Free The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom Page A

course, something to shield us from our fear of the unknown. But it only works until death presents itself so plainly that you cannot ignore it.
    I am at that point, my love. The end is no longer a faraway concept. I imagine all those souls who went down with the Galaxy. I picture Bernadette and Mrs. Laghari, now Nevin, all swallowed by the sea. Without rescue, the rest of us will suffer the same fate, we will perish in this raft, or in the water outside it, and one of us will watch the others go first. Man’s instinct is to find a way to live, but who wants to be the last to die?
    As I was thinking this, I looked up and realized little Alice had crawled over to me. Her eyes were wide and her expression gentle, the way children sometimes look whenthey first wake up. A minute later, the Lord pulled himself alongside her. He looked at me, too. It made me uncomfortable.
    â€œI don’t need company,” I said. “I’m just thinking about things.”
    â€œYour fate,” the Lord said.
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œPerhaps I can help.”
    I actually laughed. “Why? If I were God, I would have given up on me long ago.”
    â€œBut you are not,” he said, “and I never will.”
    He crossed his fingers in front of his lips. “Did you know that when I created this world, I made two Heavens?”
    â€œWhen you created this world,” I mocked.
    â€œYes,” he continued. “Two Heavens.” He pointed. “Above and below. At certain moments, you can see between them.”
    Little Alice was staring at his face. Why she idolizes him so, I can’t say. I don’t imagine she understands anything he’s talking about.
    â€œJust stop, OK?” I said. “Can’t you see we’re slowly dying here?”
    â€œPeople are slowly dying everywhere,” he said. “They are also continuously living. Every moment they draw breath, they can find the glory I put here on Earth, if they look for it.”
    I turned toward the dark-blue ocean.
    â€œTo be honest,” I said, “this feels more like Hell.”
    â€œI assure you it is not.”
    â€œI guess you would know, huh?”
    â€œYes.”
    I paused.
    â€œ Is there a Hell?”
    â€œNot the way you imagine it.”
    â€œThen what happens to bad people when they die?”
    â€œWhy, Benjamin?” he asked, leaning forward. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
    I glared at him.
    â€œGet away from me,” I said.

Sea
    It is time I wrote about Dobby. You need to know. The world needs to know. I will start by saying I am unaware of what happened to him—though I imagine he is dead along with the others. We did not speak that last night on the Galaxy , not after I told him “I won’t do it.” He was furious. He felt I betrayed him. Inasmuch as he thought I shared his rage, I understand that.
    But it was his idea to blow up the Galaxy , Annabelle. Not mine. Had he not arrived on my doorstep last summer, shortly after you left me, I would have gone along my way, quietly bearing my resentments.
    Dobby was more actuated. As a boy, he argued with our schoolteachers, fought the local bullies, led the rest of us kids down dirt paths on our bicycles, always speeding ahead, taking the turns first. He was a rebel in a boy’smedium T-shirt, loud, unruly, his dark hair mussed, his brow often furrowed and his lower lip hanging down, as if constantly being scolded by someone. He and his mother came to Boston two years after we did, after Dobby’s father, my uncle, passed away back in Ireland. I was nine. Dobby was eleven. I remember overhearing his mother telling mine, “That one runs with the devil in his shoes.”
    But Dobby was smart. Incredibly smart. He read all the time, borrowed books from the library and read them as he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He was the reason I took to reading, Annabelle, and writing. I wanted to be