The little boat was falling apart.
The seams between the sides had cracks in them. The engine rattled in its mounting, constantly weakening the bolts that held it in place. Even the benches were coming loose. Only Castro hadn’t cracked. He stared up at Isabel, as stern and confident as ever, commanding her to FIGHT AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE AND WIN.
But it was hard to fight against the inevitable. The water in the boat was almost to Isabel’s knees. She and the others worked sluggishly in the blazing-hot Caribbean sun to scoop, pitch, scoop, pitch, but water was seeping in as fast as they could bail it. The boat was sinking. Every empty water bottle and gasoline can had been tucked up under a bench to help keep them afloat, but if they didn’t reach Florida soon, they were all going to drown.
Fight against the impossible and win, Isabel told herself.
“When are we going to get there?” Iván whined.
“Mañana,” Lito said wearily. “Mañana.”
Suddenly, Isabel’s grandfather stopped bailing water. He sat up straighter, like he was looking at something in the distance. “Mañana,” he
whispered.
“Lito?” Isabel asked.
Her grandfather blinked and his eyes found her again. Was he crying, or was it just sweat and seawater?
“It’s nothing, Chabela. Just … a memory. Something I haven’t thought about in a long time.”
Isabel’s grandfather gazed around the little boat, and his eyes suddenly looked sadder, Isabel thought. She would have crawled over and hugged him, but there was no room to do it without three people getting up and moving for her to get there.
“Don’t stop bailing,” Señor Castillo told them from where he lay in the
bottom of the boat.
“Maybe you could help,” Papi told him.
“I’m recovering!” Señor Castillo argued. “I can barely move in this heat!
Besides, I don’t see you bailing.”
“I’m tending to my wife,” Papi said. “Who’s really sick.”
Ever since the Bahamas, something had come over Isabel’s father. He’d been more attentive to Mami. More focused on her than anything else.
Nobody else noticed, but Isabel did. She’d seen him hold her hand, watched him gently move her hair out of her face, heard him whispering that he loved her, that he needed her.
Things she had never seen or heard him do before.
“Are you saying my father is faking it?” Luis challenged.
“I’m just saying it’s very nice for him that everybody else is keeping this metal coffin afloat while he sits back and relaxes,” Papi said.
“You wouldn’t even have this ‘metal coffin’ if I hadn’t built it!”
“I’m not sure if built is the right word,” Señora Castillo said, trying to pull two of the side pieces back together. “Cobbled is more like it.”
Iván and Señor Castillo erupted at the same time.
“We did the best we could!” Iván yelled.
“Oh, now you’re telling us how to build things?” Señor Castillo said.
“Where were you and Luis when we were up all night putting this thing together, eh? You were at your law office, doing God knows what.”
Isabel shrank in her seat and put her hands over her ears. She hated when her parents argued like this, and now everyone on the boat was mad at each other.
“I was helping people,” Señora Castillo told her husband. “You’ve never appreciated what I do—”
“And what was I supposed to do,” Luis threw in, “tell my police commander I had to stay home and build a boat so I could escape?”
“All of you, stop it,” Amara yelled from the back of the boat. “Right now. You’re acting like children.”
Everyone fell quiet and looked appropriately chastised.
“I think it’s time for a water break,” Amara told them. “Isabel? Will you hand out the bottles?”
It was a little earlier than their rationed water break, but none of them complained. The clear, delicious water was the best thing Isabel had ever tasted, and it settled them all down like mother’s milk for a baby.
“We’re all hot, and we’re all tired, and yes, we’re sinking,” Amara said.
“But if we lose our heads, we’re only going to die faster. We can resolve this.”
“She’s right,” Isabel’s father said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Señor Castillo said. “I should be helping.”
“Only if you’re up to it,” Papi said, and he sounded like he meant it.
“The boat is falling apart, though,” Iván said. “We’re taking on too much water.”
“We have too much weight,” Señora Castillo said.
She was right, but what could they lose? There was just the engine, the fuel, the food and water, and the nine of them.
“What if one or two of us slipped out into the water at a time,” Papi suggested. “They could hang on to the boat. Floating in the water alongside would help take some of the weight away.”
“But it would drag on the boat. Slow us down,” Luis said.
“But it might keep the boat afloat longer,” Señor Castillo said.
“I think we should try it,” Amara said. “We’ll take turns in the water.
It’ll keep us cooler too.”
And right now, Isabel thought, cooler heads just might be the most important thing of all.