But then I think of Libby. Not how she’d been when I met her—vibrant and full of life. Mischievous and brilliant. But how she was at the end, as she gave up.
And how desperately I wanted to give up as well.
That’s why I can’t just walk away.
TWENTY-FOUR
I turn and walk out on the balcony. The wind from the ocean plays through the damp ends of my hair, flinging tiny drops of water down my back. Out on the life raft I’d sworn to myself that if I survived I’d never take water for granted again. It’s amazing how little time passed before I broke that promise. How quickly I’d grown accustomed to turning on a faucet without second thought.
“Do you know what happens to a person’s body when they’re cast adrift without food or water?” I glance over my shoulder to where Shepherd leans against the balcony door. He says nothing, his jaw rigid.
“The rule of thumb is that a body can only go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.” I explain. “Libby and I were adrift for seven days.”
I let that hang in the air a moment before continuing. “It’s not the hunger that’s the problem—not really. I mean, it’s there, feeling like your body’s eating you from the inside out. But the thirst.” I shake my head, wetting my lips just because I can. Such a simple gesture, one I’d have cut off a limb to be able to do when out on that ocean.
“At first, your tongue starts sticking to the roof of your mouth. To your teeth. It’s like there isn’t enough room in your mouth for it anymore. And the taste.” I tighten my grip on the iron railing. “It’s foul—sticky and thick and wrong. It feels like there’s something solid stuck in your throat and all you can do is swallow incessantly but it makes no difference.”
Shepherd is still silent, but I can tell from the tension in the air that he’s listening. “Everything hurts—your head, your neck. Your ears. The inside of your nose. It’s unbearable and all you want to do is scream but you can’t because your voice cracks and it feels like your throat bleeds from the effort.” I’m on a roll now, half my mind standing here on the balcony with Shepherd and the other half back on that raft.
“Eventually, your lips split from the dryness. Your skin no longer sweats, and through it all the sun is relentless. Burning you so bad you start to blister. That’s when you start hearing things. Seeing things.”
I glance back at Shepherd. His eyes betray his mixture of revulsion and curiosity. It’s obvious he knows he shouldn’t want to hear this, that the horror is too great, yet he can’t stop himself from listening.
These are the kind of details that never made it to the papers. That aren’t even in the notebooks piled on my bed. These are the things I’ve kept only to myself, the memory of them sealed into my veins like blood.
“We were lucky—it rained on the second day. We were able to drink fresh water.” I lift a shoulder. “But the process just began all over again. The cotton mouth, the pain. Your head feels like it’s too big because your skin starts to shrink. We snapped at each other—argued. Because of the pain and because our brains weren’t working right and nothing made much sense.
“By the sixth morning, our tongues were rocks—practically solid, like they were some kind of foreign object in our mouths. We were mummifying in front of each other’s eyes.”
“Frances—” Shepherd steps beside me, a hand held up, asking me to stop.
But I’m in no mood to show mercy.
I turn toward Shepherd, hands balled to fists at my sides as the familiar comfort of rage billows over me like a blanket. “You wanted to know why I need revenge against Senator Wells and Grey? Why I can’t let this go?” I jab a finger against his chest. “Well, this is the reason.
“There was always salt water in the boat and at first we could bail it out but eventually we were too weak. Both of us had sores everywhere and the salt was like acid. Libby had a rash up her arms and at night she’d scratch at it, like she wanted to tear her skin from her bones.
“You start to see things. You think you hear ships and planes. But it’s always just your brain playing tricks. And, God, you want to believe so badly.” My voice cracks and I cross my arms over my chest, hands gripping my shoulders as I fold in on myself under the weight of memory.
“The blood sweats started on the seventh morning.” Shepherd winces, but stays silent. “There was a storm out on the horizon and I kept thinking that if it would just come closer . . .”
When I blink my eyes I’m back on the raft, watching the clouds boil into the sky. So close. So close. Sheets of rain fell in the distance, gray curtains of water just out of reach. “I thought for sure that eventually the rain would hit us.”
I pause, listening to the ocean crashing against the sand just beyond the dunes. And I think about the sound the waves made against the walls of the lifeboat. A hushing sort of whisper that I’d eventually found comforting.
It had become, for me, the reckoning of death.
“I couldn’t take it. I started drinking seawater several days in.” Shepherd lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “I know. Libby begged me not to but . . .” I shrug. The pain had been too much for me and I was so envious of Libby’s ability to endure it.
I’d felt so weak willed. As if I were the one giving up.
“Because of that, it was always worse for Libby. She was more dehydrated and at every stage, she was worse off than me. But that seventh afternoon I woke up and she was lying against the other side of the raft. There were red streaks down her cheeks and at first I didn’t understand. I thought she was dead but then . . .” My voice cracks. This is something I’ve never told anyone before. Not written down. It’s a memory that’s belonged only to me.
To both Frances and Libby.
It seems almost cruel to be sharing it. To push these images into another person’s mind. The weight of them is crippling.
“As I watched, a drop of blood welled in the corner of her eye and spilled over. It looked like she was crying. And I knew. Right then, I knew.”
