her fear, he began whimpering.
“Rachel’s dead,” said Owen.
The most natural thing to do was to put her arms around him, so she did, even though it was at odds with the boundaries she had taken such pains to establish. But as she reached out, he sank to his knees on the deck, so she joined him there, as did Noah, and her son hugged Owen’s back while he leaned his head on her shoulder and wept.
When Owen finally raised his head, Noah came around to inspect the writer’s face. He dabbed at it with his shirt sleeve for what felt like forever. “All better,” he declared. Then he returned to the cockpit where he’d been playing with figurines.
“I betrayed her, over and over,” said Owen, when the boy was occupied. “I cheated on her. I lied. I thought that because she was the only woman I loved, it didn’t really matter.”
Sarah’s mouth felt dry. “As in, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her?” It was like a sharp cramp, remembering how easily, how thoughtlessly, she could have been one of those women.
“She’ll never forgive me now,” said Owen. He could barely get the words out.
His honesty was ugly, even if it came as a bit of a relief: there was something real behind the facade. “So this is about you,” said Sarah. She didn’t feel like relenting just yet. “Whatever story you’ve told about yourself.”
“No.” He paused. “At least, I hope not. But what will happen to the boy now?”
She knew from Owen that Rachel had no other family. “She should have been on this boat,” said Sarah. “Not me.”
Owen drew his hands across his cheeks and stood up. “I wouldn’t even have made it out of the harbour without you. You’re the closest thing to an angel I’ve got.” And for a moment Sarah felt a warm flush of comfort. Then a pang of worry that it would be wrong to start trusting him.
But together it was their job to create and convey the selfless wisdom and generosity of his online persona—a complete fiction except insofar as the profile seemed occasionally to inspire Owen with thoughts of living up to it. After the news came about Rachel, they threw themselves into the blogging they’d been neglecting, and Sarah found she had faith in the Owen Grant she had helped create. She thought he did exist somewhere, if not exactly within Owen himself. The fact that people believed in him did make him real, in a certain sense. And their confidence in his ability to protect them also gave Owen something to hang on to in the aftermath of Rachel’s death, during which he seemed to fluctuate between anguish and a kind of giddy heedlessness, as though the worst had already happened and there was nothing else to fear.
* * *
For Owen, the days took on a kind of suspended reality, reinforced by the crystalline beauty stretching out in every direction. The islands seemed like a strange place to feel sad. Their third day in the Exumas, Sarah slipped and fell on her way to retrieve a thermometer. She snapped at him for leaving water on the companionway. And since a harsh word on their calm boat felt like a profanity, he rose and followed her to the forward cabin, where Noah lay in his bunk, feverish but uncomplaining.
She answered his unspoken question. “There’s no cough or dizziness.” She spoke at a normal volume, but Noah gave no sign of hearing her. His eyes were closed, his face screwed up with pain. “It isn’t presenting like ARAMIS, but he’s definitely sick.”
“It can’t be the virus. We haven’t interacted with anyone for days. Well, the customs official, I suppose, but we were careful.”
“What about the bonefish we caught?” said Sarah. “Or the shearwater that landed on deck? Maybe they were carrying it.”
Owen made a non-committal sound and retreated to the computer station. He checked the message boards and sent out a few queries over the radio. He learned that the local hospital had reported several possible cases of the virus, though the facility wasn’t equipped to carry out definitive diagnostic tests. Between the static and the silences, he was unnerved by the sound of Sarah crying in Noah’s cabin. But for once in his life, a woman was weeping and it was not his fault. He was almost grateful, yet his relief was monstrous.
Owen considered their first-aid supplies. For all the contingencies he’d prepared for, he somehow hadn’t considered this one: