

Well, not ruined—not exactly.

Jessalyn laughs at him. Why does he exaggerate so much?

In his photographs Hugo does not exaggerate at all. A deeper and more profound Hugo emerges in the photographs, not always evident in the man.

The artist is fearless, Jessalyn thinks. The man, not always.

In the main dining room of the cruise ship it has become known (somehow) that Jessalyn and Hugo are newlyweds. (Did Hugo tell someone? Jessalyn certainly did not.) The very term newlyweds is quaint, touching. Strangers smile at them affectionately. A beautiful brave “older” couple. But now Hugo, who never fails to dress for dinner (long-sleeved, embroidered white shirts open at the throat, with cuff links, sometimes a sport coat) seems to be limping. Oh, did Hugo hurt himself?—on one of those trails? Perfect strangers are sympathetic.

Coming down a steep path too fast. His own God-damned fault, Hugo will say. As own God-damned fault needs to be acknowledged.

Hugo insists upon sitting at different tables for most meals. There are no assigned tables on the cruise, fortunately, so no one is stuck with anyone else. Of course, Jessalyn would return to the same table, to the same people with whom they’d struck up a previous mealtime conversation, out of courtesy, or a wish not to hurt feelings, for she recalls the painful choices of middle school and high school, when she’d felt obliged to sit with girls less popular than her friends and herself, out of a dread of hurting feelings; but Hugo is shockingly indifferent to the feelings of their fellow passengers, including even people with whom (Jessalyn had thought) he had gotten along very well. Hugo’s philosophy is that there are always more interesting persons somewhere close by, it is up to Hugo to seek them out—among the Esmeralda passengers are biologists, specialists in endangered species and global warming, research scientists, mathematicians, university professors and public school teachers, teenaged science prodigies, many amateur photographers, even an animal trainer. In his handsome clothes, his silver-streaked hair brushed back from his forehead, Hugo Martinez is a popular figure on the cruise ship; Jessalyn, beside him, is the gracious wife.

It is dusk now. On the open deck Jessalyn shivers. Over her shoulders, the white-lace shawl Hugo purchased for her as a bridal veil. But the shawl isn’t very warm or practical.

Each day in the tropics the air is altered as soon as the sun disappears beneath the horizon. There is a particular sort of visceral anguish—foolish, involuntary—one feels as the glowing-red sun perceptibly sinks away. There arises then a prevailing wind with an undercurrent of cold.

Cheered and enlivened by the delicious dark-red wine, Hugo is talking about the Galápagos—this place of wonders! How he’d wanted to come here for much of his life but had never quite made it until now. For a while, he’d hoped to come with his son who’d died. But they’d never quite made it.

Hugo is not so cheerful now. He is a man of moods, Jessalyn has discovered. She must learn to accept these moods as they come, and to prepare herself (she suspects) for darker moods, hidden from her so far. She guesses that there are numerous painful losses in Hugo’s life in addition to the loss of his son but he speaks only of his son.

For a man so seemingly extroverted, so curious about others’ lives, Hugo is in fact quite reticent about his own. Jessalyn has casually asked him about his health and Hugo has said he is fine.

Really? He is fine?

Absolutely fine—“Don’t I look good? For my age, at least? And what about you, dear Jessalyn? You look lovely but—how is your health?”

Teasing her. Expecting her to laugh.

If she’d asked him about the hospital, had he an appointment in the infusion room, Hugo would have deflected the question with a joke. But that wasn’t me, Jessalyn.

And—Of course, it wasn’t me.

But there is no one like you, Hugo. I would not mistake you for anyone.

I think you must have mistaken me, dear. For someone else.

If you are ill—please tell me. I want to know.

Not ill. Not now. Or if I am, I am in remission.

In remission? What do you mean?

Kiss me!

Shortly before they’d left for Ecuador Jessalyn happened to notice a tight adhesive bandage around Hugo’s upper arm; when she’d asked what it was Hugo said he’d donated blood that day, at the medical center.