Shepherd inhales sharp, his fingers gripping at the railing so tight that the skin strains across his knuckles.
“She couldn’t speak at that point. It was too much of an effort.” Her lips had become almost nonexistent, eyelids split, skin leather tight, and cheekbones impaling her from the inside out. “But she mouthed the words and I understood.
“She said, ‘I’m sorry.’ By the time I got to her, by the time I grabbed her hand, she’d given up.” I swallow. “And I was so jealous because I wanted to be the one to die. And I was mad she was going to give up and leave me alone. So I turned my back on her. Even as she was dying.”
My memory of the moment is so vivid, so bright and colorized. “I don’t know how much time passed before I turned to check on her. That’s when I saw the boat—it was headed right for us. I grabbed Libby—told her we were saved. She was still breathing—just barely—and I told her to hold on. Just a little while longer.”
I shake my head, the next bit coming out in a whisper. “But it was too late. I tried, but I couldn’t keep her alive long enough. And I’ve always wondered . . .” I have to pause, and Shepherd waits, silent, for me to continue.
“If I hadn’t turned my back on her. If I hadn’t been so mad at her, I would have seen the boat earlier. Libby might have lived.” My voice cracks. “I let her die.”
TWENTY-FIVE
At first, Shepherd’s touch on my shoulder is hesitant but then he’s pulling me against him, tucking my head under his chin. It’s the first time since being rescued I’ve let someone hold me while I cried.
But I don’t allow myself to draw too much comfort from it. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time adrift, it’s that you can’t depend on anyone. They will all abandon you in the end.
“You can’t blame yourself, Frances,” he murmurs.
That name on his lips jolts me, wrenching me from the past. I push away, dashing the tears from my eyes and shaking my head to clear it. “You’re right,” I tell him, walking back inside. I shuffle through the stack of notebooks on the bed until I find the one I’m looking for. Flipping it open, I thrust it at him. “I blame them.”
I point to the photo of Grey and his father, taken moments after they’d been rescued. It ran in half the newspapers—the powerful Senator and his golden-boy child who survived.
He starts to laugh. But when I don’t join in, the sound dies out and his eyes go wide. “Wait, you can’t be serious.”
“That isn’t what someone looks like when they’ve been cast adrift for three days.”
“Maybe, but—”
I cut him off before he can say more. “How about this. Tomorrow you go lie on one of the rafts in the pool and stay there for a few days. And then we can compare. You think your skin will look that good—no open sores?” I point at the picture. “No third-degree burns from the sun? For God’s sake, even their lips aren’t cracked from dehydration!”
“What you’re saying is . . .” He struggles for the word. Ridiculous. Impossible. Absurd. Crazy. I hear all the possible choices in my head—I’ve thought them all before.
“What I’m saying is there were three hundred twenty-seven people on that cruise ship and three hundred twenty-three of them were murdered. Libby and I only escaped through dumb luck. But Grey and his father”—I shake my head—“that wasn’t luck.”
I take a step forward. “What I’m saying is they lied. You laughed earlier when I told you, but it’s the truth. There was no rogue wave, the Persephone was taken down by armed men.”
“Do you have proof?” he asks.
“That’s why I’m here,” I bite back.
He lets out a long breath and paces across the room thinking. “Okay, then why not go to the cops?”
I shake my head. “Don’t you think I’ve already considered that? My word against a well-respected sitting Senator of the United States and his son? There isn’t enough proof. Remember when that Malaysian Airlines plane went missing a while back? The whole world mobilized to look for it because the disappearance was unexplained. But what would have happened if the plane had just flown into a storm and a few days later they’d found two survivors—a Senator and his teenaged son? If the Senator blamed it all on the storm, who would second-guess that?”
When he says nothing, I answer for him. “No one. And even if they’d found another survivor a week later who said it was hijacked, who’d have believed her? They’d say she went mad from dehydration and starvation. Sure a few conspiracy theorists might grab hold, but nothing would come of it. And you can forget even the loons listening if she came out with that story four years later.”
At my argument, Shepherd’s expression shifts from utter disbelief to measured uncertainty. With a sigh I sit on the edge of the bed and run my thumb over the ghost of Libby’s ring still visible at the base of my finger. “Look, I watched those men kill my parents and Libby’s mom. I watched Libby die and it was not an easy death.”
I press my palms against my eyes, wishing I could erase the searing images. “I tried to move on. I tried to have a normal life. But how could I? There’s not a night I don’t have nightmares. There’s not a moment that I forget the sound of those bullets or the look on my mother’s face when those men pulled the trigger.”
I open my mouth to say more, but know that if I do, my voice will waver and crack. And so I sit silently a moment, forcing the memories back.
The bed shifts as Shepherd sits beside me. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. I drop my hands to my lap, staring at the sliver of empty space between the edge of my knee and his.
“I used to think that I just needed to understand,” I tell him. “That if I could find out the truth, that would be enough. And the truth still matters to me, don’t get me wrong.” I press my lips together and shake my head.
