As he waited for her to pull around, he glanced at the photo on his desk: Patrice and Jarty swinging Lilly above a beach towel. Each parent held a hand as Lilly lifted her feet in the air, her face pure joy. Patrice loved that picture. LeFleur had, too. But every time he looked at it now, he felt further away from his daughter, as if a rope had been cut and she was drifting off in space. Four years? She’d been gone from this world as long as she’d been in it.
Katrina dropped him at a rum shop not far from his house. This way he could walk home. He took a chair and ordered a beer and glanced around at the locals, some of whom were playing dominoes. He recognized a few, and nodded their way. It was a relief to be away from the foreign media people. LeFleur’s mind drifted to the notebook story and the man writing it. Benji. Benjamin. A deckhand. Not one of the famous passengers. None of the reporters was asking about him.
Suddenly, the door swung open and a man walked in. LeFleur knew immediately he wasn’t local. The way he dressed, black jeans and boots. The way he looked around. They made brief eye contact. The man sat by the window. LeFleur hoped he wasn’t another journalist trying to blend in with the locals so he could wander over and ask “innocent” questions.
LeFleur sipped his beer. Twice he caught the man looking at him. That was enough. He laid a few bills on the table and walked out, catching a good look at the stranger as he did. Fair complexion. Long stringy hair, slightly gray. A lined face that suggested years of hard living.
LeFleur’s house was six blocks away. He knew Patrice would be waiting. He walked slowly, breathing in the warm night air. His phone sounded, a text message. He pulled it from his pocket to read:
Any luck finding that guy? —Len
LeFleur exhaled deeply. As he walked, he thought he heard a second set of footsteps. He stopped. He turned. The street was empty. He continued walking. There it was again. He spun around. Nobody.
He was two blocks from home now, so he quickened his pace. Again, he heard the footsteps, but resisted looking. Let whoever it was get closer first, so he could identify them. As he came around the corner, his yellow house was just ahead. LeFleur felt his muscles tighten. He was bracing for a confrontation when he heard a man’s voice say, “Excuse me?”
He turned. It was the guy from the rum shop.
“Excuse me? … Inspector, right?”
He had a slight accent that LeFleur couldn’t place.
“Listen,” LeFleur said, “I told the other reporters everything I know. If you want more information—”
“I’m not a reporter.”
LeFleur looked the man up and down. He was panting, as if the six-block walk had tired him out.
“I knew someone. On the Galaxy. He was my cousin.”
The man exhaled deeply.
“My name is Dobby.”
Nine
Sea
My dear Annabelle. I am so sorry. Have I frightened you?
I see my last page. It was mostly scribble. I don’t even remember when I wrote those words. Weeks ago, perhaps. The mornings and nights roll drearily into one another now. Given all that has happened, this is the first time I’ve felt the clearness of mind to write you.
I have been surviving on barnacles and small shrimp that cling to the raft bottom. A fish actually flopped into the boat one morning; that was food for three days. A recent rain shower allowed two cans to be filled with precious drinking water, which I am rationing, but it’s enough to rejuvenate my cells, my organs, my mind. The body is an amazing machine, my love. With just the smallest nutrition, it can clank back to life. Not full life. Not the life I once knew. Not even the life I had grown to know with the others in this lifeboat.
But I am here. I am alive.
Such a powerful sentence. I am alive. Like the trapped miner still breathing in the hole, or the man staggering out of a house fire. I am alive.
Forgive me. My thoughts go to strange corners. Things are different now, Annabelle. We are still adrift in the vast Atlantic Ocean. There is still nothing but deep water for miles. The Lord still sits a few feet away, trying to comfort me.
But I survive on such meager intake because there is no one to share it with anymore.
I am alive.
The others are gone.
How do I explain? Where do I begin?
Perhaps with Lambert. Yes. I’ll start with him, because everything starts with him, and all the things that start with him seem to turn bad in the end.
When I last shared news with you, I wrote that he had been drinking seawater. Geri warned us against this, many times, but I suppose at some point Lambert could not help himself. He was parched and all around him was water and more water, and he is used to taking what he wants. He waited until dark, found the bailer, and apparently gorged himself on the ocean as he had gorged himself on so many things in life.
The effect, after several nights, was noticeable. Lambert changed. He grew incoherent. As Geri explained it to me, seawater is four times as salty as regular water, and since our bodies are constructed to balance things, we try to pee the extra salt away. Except we can’t. So the more seawater you drink, the more water you actually expel, while retaining the salt in your body, which means you dehydrate even faster than lying thirsty under the sun. With dehydration comes a system meltdown. Your muscles weaken. So do your organs. Your heart speeds up. Your brain gets less blood, which can make you crazy.
And I suppose, looking back, Lambert did go crazy. He mumbled to himself. He became lethargic and semiconscious. Then, one hot morning, we woke to the sound of his voice screaming, “Get off my boat!”
He was standing over the Lord with a knife to his head.
“Get off my boat!” He yelled this repeatedly. The sun was not fully up, and the sky was fuzzy streaks of deep blue and orange. The waves were choppy, the raft unsteady. Drowsy and weak, I blinked several times before I realized what was happening. I saw Geri rise to her elbows and cry out, “Jason! What are you doing?”
Half of the canopy lay sliced on the raft floor. For some reason, Lambert had cut it into pieces.
“Get off … my BOAT!” he screeched again. His voice was as dry as the rest of him. He swung the knife back and forth in the Lord’s face. “You are … useless! Useless!”
The Lord did not seem frightened. He raised his palms in front of him, as if urging calm.
“Everyone here is useless!” Lambert railed. “None of you got me home!”
“Jason, please,” Geri said, getting to her knees, “you don’t need a knife. Come on.” I saw her eyeing little Alice protectively, moving to a space between Lambert and the girl. “We’re all worn out. But we’re gonna be OK.”
“Be OK, be OK,” Lambert mocked, singsongy. He spun to the Lord. “Do something, you IDIOT! Call for HELP!”
The Lord, too, glanced over at Alice to make sure she was safe, then looked back at Lambert.
“I am your help, Jason Lambert,” he said softly. “Come to me.”
“Come to you? Why? To do … nothing? Anyone can do nothing! Look! We ALL can do nothing! … You don’t exist! You are useless! You do nothing!”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t believe in you.”
“But I believe in you,” the Lord said.
Lambert’s eyes fluttered closed. He turned away, as if bored with the conversation. For a moment I thought he might topple over and pass out. Then, so fast I can barely remember it happening, he whipped himself backward, his arm outstretched, and slashed the knife across the Lord’s neck.
The Lord reached for his throat. His mouth opened. His eyes widened. As if in slow motion, he fell backward over the raft edge and dropped into the ocean.
“No!” Geri screamed. I literally stopped breathing. I couldn’t even blink. I stared like a mesmerized animal as Lambert yelled “Done!” and dropped the knife. Geri dove for it and pulled it underneath her, but as she did, Lambert thumped across the raft, grabbed little Alice, and heaved her over the side.
“Out we go!” he bellowed. “Out we go!”