Looking back on these pages, I see I stopped writing after little Alice spoke for the first time.
I remember only darkness after that. I must have blacked out. The shock of losing Lambert and Geri, the effort of swimming after weeks of inactivity—all that left me a gasless tank.
When I came to, the sun was gone and the evening sky was an indigo blue. Alice was sitting on the edge of the raft, lit by moonlight, her narrow arms crossed in her lap. She wore one of Geri’s white T-shirts, which hung over her knees. The bangs of her hair fluttered with the breeze.
“Alice?” I whispered.
“Why do you call me that?” she said.
Her voice was childlike, yet clear and precise.
“We had to call you something,” I said. “What’s your real name?”
She smiled. “Alice will do.”
My throat was dry, and my eyes were sticky with sleep. As I turned my head, the empty raft brought a sickening wave of grief.
“Everyone is gone.”
“Yes,” she said.
“The sharks got Geri. I couldn’t save her. And Lambert. I couldn’t save him, either.”
I thought about those final moments in the water. Then I remembered.
“Alice?” I said, lifting to my elbows. “Did you say you were … the Lord?”
“I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“But you’re a child.”
“Isn’t the Lord in all children?”
I blinked several times. My thinking was foggy.
“Wait … then who was the man we pulled from the water?”
She didn’t answer.
“Alice?” My voice rose. “Why did that man die? Are you just mimicking him? Who are you really? Why didn’t you speak before now?”
She uncrossed her arms, got to her feet, and walked toward me without the slightest wobble. She crouched by my side, and crossed her small legs in front of her. I stared, wordless, as she lifted my right hand and placed it inside hers.
“Sit with me, Benjamin,” she said.
And we sat. Through the evening—and through the night—without saying another word. It’s not that I couldn’t speak, Annabelle. It’s that the inclination was suddenly gone. I know it sounds strange, but all protest within me had vanished. Holding her hand was like a key turning a tumbler. My body melted. My breath calmed. As the minutes passed, I seemed to get smaller. The heavens grew enormous. When a spread of glowing stars took over the sky, it drew tears from my eyes.
We sat like that until the dawn, when the sun broke over the horizon and its rays shot out in every direction. The reflection sent a path of glimmering diamonds through the chop and all the way to our raft. In that moment, it was possible to believe that the world was nothing more than water and sky, that land was not even a concept, and all that man had built upon it was inconsequential. I realized this is what it means to forgo everything and be alone with God.
And I knew that I was.
“Now, Benjamin,” Alice said softly, “ask me what you wish.”
My voice felt buried deep in my windpipe. I dragged the words up like a bucket from a well.
“Who was he? The man who called himself the Lord?”
“An angel I spoke through.”
“Why did he ask for food and water?”
“To see if you would share it.”
“Why was he so quiet?”
“To see if you would listen.”
I looked away. “Lambert killed him.”
“Did he?” she said.
I turned back. Her expression was calm. I swallowed hard, unsure if I wanted to ask the next question, but knowing that I had to.
“Was Jason Lambert my father?”
She shook her head no.
I was instantly overwhelmed with emotion. The hate I had held for that man, the anger I had harbored toward the world because of him, it all came gushing out of me as if I were being socked continuously in the stomach. How wrong I was! How misdirected my rage! I banged my fists into the wet raft floor and howled until I reached the bottom of my soul. And there lay the question that has been driving my life every minute since I lost you.
I looked straight at Alice, and I asked it.
“Why did my wife have to die?”
She nodded as if this were expected. She placed her other hand on top of my palm.
“When someone passes, Benjamin, people always ask, ‘Why did God take them?’ A better question would be ‘Why did God give them to us?’ What did we do to deserve their love, their joy, the sweet moments we shared? Didn’t you have such moments with Annabelle?”