It was three o'clock in the morning on the surgical ward, and Amara, the night nurse, was making her rounds in the half dark. Most of the patients were asleep, but in room twelve a lamp was still burning. Mr. Costa, an old fisherman, lay with his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. "I can't sleep," he admitted. "They operate tomorrow, and I can't stop thinking about it."
Amara could have offered him a sleeping tablet. Instead, she pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. "Tell me about the sea," she said. Something in his face softened. He began to talk about dawn on the water, the smell of salt and wet nets, and his old boat, which he had named Maria after his wife. Amara dimmed the light and listened. While he talked, she checked his pulse and described the sound of waves against a hull, the way a person might describe a lullaby.
Halfway through a sentence, he was asleep. When the day shift arrived at seven, Amara was so tired that her feet hurt. On Mr. Costa's tray she found a note in careful handwriting: "Thank you for the sea."