Oh! Was it a custom of Hugo’s, to donate blood? He had not mentioned it…

With a gesture Hugo ripped off the adhesive bandage. Needle tracks beneath, not inflamed or reddened. He hadn’t liked being questioned and had declined to explain further.

Of course, Jessalyn had never told Hugo about the false-positive mammogram. If she’d had a malignancy she would have tried not to tell him. There are many things in her personal life she has not told Hugo. Such as—I am your wife but I am another man’s widow. A widow who remarries is a widow who remarries. Please understand!

Hugo would understand. You don’t reach the age of almost-sixty without enduring losses of your own.

The older, the more secrets. And the fewer you wanted to share, if they were disturbing. Why would you?

Life too short. Sorrow too long. Kiss me!

Holding hands, peering at the moon. Clouds blowing across the moon like stray thoughts. Appear, disappear. So swiftly.

Trying not to think that they will be, must be, punished for their happiness; it does not seem just, that they will be allowed even a modicum of happiness. Surely it was a mistake to travel so far with a man she scarcely knows—though now, astonishingly, this man is her husband. I will never return home. They will bury me here at sea. That is what I deserve. The widow feels that she must accept this fate though it would be a terrible fate—devoured by sea creatures.

Jessalyn would hope to be dead, at least. They wouldn’t toss her body overboard without determining that she was really dead—would they?

Hugo has been watching her. He asks what she has been thinking about?—“Mi hermosa esposa, you’re looking so grim.”

Jessalyn laughs nervously. Trying to sound amusing as she tells him, “I’ve been wondering, if a person dies at sea, do they lower him—or her—overboard? Is there ‘burial at sea’? The expense of shipping a body back to North America would be so high…”

Hugo laughs, startled. “Jesus! Nobody is going to die and be tossed overboard, this isn’t a pirate or a slave ship. Lighten up, darling!”

Hugo is startled, taken aback as Whitey would have been. Jessalyn relents at once.

“Oh, of course. What am I saying. Don’t listen to me, Hugo.”

Laughing together. Jessalyn recalls how the children used to laugh at her, their sweet silly mother who said the most unexpected things.

Dusk is deepening. In the windy air laced with an actual chill there is a smell of something like flowers.

Don’t listen. Nothing that I say matters.

Nothing that any of us says matters.

Amid a vast expanse of rolling, rocking waves. Occasionally there comes ocean spray like cold spit against their faces.

What do they matter, such miniature lives? The wisdom of the Galápagos is brute survival, for a time. But only for a time. And beyond that, death and extinction. There is comfort in this, that individuals matter so little, and yet are gripping each other’s hand so tightly.

Oh, Jessalyn will. She promises! She will lighten up.

The beautiful white-braided hair is stirred by the wind. Her eyes are moist from the wind.

Roiling, rocking waves in which the luminous moon is reflected like a mad face. Mesmerizing how, with each passing second, light reflected from this mad face breaks and ripples in the waves, forming new designs, like the murmurations of flocking birds, fleeting, dazzling, and gone. With each heartbeat all is changed, altered. That warm strong hand grasping yours to the point of pain.

Never let me go! I love you.

Hugo is excited by something he has just noticed. At the horizon, where the sun disappeared just a few minutes ago, there is something like an after-sun, a kind of post-sunset of muted light—“See? There? Or maybe it’s an optical illusion… D’you see it?”

“Y-Yes…”

Though Jessalyn isn’t sure what she is seeing, if anything. Her eyes blink away moisture in the chill wind.

For this fleeting moment you have (almost) forgotten the man’s name though you understand that he is your husband. Your hands are clasped together tight, this is a comfort on the rocking ship. It has happened, you have been (re)married, he is the husband who adores you and will protect you until that moment in the rush of time to come when he cannot any longer adore you and protect you and he will release your hand, and you his; it is that faint haze at the horizon lifting from the sea like a glimmer of hope, where moonlight ripples in the roiling dark water at which you stare and stare.