The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom Page A

Laghari asked.
    â€œA plane, a helicopter, another boat,” Geri said. “We gotta stay alert and use the flares if we see something.”
    She suggested we get out of any clothes that were holding the cold water, and she gave Mrs. Laghari a large pink T-shirt from the backpack she’d grabbed before abandoning ship. I remember Mrs. Laghari asking Nina to unzip the back of her gown, then requesting we turn away while she struggled to get out of it. Even on a lifeboat, people have their modesty. The explosion had come during a dinner party, and the sight of most of us in dress clothes, now soaked and ripped as we huddled inside a raft, was a grim reminder of how little the natural world cares for our plans.
    After that, we were mostly silent, just staring at the heavens, hoping to see an approaching airplane. None of us slept. A few of us prayed. It wasn’t until the sky began to lighten that we spotted anyone else. Geri had found a flashlight in the ditch bag, and we took turns waving it likea beacon. Somewhere around five in the morning, we heard a distant yell.
    â€œThere,” Geri said, pointing, “about twenty degrees to our right.”
    Up ahead, in the flashlight beam, was a man gripping a chunk of something. As we drew closer, I realized it was actually a piece of the Galaxy ’s fiberglass hull, and the man clinging to it was the ship’sowner, Jason Lambert.
    I fell backward, trying to catch my breath. Not him! He made a guttural moaning sound as the others struggled to pull his corpulent body into the raft.
    â€œIt’s Jason!” Mrs. Laghari yelled.
    He rolled on his side and vomited.
    Geri turned to the horizon, which was coming clear with the daylight. “Everyone look carefully out there! This is our best chance to see if anyone else survived!”
    When she said that word, it hit me like a bell chime. Survived ? We were the survivors ? No one else? No. I could not accept that. There must be others. In some other raft. In some other part of this angry sea. I thought of Dobby. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Was he responsible for this disaster?
    Geri pulled binoculars from her backpack, and we spread about the raft and passed them around. My turn came. At first glance, through those lenses, every smallwave seemed like something alive; you’d swear you saw a dolphin, or a piece of equipment flashing in the chop. Then I saw a spot of something red, and red is not a color you confuse with the ocean.
    â€œI think I see someone!” I yelled.
    Geri grabbed the binoculars and confirmed it. She removed a soggy piece of paper from her pocket and ripped off a small corner, then threw it in the water and leaned over to watch it.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Mrs. Laghari asked.
    â€œThe currents,” Geri replied. “See how that paper comes back to the raft? Whatever’s out there will come our way if we hold our position.”
    She had us paddle with our hands against the drift. I watched the red figure draw closer and closer. Finally, Yannis, who now had the binoculars, blurted out, “Oh my god . . . It’s a kid .”
    We stopped paddling to look. There, in the coming sunlight, clinging to a deck chair, was a little girl, maybe eight years old. She wore a red dress, and her light brown hair was soaked against her head. Her eyes were open, but her expression was blank, as if she were waiting calmly for something to begin. I imagine she was in shock.
    â€œHey! Are you all right?” we yelled. “Hey!”
    Then splash! Geri was in the water. She swam until shereached the deck chair, then swam back with the girl’s arms around her neck.
    That’s how we discovered Alice.
    Who has not said a word since.
    * * *
    When the sun set and the sky turned an amber shade, Geri rose and made an announcement. “Look, everybody. I know what happened to Mrs. Laghari is awful. But we gotta regroup. We need to focus to