We had no choice but to wait.

Wait. Keep waiting.

I dragged Lou out of the camp with me. To the boat again, the only place where we could get away from everything.

I didn’t notice that Marguerite had followed us. I was too busy talking, running off at the mouth, to avoid having to talk about what I had seen.

We had made it a good distance down the highway when she suddenly appeared. She was out of breath, as if she had been jogging to catch up with us.

“Hi.” She smiled. A bit shyly?

My heart beat a couple of extra beats, and an idiotic teenager’s smile forced its way across my face. “Hi!” But I couldn’t smile at her like that, what was I doing?

“Hi,” Lou said, looking back and forth between the two of us.

“I was calling you,” Marguerite said.

“Ah,” I said.

“The finders were gone,” Lou said.

“She means the Red Cross,” I said.

“The people who find people,” Lou said.

“But for sure they have just relocated,” I said to Lou. “Or are taking a break.”

“For sure,” Marguerite said, without conviction.

We’d stopped and stood facing each other. Lou stared at Marguerite. I would like to have known what the child was thinking. Had she picked up on something?

“Are you going for a walk?” Marguerite asked.

Hush, I wanted to say to Lou. Don’t say anything. But I didn’t have a chance.

“We’re going to the boat,” she said. “You can come along.”

Lou climbed up the ladder expertly and swung over the railing.

I let Marguerite climb after her, wondering whether she would hesitate, say it was too high, ask questions about whether the ladder was stable. But she did none of these things.

She was wearing only a tank top. I could see the muscles tightening in her neck and back as she moved.

While I was climbing, I could hear them laughing softly at something up there.

“We were waiting for you,” Lou said when I peeked over the railing. “Marguerite and I were waiting for you.”

She pulled the board off the entrance hatchway and crept down into the saloon.

“Ladies first,” I said to Marguerite, regretting it immediately.

But she smiled. The second smile of the day. “Thank you.”

It was very cramped inside. I hadn’t noticed it before when it was only Lou and me. But two adult bodies took up too much space.

Everywhere I turned, there was Marguerite. I tried to avoid contact with her, but nonetheless, one of my bare arms brushed hers, nonetheless I could smell the scent of her hair as she moved past.

I didn’t want physical contact with her. Didn’t want it. Though it was all I could think about, that and only that. I even imagined Lou not being here.