On a transatlantic flight between Bilbao and New York City, a fictional version of Kirmen Uribe recalls three generations of family history--the inspiration for the novel he wants to write--and ponders how the sea has shaped their stories. The day he knew he was going to die, our narrator's grandfather took his daughter-in-law to the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, the de facto capital of the Basque region of northern Spain, to show her a painting with ties to their family.
