Page 48 of Saltwater

Naomi stepped in. She unrolled an already bloodied towel and wrapped it around the spear. Marcus removed his shirt and placed a makeshift tourniquet at the base of Richard’s knee. This, at least, seemed to stanch some of the flow. Under sail alone, it would be at least an hour until they reached the marina. The engine sputtered to life.

With Richard sitting, Naomi supporting the spear, and Marcus monitoring the blood, they made their way back to the island. The entire time, Sarah thought of the moments before she shot her husband. It had happened so quickly—the flash of silver, her finger on the trigger. It had been a mistake, hadn’t it? It couldn’t have been anything else. She had to take a chance with a fish like that, didn’t she?

At the dock, they were met by a car that took Richard to the local emergency room. Sarah knew he would have preferred, of course, to go to Naples, but it didn’t matter—it was just a wound at the end of the day. A wound that required almost twenty stitches and a course of antibiotics. And while the doctor sewed him up, Sarah told him the story, in Italian, about the tuna, about its size.As big as a house,she said.

“Things like that,” the doctor said through thickly accented English. “Pfft,they only happen once. You must not let those opportunities get away.”

He understood.

“Yes,” said Sarah, “I know.”

—

They were walking throughthe Piazzetta on their way back from the doctor’s when Sarah stopped.

“I think you should go ahead without me,” she said.

Richard leaned on the cane he had been given, Naomi at his elbow.

“Are you serious?” he asked, his face florid. The bleeding hadn’t sapped his anger.

Marcus stepped between them.

She needed a table at the Bar Tiberio, a drink. She needed time away from them. She couldn’t tell them that she no longer trusted herself. That she wanted to replay the moments in the water over and over again until she was certain it had been an accident.

The island had shrunk since that morning, a through-the-looking-glass trick that made the streets shorter and the shoreline of Naples farther. Sarah worried about their remaining time alone at the villa. The walls were so thick, no one would hear her if she called for help. It wouldn’t be like on the water. There would be no captain, no doctor.

“Yes,” she said, firmer this time, “don’t wait for me.”

“It’s fine,” Naomi offered, putting a hand on Richard’s arm. “It’s fine.”

Naomi glanced at Sarah with a look that said,You don’t have to do this.

But she did.

“Fine,” Richard said. “Do whatever the fuck you want. That seems to be all you’re capable of anyway.”

She could have pointed out that she had spent four years doing exactly whathewanted. The perfect play-along wife. But she didn’t. She waited until they were out of sight, then she found a table under the awning. It was more private than the tables that created the perimeter of the Piazzetta. She wanted a few minutes to fade into the background.

It scared her, having that family as an enemy. But it also made her feel the way she used to on opening night, like anything could happen—chaos or brilliance. Both, if she was lucky.

The waiter came by and she ordered a glass of wine. There was still dried blood at the corner of her cuticle, and she wet a paper napkin and worked at it until the napkin was reduced to pieces, then she started at it with her fingernail. Digging. The waiter set her glass of wine on the table and ignored the mess.

“You’ve got to let that be,” Marcus said.

He slid into the seat next to her, an act that took considerabledoing because of the crowds at the surrounding tables. Everywhere, a sea of chairs, cigarettes, bowls of potato chips, and drinks.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she said. “You should have gone with them.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. And it almost certainly matters to him.”

“No,” Marcus said, pulling out a cigarette from his back pocket and offering her one. She held up a hand, passing. “What matters is what happens now.”

When she didn’t say anything, he said:

“You’re angry.”

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