Was it the world in which I told Eddie I didn’t love her and in which I never saw my son?

How could I fritter away my life in such fear and on so many refusals, saying “no” at the wrong forks in the road and “I don’t know” at the important ones? If only I’d recognized the vital, significant moments! I scream in desperation because I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong this time. I fall to my knees and curl up in a ball.

Thirst. I need to drink, an Orangina, water, an ice-cold Coke. Such terrible thirst.

If I were asleep I could wake myself up by staring at my hands. I lift my trembling hands, although I know they don’t actually exist, that they’re merely motionless claws and maybe even those are no longer there. They fade into the darkness and become invisible.

Waves close in on the small blue boat, growling like large, disgruntled dogs. May it capsize! May it tip us out! Let’s play with it! The sea can drown me, for all I care!

But it doesn’t. Instead, it seems as though the sea brightens, so to speak, where my eyes pierce it, and there I see them again, their arms and legs sticking out in strange positions as if they were sleeping upright. Floating figures that have risen from distant depths, pulled up by fine yet firm threads. Some are naked, while others have fluttering shirts and smocks. Their eyes are closed.

Who are they? The dead, those who remained behind over the centuries when their ships went down.

“No, they’re the dreamers,” the girl says.

She’s sitting on a black rock that rears up behind me like a stone whale. Low tide has uncovered the outcrop, whose sides, submerged twice a day, are overgrown with shells. In a few hours the waters will have risen again.

The girl has crystal-blue eyes and fine blond hair. She looks about eleven, and my heart tightens at the sadness in her eyes.

“How did you get here, my child?”

“I’m dying,” the little girl replies. “Like you.”

“No,” I say quickly, “you’re not dying. Neither of us is. We can go back, you know. As long as we stay on the surface, we can go back.”

“You know the way?” The way she asks this suggests that she knows I have no idea where I’ve come from or how to get back there.

I shake my head. I feel a spasm in my heart, fear creeping into its every nook and cranny along with despair at the thought that, as with the previous child, I am unable to protect her.

“Come on, I’ll help you off that rock,” I say to the child. I stand up and stretch out my arms toward the girl. The boat sways.