Page 34 of Saltwater

Lorenzo throws a life preserver in our direction, and I swim toward it, even though I don’t know if it was meant for me. When I reach it, the panic finally ebbs. Replaced by horror and shame at what I’ve done.

Helen is coughing, but Ciro is supporting her, dragging her toward the boat.

“Just float,” he tells her, “just breathe.”

“Helen—” I say. My voice is hoarse. “I’m so sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry. I—”

Ciro kicks by me, and Helen’s face is pale. Almost blue. Lorenzo and Giuseppe help Ciro lift her into the boat, where she places her head between her knees and coughs for what feels like minutes. When I climb into the boat, I’m shaking. From the cold, I tell myself. Lorenzo passes me a towel and offers me another beer that I just hold.

“Helen—” I try again. Shehasto know I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t me. It was some animal trying to survive. She has to understand.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m fine. Just a joke gone too far.” She looks up at Ciro like it’s his fault. But he turns to me, and I can read it on his face. He would leave me here now. He would let me drown to save her.

We drive back to the beach club in silence. But in my mind, I’m replaying the moments in the water, I’m clenching and unclenching my hand to prove that it works, I’m hearing myself say,She can pay you.I tell myself it was an accident, even though I’m not sure.

We round Casa Malaparte and return to the noise and the bustle of the marina. Ciro idles the engine at the end of the swimmers’ bay, and Helen stands, grabs my hand. Her grip is surprisingly fierce.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ciro asks. “I could drive you all the way in.”

“We’re fine,” Helen says. She pulls me off the boat before I have a chance to say anything. To him, to her. The saltwater rushes around my face, into my ears. We dip back under the boundary rope, and she slows until I’m next to her.

“Let’s not tell Freddy, okay?” she says. She watches Ciro and his boat circle back around. “It was an accident. Nothing more.”

“Sure,” I say.

Then she pulls away from me, ten strong strokes toward shore.

It’s embarrassing how relieved I am. But when I see Freddy stand, when I see Helen pull herself out of the water, when I think back to Ciro leaping off the boat, I realize it’s not me she’s protecting, it’s not me at all.

Helen

Now

I’m arranged on the bowof the boat, a towel over my face, the subtle bobbing soothing and nauseating all at once. But I am very much awake; I have been since Freddy and I swam back from the inlet. I am waiting for Freddy to leave, for a moment alone with Ciro.

I estimate an hour has passed when I hear him. He’s whispering to Ciro; he doesn’t want to wake me. Then I feel it, the dip as he jumps off the back and the sound of him frothing the sea with his kicks.

I don’t have to wait long before I hear Ciro, not next to me—that would be too obvious—but crouched in the cockpit, below the sightline of anyone in the water. He confirms what I already know:

“He’s gone.”

I casually roll onto my stomach. I spread a book in front of me. If Freddy turns around and looks at the boat, all he’ll see is me reading. But Ciro is right in front of me. He snakes a hand up to touch my arm where the bruise from Lorna has grown. Freddy never noticed it. I prefer it that way.

“How does it feel?” Ciro asks.

“Fine,” I say.

“I thought you might not want to go back in the water today. After what happened—”

He runs his thumb over where the skin is yellowing.

“Not here,” I say.

“I told you not to trust her,” he says.

—

I can’t remember whocame up with the idea for the letter, the deadline, the money. The money was probably me. But I like to imagine Lorna insisted on the deadline.

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