The Stranger in the Lifeboat

www.ajpdf.com
“Look, Mr.—”
“Dobby.”
“Dobby. That raft had to travel two thousand miles to get here. That’s two
thousand miles worth of waves, storms, wind, sea life. What chance would
anyone have against all that? For a year?”
Dobby nodded, as if hearing something he’d already told himself.
“It’s just that …”
LeFleur waited.
“My cousin. He found a way to get through things. He had a tough life.
Really poor. He could’ve given up many times. But he didn’t. When I read
about the raft, I thought maybe, crazy as it sounds, he found a way to survive
that, too.”
“You flew all the way down here to find that out?”
“Well … yeah. We were really close.”
A car turned down the street, its headlights sweeping across them. LeFleur
scrambled to the left, Dobby to the right. Now they were on opposite sides of
the pavement. LeFleur racked his brain for more details from the notebook.
He needed to get back to it, to learn everything about what part this Dobby
had really played.
An idea formed in his mind. Risky. But what choice did he have?
“Where are you staying, Mr. Dobby?”
“In town. A guesthouse.”
LeFleur glanced at his porch, and the lantern that illuminated it.
“Would you like some supper?” he asked.
An hour later LeFleur was sipping Patrice’s goat water soup and forcing a
smile as Dobby talked. Patrice had taken it in stride. Her husband had come
home with a foreign traveler. Could they add a chair at the table? It wasn’t
something that happened often, but privately, she welcomed it. The isolation
they’d endured since Lilly’s death had settled like a shadow inside their
house. Any new visitor was a light.
“What part of Ireland are you from, Dobby?” Patrice asked.
“A town called Carndonagh. It’s way up north.”
“Did you know they call Montserrat ‘the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’?”
“Is that so?”
“Because it’s shaped like Ireland. And a lot of people who came here years