The day after Alice opened the heavens for my view, it rained, and we were able to collect fresh water, enough to energize me into taking on tasks I’d felt too depressed or overwhelmed to try. I studied the broken solar still, and used some raft patch repair to plug up the hole. With the hot sun burning on the plastic, the condensation formed and eventually fresh drinking water collected in the reservoir. I also used the fishing line from the ditch kit and fashioned a hook from one of Mrs. Laghari’s earrings that I’d had in my pants pocket that final night on the Galaxy. I attached it with a knot, gripped the paddle-like handle, cast the line over the side, and waited for hours. Nothing. But the next morning, early, I tried again, and this time was able to snag a small sunfish. I ate most of it, saved a little meat for bait, and with that bait was able to catch a dorado the next day, which I cut into pieces and cured on lines I strung from one end of the canopy to the other. It was primitive fishing, but the newfound sustenance gave me a sharper focus. I felt my brain reviving.

Since then, I have been able to build a small stock of fish and potable water. My greatest foe has been loneliness, but with Alice alongside, I held that at bay. We spoke about many things. Yet deep down, I knew I was withholding the truth of my role in the Galaxy’s demise, just as I have been withholding it from you. I know it makes no sense, lying to the dead, or to the Lord. But we do it anyhow. Perhaps we hope that wherever they are, they will forgive us our shameful acts. No matter. In time, the truth comes out. Grief leads to anger, anger to guilt, guilt to confession.

Finally, one morning, I awoke to find the ocean as calm as a puddle. I blinked my eyes against the sun. Alice was standing over me.

“Go in the water,” she said.

“Why?”

“It is time.”

I didn’t understand. Despite that, I felt myself rising.

“Take this with you,” she said.

I glanced down. My eyes sprang open. Somehow, there, in the middle of the raft, was the green limpet mine. It looked the same as when I purchased it from a man I found on the Internet. I met him in a boat warehouse. Our transaction took less than ten minutes. I hid it in a drum case that I carried onto the Galaxy.

“Pick it up,” Alice said. “And don’t let it go.”

I wanted to refuse, but my body did not operate on its own. I lifted that mine, felt its metal edges against my bare skin, and did as I was told.