Page 70 of Saltwater

I want him to keep going. At least I think I do. But I’m worried about what I might do if he tells me here. Whathemight do.

I try to stand. To pull him up with me. But he won’t budge from the cliff’s edge.

“She’s haunting me,” he hisses.

I know what he means.

“Let’s go back to the house,” I say. “Marcus will know what todo.”

My father laughs. But there’s no humor in the sound.

“Oh yes. My brotheralwaysknows what to do. And he never lets me forget it.”

I pull harder now. I look behind me for Ciro. I need him to come help me, to get my father, physically, up.

“But what now?” my father continues sadly. “Now that they’ve reopened the investigation. She’s come back, hasn’t she? Maybe she was always going to come back.”

“Let’s go back to the villa,” I say.

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can.” I want us—both of us—to get off the Salto. Because it feels too easy out here to jump, to push, to fall. Did Lorna know this about me? That I wasn’t ready for the truth? That I could handle the villa, the shadow of her, but not the reality of my family?

My father jerks away from me.

“I just need you to know that I didn’t mean it,” he says. “Do you believe me?”

“Dad—” I say.

His hands are pressed hard and flat against the ground, ready to push him off and into the abyss.

He asks again: “Do you believe me?”

I say yes. What other choice do I have?

“Then you should know,” he says, “you should know I killed your mother.”

There’s a solemnness to the pronouncement, but he doesn’t hesitate when he says it:ikilledyourmother.

“What about Lorna?” I ask.

I don’t know how I manage the question, I only know that I haveto.

He looks bewildered. “Who?” he asks.

“Lorna?” I say again.

“I’m talking about your mother.”

He says it slowly, enunciating each word like he’s explaining something to a child. And I’m not sure what he expects my response to be,but it’s immediate. I leave him on the Salto. I don’t care if he jumps. Falls. I nearly trip on the path back to the ruins of the Villa Jovis.

I hear him behind me, calling after me. But it doesn’t matter because all I can hear is the echo.

I killed your mother.

I killed your mother.

I killed your mother.

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