Lambert rolled over and squinted. When he saw it, he tried to stand, something he hasn’t done in days. “Hey! . . . I’m here! I’m here.” He tried waving his arms, but they dropped like heavy barbells.

“It’s too high,” Geri rasped.

“Flare gun!” Lambert croaked.

“Too high,” Geri repeated. “Never see us.”

Lambert flopped across the raft bottom toward the ditch bag. Geri threw herself in his direction.

“No, Jason!”

“Flare gun!”

“It’s a waste!”

I was too exhausted to move. I kept glancing from the two of them to the sky. I could barely make the plane out. It was like a spot shifting through the high clouds.

“They’re here for me, damn it!” Lambert yelled. He knocked Geri backward and dumped out the bag.

“No, Jason!” Geri yelled.

But Lambert had the flare gun now. He swung his arm wildly and fired off-balance and the flare shot out sideways across the ocean surface, a hot-pink light that fizzled in the water maybe forty yards away.

“More!” Lambert yelled. “Give me more!”

“Stop it, Jason! Stop it!”

He was on his knees, his fat hands rifling through the items on the floor, knocking them aside in search of another canister. His belly was heaving.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he kept babbling. Geri spotted the two remaining flares and dove for them. She pulled them to her chest and scrambled back to the raft edge.

“Give me those!” Lambert bounced on his knees, coming after her. “Give me them now—”

Bam! Out of nowhere, the Lord smashed into him and knocked him backward with the full force of his shoulders. He moved so fast, I never saw him coming.

Lambert groaned in pain. The Lord lifted Geri to her knees, then turned to me calmly and said, “Benjamin. Put the things back in the bag.”

I raised my eyes to the skies. The plane was gone.

* * *

I realize I have not written about little Alice. Sometimes silent people go unnoticed, as if their lack of words makes them invisible. But being quiet and being invisible are not the same thing. She is on my mind much of the time. As much as I cannot fathom my own death, it is the potential of hers that haunts me the most.

Back when there were more of us, and we had the energy, we’d discussed where Alice could have come from. Lambert didn’t recognize her, but then he didn’t know many people on his own yacht, including me. Yannis said that on Friday afternoon, a rock band arrived on helicopters and he remembered seeing children. Maybe she was one of them.

We’ve asked her many times, “What’s your name?” and “What’s your mommy’s name?” and “Where do you live?” She seems incapable of communicating. Yet she is aware of everything. Her eyes move even faster than ours.