I can only do that when everyone here believes I am who I say I am.
LeFleur balked at that part. But then, he’d stopped relying on God right after his daughter died. There was no place in his mind for a benevolent force that wasn’t benevolent when it came to a four-year-old. Praying was a waste. Church was a waste. Even worse. It was a weak-
ness. A crutch that let you dump your misfortune on some make-believe scale that would balance when you died and reached a “better” Heaven. What crap. The way LeFleur saw it now, you either ran from a volcano or you stayed and shook a fist at it.
As he entered his office, Katrina was hanging up the phone. She seemed upset.
“There you are. I’ve been trying to call you!”
“I turned my cell off. A reporter was bugging me.”
“The man is gone.”
“Rom?”
“He never told me his name. He sat on the porch for two hours. I offered him some ginger beer, and he said OK. But when I brought it out, he was gone.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know, Jarty. He was barefoot. Where could he go? I tried to call you ten times!”
LeFleur raced out the door. “I’ll find him,” he hollered over his shoulder. Katrina got worked up easily; he didn’t need that now. He hoisted the briefcase into the passenger seat and hopped into the jeep. Rom. He was beginning to wish he’d never met the guy.
Sea
We saw an airplane today.
Geri was the first to spot it. We are so weak that most of the day we just lie under the canopy, drifting in and out of sleep. Geri had dragged herself to the rear of the raft for another futile check on the solar still. She looked at the sky, guarding her eyes with her hand.
“Plane,” she rasped.
“What did you say?” Lambert mumbled.
Geri pointed up.
Lambert rolled over and squinted. When he saw it, he tried to stand, something he hasn’t done in days. “Hey! … I’m here! I’m here.” He tried waving his arms, but they dropped like heavy barbells.
“It’s too high,” Geri rasped.
“Flare gun!” Lambert croaked.
“Too high,” Geri repeated. “Never see us.”
Lambert flopped across the raft bottom toward the ditch bag. Geri threw herself in his direction.
“No, Jason!”
“Flare gun!”
“It’s a waste!”
I was too exhausted to move. I kept glancing from the two of them to the sky. I could barely make the plane out. It was like a spot shifting through the high clouds.
“They’re here for me, damn it!” Lambert yelled. He knocked Geri backward and dumped out the bag.
“No, Jason!” Geri yelled.
But Lambert had the flare gun now. He swung his arm wildly and fired off-balance and the flare shot out sideways across the ocean surface, a hot-pink light that fizzled in the water maybe forty yards away.
“More!” Lambert yelled. “Give me more!”
“Stop it, Jason! Stop it!”
He was on his knees, his fat hands rifling through the items on the floor, knocking them aside in search of another canister. His belly was heaving.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he kept babbling. Geri spotted the two remaining flares and dove for them. She pulled them to her chest and scrambled back to the raft edge.
“Give me those!” Lambert bounced on his knees, coming after her. “Give me them now—”
Bam! Out of nowhere, the Lord smashed into him and knocked him backward with the full force of his shoulders. He moved so fast, I never saw him coming.
Lambert groaned in pain. The Lord lifted Geri to her knees, then turned to me calmly and said, “Benjamin. Put the things back in the bag.”
I raised my eyes to the skies. The plane was gone.
I realize I have not written about little Alice. Sometimes silent people go unnoticed, as if their lack of words makes them invisible. But being quiet and being invisible are not the same thing. She is on my mind much of the time. As much as I cannot fathom my own death, it is the potential of hers that haunts me the most.
Back when there were more of us, and we had the energy, we’d discussed where Alice could have come from. Lambert didn’t recognize her, but then he didn’t know many people on his own yacht, including me. Yannis said that on Friday afternoon, a rock band arrived on helicopters and he remembered seeing children. Maybe she was one of them.
We’ve asked her many times, “What’s your name?” and “What’s your mommy’s name?” and “Where do you live?” She seems incapable of communicating. Yet she is aware of everything. Her eyes move even faster than ours.