“But that’s not enough anymore. There were 5,783 minutes between the moment when Grey and his father were rescued and when Libby’s father found us—5,783 minutes of agony. Of thirst and hunger and desperation. Every second drove us closer to death. That’s 5,783 minutes where the coast guard could have found us. If they’d kept looking. But they weren’t, because Grey and his father lied about what happened on the Persephone.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Shepherd interjects.
“Our chances of getting rescued earlier would have been a whole lot higher with the coast guard still looking,” I point out. He says nothing, conceding the point.
“Here’s the thing, Cecil always hoped I’d make something out of Libby’s life. And for a long time that’s what I wanted too—to make him proud. To prove myself worthy of having survived.
“But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t move on until this is settled. And to do that I had to come back. I had to confront Grey and his father—shake loose the truth.”
I turn to face him, trying to make him understand. “At best Grey and his father lied because they were scared. And at worst they lied because they were somehow involved. Either way they lied and I intend to find out why. You can hate me if you want. You can blame me for all of this, for keeping the truth from you. You can help me, or you can leave.” I keep my voice cold, resolved. “But the one thing you can’t do is stop me.”
TWENTY-SIX
The next morning my legs feel a little sluggish, but I still force myself out on my usual run. I can’t afford to miss it. I’ve just reached the tip of the island and turned back when I see Mrs. Wells in the distance, making her way slowly across the boardwalk to the beach. As she does every morning, she pauses when her feet first hit the sand, and stretches.
There’s a little table where she drops her towel and then she takes her time stuffing her hair into a bright yellow swim cap. The Wellses are nothing if not wed to their routines.
I keep my pacing even, watching her as I jog closer. From this far away I can’t see any of the details—her bathing suit is nothing more than a brush of black against pale skin, her goggles mirrored reflections over her eyes. It’s low tide and she takes her time walking toward the water. She enters it haltingly, pausing when it hits her knees and using her hands as cups to splash the rest of her body.
The storms over the past few days have churned the ocean some, but this morning the waves have calmed. The whitecaps are muted and dulled, more rolling hills than cutting cliffs.
She makes her way deeper, her arms spread wide with her palms hovering against the surface, swishing her fingers back and forth. When she dives under it’s an elegant movement, the curve of her body graceful and slick. She kicks a few yards farther out and then turns parallel to the beach, swimming up the coast toward me.
I increase my pace, pushing myself harder as I watch her. Waiting to see if today’s Refreshergy is the one that I poisoned.
Her strokes are crisp and even, elbow pulling high out of the water by her ribs before stretching forward. She’s done this every summer morning for years—decades. So often she probably doesn’t even think about it anymore. Like me with running, she probably lets her body fall into its pattern, untethering her mind to drift free.
Which is why when the first cramp hits her, it must come as such a surprise. The muscles spasming first in her gut, twisting so hard it’s like she’s ripping in half. She wouldn’t be prepared for it, her thoughts would already be too far away. By the time she reels them in, forces them to focus, it’s too late. It’s hit in her other muscles: calves and hamstrings knotting impossibly tight, back cramping.
I see the moment it happens. The way her arm crumples as she reaches forward. The yellow curve of her head jerking from the water. She’s splashing and panic. Pain and terror.
Unlike Mrs. Wells, I’m prepared. I’ve run throug
h this all in my head too many times to count. Racing down the beach as fast as I can, I rip my cell phone from my armband and punch in 911. It rings only once and the moment the dispatcher picks up, I start reciting.
“Send someone quick!” I shout, modulating my voice so that it has enough panic to be sincere, but not so much that it is incoherent. “I think she’s drowning!”
“Okay, ma’am, calm down,” the dispatcher says in a soothing voice. “What’s the address?”
I glance toward the Senator’s house. “Oh God, I don’t know. Um . . .” I pull the phone away from my mouth and scream, “HELP!” as loud as possible, hoping someone might hear.
Out in the ocean, Mrs. Wells continues to thrash, barely keeping her head above water.
“Ma’am—”
“It’s the beach in front of—it’s the Senator’s house. Senator Wells’s house.” I’m gasping now, from sprinting.
“I’m sending a rescue crew but can you—”
“She’s—oh my God, I think it’s the Senator’s wife!” She’s about twenty yards from shore, gasping, crying—trying to scream but unable to get enough air. Her head goes under, stays under. Bobs to the surface again.
More panic creeps into my voice, making it high-pitched and scratchy. “They’ll be too late. I have to help her!”
“Ma’am—”
“Tell them it’s the Senator’s house! Tell them to hurry!”
And then I fling the phone up the beach, not even bothering to turn it off, and race toward the water’s edge. My heart seizes at the shock of entering the ocean for the first time since the Persephone. The tide grips at me greedily, and I have to force myself not to turn back to the safety of dry land. Foam splashes over my feet, clinging to my thighs as I run out as far as I can, leaping over the waves before eventually diving in.
The flood of salt causes me to gag, but I push it all aside to focus on reaching Mrs. Wells. The water around her is a churning white. She’s beyond panic now. Beyond any kind of thought at all. This is pure survival mode. I’ve studied enough about drowning victims to know that the most dangerous thing you can do in a rescue is let them get ahold of you.