Page 69 of Saltwater

“Dad,” I say. It’s a whisper at first. But then I realize I’ll have to be louder. There’s a wind picking up, stealing my words. I say it again. I never call him that.Dad.I sound like a child.

He doesn’t turn toward me, but I’m closer now. I can touch him. I settle a hand on his shoulder.

“Dad—”

He startles. His eyes open. As if he’s surprised he’s here on this ledge, on this island.

“Helen.” He looks up at me but doesn’t stand. His eyes are bloodshot, his linen pants pulled tight against his crossed legs. It’s both terrifying and empowering to see him this vulnerable. To see any of them scared.

The scene is at odds with the manufactured glitter of Capri: how quickly we’ve gone from luxury boutiques and private villas to a tangle of heather and a strip of stone.

“Helen,” he rasps, his voice catching in his throat. “It’s my fault.”

At first I think he means Lorna. But the words of the article recite themselves like a taunt.New evidence.Reopened. Lingate.

“Whatever happened,” I say, “let’s figure it out.” I say it even though I came here to figurehimout. But it’s a reflex, this urge to console. So instinctual it makes me nauseated, almost dizzy. A sudden, cellular reminder that maybe I have been foolish thinking I could get some distance from him, from all of them. That maybe, despite how much I’ve fought it, I’ve always beenoneof them. Isn’t that what family is? A cult you can never leave, a set of behaviors that are burned into you?

He shakes his head. I squat down so I’m at his level. It’s the kind of thing he never did for me as a child. And when I finally look him in the face, I can see he has been crying, isstillcrying. I have never seen my father cry. The sight sets off a slow, melting spiral that gathers steam and pushes faster and faster into something like blind fear.

I am both desperate for him to tell me everything and horrified that he might. I look at the sea below us and see a shadow beneath the water’s surface. A fish or a dolphin, perhaps. But it quickly morphs into a body. Lorna. My mother. I look behind me to see if Ciro is there.Ciro should be there.But he’s gone. We’re alone on the Salto. The sun nearly below the rim of the Mediterranean.

“Ciro?”

I call for him.

But there’s no answer. Even if he’s there, he wouldn’t hear me over the wind.

My father reaches for my arm and his hand is cold.

“I can’t do this again, Helen,” he says. “I’m so tired.”

He looks gaunter on this island. In three days his cheeks have become sunken and a greenish tinge has spread from under his eyes toward his temples. It strikes me that I haven’t seen him sleep since we arrived. And I know he’s telling me the truth: he can’t do it; he is tired.

“What can’t you do?” I say. “You don’t have to do it alone. Let me help.”

Tell me.

My father begins to sob.

“I have tried,” he says, “for years, to make up for it. I never meant any of it. It was always an accident. I’m a good person. Iwasa good person. But I made a mistake. And now they want to bring it all back. Bring all of it back. Helen—” He looks at me, his face wet, and the feeling of panic returns. This isn’t about Lorna. It’s not about the money or the trust. It’s about a past I never wanted to look closely at to begin with. Because we were a family. He was myfather.

I’m frozen on the Salto.Iowe himthis. Even if I had the money, I’m not sure I could escape this, the sheer obligation of my blood.

“Whatever it is,” I say—and I don’t mean it—“whatever it is, you can tell me.”

It sounds like something I’m supposed to say. When what I want to say is,Let me go.Get the fuck away from me. You’re a monster.

But he can’t tell what I’m thinking; he never could. My father barely knows me at all. Maybe if my mother had lived, if our family had been more normal, he might have figured out a way. But he didn’t.

“You don’t understand,” he says to me. “I loved her.”

“I loved her, too.”

It might be true about either of them, I realize—my mother or Lorna.

“No.” He shakes his head, like an even worse sadness is waiting for him. “Sometimes when I’m here, I think I see her. Your mother. It’s like a hallucination. I can’t control it, it just…”

He doesn’t finish, but I don’t need him to. Because I know what he means. At the funicular. In the water. I see Lorna everywhere. He’s cursed me with these visions, this smear of guilt.

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