40. No Time. As the crewmembers of The Wanderer find themselves in the middle of a vicious storm, Cody writes that he told his father he didn’t want to die. Mo replied by telling Cody that he couldn’t die, and that “Sophie can’t die like this.” This confuses Cody—he thinks his father means something special by this remark, as if he’s “talking in code” about Sophie. He then writes that he thinks everyone talks in code about Sophie.
Mo’s comment about Sophie here makes Cody wonder what connection his father is making between dying on the ocean and Sophie as a person. It seems like Mo is suggesting that death on the ocean is somehow related to Sophie’s past. Further, Cody begins to think that Sophie, being so mysterious, can only ever be talked about or described in some unclear code.