Page 29 of Saltwater

The truth is, I don’t want to barter secrets. I know he doesn’t have enough to make it an even trade.

He scans the horizon, and I can see that it’s taken him hours, maybe days, to work up to this. Whatever it is. I worry that he’s telling me now. That it might have something to do with the necklace, withLorna.

So I ask: “Is it something that can hurt you?” I put my hand on his knee and search the side of his face. “Hurt us?”

“Definehurt,” he says.

I don’t want to. I want Freddy to be the one easy thing in all of this, even if I don’t deserve it.

He kicks a leg out, toes dug into the sand, and finally looks me in the eye.

“It’s about Lorna,” he says.

Her name feels like a punch.Lorna.

“What about her?” I try not to snap the words at him, but I do. I’m running through the list of things he might say: he saw her last night, she never left the island, she left the country, she texted him, she’s dead. I don’t know. I didn’t even know he thought about Lorna.

Freddy’s shoulders drop and he shakes his head; his confidence slips.

“Never mind,” he says.

Never mind?

I try again: “How can Lorna hurt us, Freddy?”

“You don’t need to worry about Lorna.”

“How can you say that? Of course I’m worried about her! She never came home!”

“Lorna can take care of herself,” he says.

This only makes it worse.Lorna can take care of herself.The boat suddenly feels much farther away. The villa, my phone, my lifelines. There are consequences if this goes wrong. My life, already so narrow, could become even smaller, even harder to survive. Like my mother’s.

“You barely know her,” I say, my voice low, controlled.

“No,” he says, looking at me.

And I wonder,Is this it, is this the thing?

“You barely know her,” he says. “Lorna was big on the party scene before you met,” he adds quickly.

The party scene.As if that means something, as if I should recognize the words. But then, I know Freddywasthe party scene. He spent the middle stretch of his twenties in and out of rehab, finally gettingsober at twenty-seven. My family always liked that he had a secret of his own, a weakness. It gave him something to lose. These days,soberis no longer the right word, but neither isaddict.I don’t judge him for it. The drinking is mostly under control.

“I know she drank. Her mother did, too. That’s why she quit. I know she didn’t get through school. So what?” I say.

I say it more for myself than for him. Because the truth is, I’m uncomfortable learning things about Lorna that I don’t know. And it worries me that Freddyknewher. Knew her andshenever mentioned it when I introduced them three years ago. But then, there are things I’ve kept from her as well, things like Ciro. It’s too late now anyway, our one shared secret bigger than the rest.

“I’m just saying that she can handle herself, that’s all.” Freddy holds his hands up. He’s delivered his message; he’s done.

“Okay,” I say. I try to even out my nerves. “Okay. But if we haven’t heard from her by this evening, we need to do something.”

“Do you think she had anything to do with the necklace?” Freddy asks, the thought idle.

And I don’t. I didn’t. But I replay it anyway—that day at the office when it turned up. Her opening the box. Me reaching for it. Did she know it was coming?

But he doesn’t mean then—he means now, on the island.

“Do you even think it’s real?” Freddy asks, propping himself up on his elbows.

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