A man in exile. A young bride left behind. A mistress who becomes their go-between. A connection like no other.

On a warm spring night in 1949, Benedito da Silva kills a man: a drunken stranger who has followed him home and attacked Bene’s new bride. When the dead man’s powerful family promises revenge, Bene is forced to flee Portugal and enlist with the famous White Fleet of codfishing ships. For the next seven years, he will troll dangerous Arctic waters in his one-man dory, unable to return home.

Maria Lucilia, nicknamed Cilia, is a young wife married to a man she might never see again. Before meeting Bene, Cilia had been a lonely orphan, raised by nuns in the local convent. Now that Bene has fled, she feels like an outsider within the da Silva family but is tasked with keeping the struggling household afloat in his absence.

Maria Alvares, a widow in her early thirties, runs a shop in the Newfoundland port town of St. John’s where the fishermen spend their offseason. Bene is a customer, and his easy affection catches her off guard, disrupting the rhythms of her quiet, grief-stricken life. Lonely and isolated, she and Bene find refuge in each other.

Unable to return home, unable to read or write, Bene asks his new mistress to write a love letter to the wife he left behind. Cilia recognizes the fine penmanship of a woman in the letter she receives. Though she suspects the scribe is more than just a friend, Cilia has no choice but to rely on this invisible messenger for news of her husband. And when Bene faces danger at sea, the two women must speak to each other directly—entering a fraught, unconventional relationship all their own.

Soulful, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable, Jennifer Galvão’s debut is a masterfully crafted portrait of love in its most enduring and unlikely forms.