Having a drink with Dobby. Home in a bit.
He pressed send and sighed. He hated lying to Patrice. He hated the chasm that was now between them. The latest chasm. Deep down, he’d also resented that his wife had seemingly made peace with Lilly’s death while he was still at war with it. She believed it was God’s will. Part of his plan. She kept a Bible in the kitchen and read from it often. When she did, LeFleur felt as if a door had been locked that he couldn’t get past. He had been a believer earlier in his life, and the day Lilly was born, he did feel blessed by something larger than all of them.
But after her death, he viewed things differently. God? Why turn to God now? Where was God when his mother-in-law fell asleep in her beach chair? Where was God when his daughter got swept into the sea? Why didn’t God just make her little feet run the other way, back to safety, back to the house, back to her mother and her father? What kind of God lets a child die that way?
There was no comfort in invisible forces, not for LeFleur. There was only what got put in front of you and how you dealt with it. Which is why this notebook had so engrossed him—and at times frustrated him. A group of shipwrecked people think they have God in the boat? Why not pin Him down? Hold Him accountable for all the horrors He allowed in this world? LeFleur would have.
He clicked open the glove compartment and took a long swig from the whisky flask. Then he reached over the seat for his briefcase, found the notebook, flipped on the courtesy lights, and returned to the story. He didn’t notice, in the guesthouse’s second-story window, the small round lenses of the binoculars that Dobby watched him through.
It was after midnight when LeFleur finished the final page.
I am the Lord. And I will never leave you.
He dropped the notebook in his lap. The little girl was the Lord? He searched for more pages that weren’t there. The little girl was the Lord. Storywise, it explained certain things. Why she was always giving her rations to the stranger. Why she didn’t speak. She was watching them the whole time. She was watching over Benji. But who was the man who claimed to be God? And why was he allowed to die? Why didn’t the little girl save him—or the rest of them?
He glanced at his watch. After midnight. The date on his display had just changed. April 10.
He froze.
Lilly’s birthday.
She would have been eight years old today.
He pressed his fingers to his forehead and covered his eyes with his palms. His mind flooded with memories of his daughter. Putting her to bed. Making her breakfast. Holding her hand as they crossed a street in town. For some reason, he found himself thinking about the last scene in Benji’s story, the little girl in his arms, and what that little girl might have looked like. He pictured her as Lilly.
He got out of his car, walked to the back, and popped open the trunk. He pulled aside a pale-blue blanket that covered the spare tire. There, wedged inside the rim, was something he had hidden three years ago. A small stuffed animal: Lilly’s brown-and-white kangaroo. He’d put it there the night Patrice was gathering Lilly’s things in boxes. He hid it because he didn’t want every piece of his child to be packed away. He chose that toy because he’d given it to Lilly for her fourth birthday. Her final birthday.
“Daddy,” Lilly had said that day, pointing to a slit in the kangaroo’s belly, “baby kangaroos go in here.”
“That’s right,” LeFleur said. “It’s called a pouch.”
“Is the baby safe in the pouch?” Lilly asked.
“The baby is always safe with its mommy.”
“And its daddy,” she added, smiling.
Remembering that moment, LeFleur broke down. He sobbed so hard, his legs buckled. He squeezed the kangaroo close to his sternum. They hadn’t kept her safe. It was all their fault. He thought about the words of the little girl in the notebook: I will never leave you.
But Lilly had.
News
ANCHOR: Another new development in last year’s tragic sinking of the Galaxy yacht. Tyler Brewer has the details.
REPORTER: Following the news that a raft from the Galaxy has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the families of the victims have renewed their call to search the ocean for any remains. Today, Sextant Capital, Jason Lambert’s former company, announced that a salvage effort will begin immediately. Bruce Morris is Lambert’s former business partner, who has since taken over the firm.
BRUCE MORRIS: “We believe the recent news warrants a fuller exploration of the fate of the Galaxy. We have partnered with Nesser Ocean Explorations, the world’s top deep-ocean exploration company, to search the area where we last heard from the Galaxy, and to send down probes to the seabed. If there’s anything to be found, we will find it.”