“I mean,” he interrupted, squinting at me, “either something’s important to you or it isn’t. You want to make a statement? Or be a doormat the rest of your life, polishing thrones so rich people can sit on them?”

The thrumming had turned into a pounding in my temples. I felt dizzy.

“Dobby,” I whispered. “Do you want to . . . die?”

“It’s better than living like an ant.”

It wasn’t until that moment, Anabelle, that I knew he was mad.

“I won’t do it,” I said, the words barely audible.

His eyes flashed.

“I won’t do it,” I said, louder.

“Come onnnn, cousin.”

I shook my head.

I can barely describe the look he gave me then. Sorrow, betrayal, disbelief, like I could not have let him down more if I tried. He held that gaze a long time, his lower lip drooping like it did when he was a boy. Then he closed his mouth and cleared his throat.

“All right,” he said. “You are who you are.”

He lifted the case, turned his back to me, then walked down the corridor and disappeared through a door. And I did nothing to stop him, my love, nothing at all.

Land

“Jarty?” Patrice yelled down. “Who called?”

LeFleur sighed. He had hoped she was already asleep.

“Nobody,” he yelled up.

He heard her footsteps on the stairs. He tucked the notebook in his briefcase and raised the volume on the soccer game.

Patrice appeared in the doorway.

“‘Nobody’ doesn’t call the house on a Sunday night,” she said. “Jarty, what’s going on?”

He ran a palm across his forehead, squeezing the skin as if trying to lure out an answer.

“OK,” he said. “It wasn’t just junk that floated up on the north shore. It was a raft.”

“What kind of raft?”

“A life raft,” he said.

She sat down. “Were there any—”

“No. No bodies. No people.” He didn’t mention the notebook.

“Do you know what ship it was from?”

“Yeah,” he said, exhaling. “The Galaxy. The one that went down last year.”

“With all those rich people on it?”

He nodded.

“Who just called?”

“A reporter. The Miami Herald.”

She reached out and touched his arm. “Jarty. Those passengers. The news said they all died.”

“That’s right.”

“Then who was in the life raft?”

Sea

The water today is a thick sapphire shade, and the sky is rippled with cottony clouds. It is two full weeks since the Galaxy sank. Our food is gone. So is the fresh water from the storm. Our spirits are hollow and our bodies frail.

I’ve been thinking about the word saved, Annabelle. How this “Lord” refuses to save us. How Mrs. Laghari tried to save the binoculars and fell into the sea. How perhaps I could have saved all those people on the Galaxy if I had only stopped Dobby and that limpet mine.