He listens to Cesaria Evora as he drives around aimlessly. She fills the car with her unmistakable vocals. She makes him feel sad and guilty. She sings in her unmistakable warm and woody voice the virtues of Cape Verde Islands and how content her people are.
He feels sick. Then he remembers he hasn't had anything to eat the whole day. It is two in the afternoon.
The night falls all around him, and he is driving back from the old university place. On his way back, he stops after the bridge where the road turns into a single lane. He knows where to stop to smell country flowers. He knows this place. It is dark and chilly and the moon shows itself enough to light the shrubbery in eerie silver gray. He breathes in the smell of wild gardenias easily and comfortably with the air of someone who belongs. This is home. He drives on slowly.
***
He looks down from the airplane on his way back and sees Long Island Sound stretching like a narrow wall that separates the wild Atlantic Ocean from the prudish coast. He could make out little things in Block Island, and see the shore delving deep into the sound. Over him are purposeful narrow white clouds. And below him, a few puffy clouds float aimlessly without blocking the view. He thinks of his parents' hometown where he spent summer vacations as a child. The same blue sky. The same puffy clouds. The same world.
