Page 71 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

Then again, I’ve never really asked myself if the wife alone would’ve been enough.

I mean, probably. Otherwise, I’d be a total monster.

“The sexual relationship, maybe,” Allison says, “but you’ve kept him in your life. You keep writing about him.”

I look down at the mosaic floor below us. It’s an intricate key pattern that must’ve taken hours and hours to lay. “That’s a long story.”

One that she might know… I’ve never asked, and I don’t want to now.

“I’m sure.”

“I am sorry, Allison. And I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I wish it hadn’t happened.”

“Okay,” she says, and for the first time, I see through her bubble of happiness to something else underneath.

Something dark.

See, Dr. McGill? It doesn’t work. Forgiveness is a myth.

Besides, what am I doing trying to convince a woman whose husband I slept with and who might be trying to kill him that I’m a good person?

Because I’m not. Obviously.

“Come this way, my friends! We are about to see some erotic art.”

Allison bursts out laughing, and it’s like the sky has cleared, even though it’s been sunny this whole time. “Did she just say ‘erotic art,’ or am I hearing things?”

“I heard it, too,” I say.

“Dear God.”

“Can we escape, you think?”

“Doubtful.”

“After you, then.”

We follow Sylvie into a building that she tells us was a house of prostitution. And sure enough, there are erotic frescoes on the walls, lifelike and not leaving much to the imagination.

“We are lucky we can still see this,” Sylvie says. “The early explorers, they were, how do you say, prudes? One of the best frescoes of the god Priapus; his penis was too big, so they covered it in plaster.”

A woman next to us slaps her hands over her six-year-old’s ears. “There are children present!”

“You are in Italy, signora. We treat everyone like grown-ups.”

The woman huffs and hauls her kid away. Allison’s shoulders are shaking from laughter as she follows Sylvie and the others through the door while I stand in front of the fresco, trying to settle my thoughts.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Connor hisses on my neck.

He doesn’t mean the temperature.

And I know it’s a cliche, but sometimes those are based on reality, because my skin starts to crawl like there are ants on it.

“Just go away,” I say with as much force as I can.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d be free of what we did. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

It’s exactly what I think.

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