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I met the second mate when he was born, in 1503. I am present at many births, and his was not unusual. I was there for the dark eyed woman, screaming and bleeding and giving everything she had to the pale little soul sliding out of her, fresh and howling.
A nurse gathered him up in strong hands that smelt of fresh sausages, and wiped his mother's salty life from his face. I cradled her in my arms, and brushed her hair from her eyes, because she so wanted to see him. He had damp red hair, a soft wet mouth, and shoulder blades poised as if he might take flight.
He looked right at me, and I looked back.
I had to carry fifteen more people out of that hospital that day, under a sky like cornmeal, in the height of summer.
Eleven years later, I was in an orphanage. A cold fingered girl clung to me and hid her face as I lifted her from her bed.
The boy in the bed next to her, only pretending to sleep, sat up as soon as her chest stopped moving, as soon as her soft rattle ceased.
He climbed put of bed, feet and hands and face bright in the navy blue night. He patted her face and called her name, Emma, Emma, Emma. He looked around, dark eyes and red hair catching sulphur light from the window. He might have seen me, but it was dark, and Emma wanted to go, and we did.
One day in 1532, the sky over the Atlantic was like lilac, rippling in the wind.
I gathered up chains of sea-clad slaves, linked at the ankles and wrists, dripping and dangling like dark rosary chains. I laid them around my neck. I listened to their watery whimpering for a moment, before helping them sleep, and dream.
When it is in groups, it is not easier. It is not more convenient.
I walked along the water to the boat. The captain who had owned them was yelling at the mate who had dropped them, and the mate was pushed overboard too. When I caught him, he was worrying about his cat. She wouldn't take food from anyone but him, he said, as I carried him away. I told him he was wrong, and he rested.
I stayed with the boat to collect the captain. He was still shouting, and striding, and his heart sped until it could not. He crumpled, white as the sun, reaching. The second mate, with hair like copper and black nails, held the captain's hands and whispered into his ear. Salt from his eyes fell into the captains gaping mouth, and it was the last thing he tasted before I helped him up.
In 1553, I saw the second mate again, as he drifted quietly from his wife's side, already dreaming.
He smiled at me, I think, like old friends who had seen each other on the street but were in too much of a hurry to talk. I continued on.