Page 68 of Saltwater

We’re clustered in the study on the first floor. It’s small, with a single fan blowing humid air back and forth. I’ve begun to notice places in the villa where the whitewash is peeling, little areas of mold blooming on the walls. It looks new, but maybe it’s always been here? The decay.

In my hand, my phone vibrates. Ciro’s name flashes on the screen.

“I’m going to take this. Excuse me,” I say, leaving them in the study.

“Not a word,” Marcus calls after me, and I lift a hand.

I know.I’ve already made that mistake.

“Hello?” I answer as soon as I’m out of earshot.

“Helen—”

“Why are you calling me?” I say. I step into the kitchen, where I can be alone.

“I think you should come to the Villa Jovis,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

The sun is beginning to set, but I imagine the Villa Jovis has held on to the heat. It sits, without shade, on a flat, hot precipice at the eastern side of the island.

“Your father is here,” Ciro says. “He…” Ciro is searching for thewords.“Ha i nervi a fiori di pelle.”

Nerves on the surface of his skin.He is not alone.

“He won’t come away from the Salto. He’s sitting right at the edge,” Ciro says.

I don’t want my father to be my problem. Not now. But maybe I can leverage this: the fact he’s at the Salto and my uncle is here.

“I’ll come as quickly as I can,” I say.

Before I leave, I take the stairs to my bedroom and pull out a bag. I place the manila envelope containing the copy ofSaltwateron the bottom and load other things on top—my wallet, my phone, a handful of receipts—just in case the carabiniere stops me. I can’t leave it here and risk my family or, worse, the police finding it.

I hurry. I have to beat them there—my uncle, the police. If my uncle knew my father was on the Salto, he would take over. He would bundle my father up and lock him in the villa. He would have Bud here in a matter of minutes to explain the playbook. Weakness like the one my father is currently displaying cannot be tolerated from a Lingate. That’s how my father has always been seen by his brother—as a weakness.

I hope he’s right.

—

The Roman emperor Tiberiusruled the empire from this stack of ancient stones, the Villa Jovis. Then it was an elaborate palace complex, designed to prevent his assassination. Now it’s a moldering collection of subterranean rooms carved out of the limestone. Maybe we are all ruins, enduring against the permanence of the sea, the sun, our grief.

My father sits at the edge of the Salto. To get there, he has scaled the metal fencing that rings the viewing platform.

Ciro meets me on the stairs. “He has been here for almost two hours.”

“How did you find him?” I ask.

“A friend who takes tickets recognized him. When he refused to leave the cliff’s edge, he called me.”

Although I came, now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do. Lorna’s body was found floating just below where my father sits. And when I blink, I see my father pushing her off a boat, holding her under.

Am I here to comfort him? If so, no one ever taught me how.

“You don’t have to go out there,” Ciro says.

“I do,” I say.

I owe it to my mother, to Lorna. I owe it to myself.

I slip over the railing and traverse the overgrown path that leads to the Salto.My foot kicks loose a stone, and it echoes, gathering speed as it tumbles down the cliff face. Even so, my father doesn’t turn to see me. His lips move, his eyes closed.

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