Page 74 of Saltwater

“The truth is that a Lingate has never gone through a divorce. You don’t understand. And now…” The words fell away but came back with even more force. “Now is not the right time.”

Sarah took another, instinctive step back, but he closed the distance. He was lying. She could hear it in his voice, the way it was thin and high and urgent. Like he needed her to believe him. But she didn’t.

“That can’t be the whole truth, Richard,” she said.

Through the shadows of the pines, he reached for her. She tried to move away, but he managed to get a hand around the necklace she was wearing. There was a tug on her neck, as if he was trying to bring her to heel like a dog. But just as quickly, he let go, like he had been burned.

“You cut me!” he cried into the darkness. “That fucking necklace cut me!”

Then he leveled his eyes on her.

“You’re the snake,” he whispered. “Not us. You’re the fucking snake!”

Men like Richard, Sarah had learned, believed they had the upper hand. And maybe they did. Trading a life like this, with its blasé comforts and cosseting, might seem unimaginable to anyone else. But to Sarah, it was a bargain. She didn’t need it the way he did.

“I was right,” she said. “That’s why you became so angry when you read the play. Because I stumbled onto the truth, but you couldn’t let people know.”

“Please,” he said. And for the first time she heard it: true desperation.

He had inched closer to her as they spoke. She had an animal urge to get away from him, from this family, like a rabbit sensing the presence of a predator. But when she moved backward again, he matched her. He kept doing so until he was almost on top of her. Then he grabbed her shoulders with both hands. She tried to wrest free, but he held on tighter, his fingers pressing deep into the bone. She tried to lift her arms, to push him away, but she was below him. She didn’t have the leverage.

Finally, she kicked out, aiming for his injured calf. He screamed.

But still, he held on.

She managed to get her hands onto his chest, and when she pushed against him, he just—let her go with the lightest push. It was that simple. The steep slope below her swallowed her footing. Unable to catch her balance, she fell. Fell into the night until—crack—there was only darkness.

Helen

Now

“It’s me.”

Ciro.

I don’t intend to tell him, but the weight of my father’s words is too much. So I do. I’m surprised to discover that my confession makes me feel better. After all, is there anything left to hurt me now? When the worst has already happened? The idea is so liberating, I feel dizzy. Maybe none of it matters—Lorna, my mother, our failed blackmail, my own unfaithfulness to Freddy. Is this what they feel, my family? This drug?

“Where is he now?” Ciro asks.

When he asks, I’m flooded with the sensation that maybe I should protect him. The same way he’s protected me from the truth all these years. It’s awful, but I feel closer to him now. Tied to him. As if by telling me, he shackled us together, when all I’ve ever wanted is to escape them all.

“I left him out there,” I say, looking over my shoulder. I almost add that I hope he jumps. Or falls. But before Ciro can take a step toward the cliff, I say: “Let’s go. I don’t want to see him. Can we go to your place?”

Nothing sounds better in that moment than being with Ciro. Hidden from my father, my family. Ciro nods and we start walking, side by side; my hand slips into his so easily, so comfortably, that I don’teven notice it until he’s pulling it free to open the back entrance to his mother’s house. Renata’s house has two doors: one that leads into the garden of the villa and another that opens onto an overgrown alley, not even a side street, that snakes away from the back of the house.

It’s dark now. The tall stone walls and cypresses that ring Renata’s casita further blot out any ambient light from the restaurants and houses and boats, whereaperitivois already in full swing.

“Mamma,”Ciro calls.

We can hear her, in the kitchen. Something rattles on the stove, a cupboard closes. I follow behind Ciro, our hands again intertwined. It’s strange that in this house I can be so close to them—my family, just next door—but feel a world away. Renata’s living room is whitewashed and shares the same terrazzo floors as the villa. But in lieu of the intricate mosaic tiles and the hand-painted frescoes, all the tile work here is painted in the same dark blue, the tables rough-hewn wood, not marble, the couches hand-me-downs from the villa.

Renata wipes her hands on her apron when we enter and kisses us both.

“What a nice surprise,” she says.

I haven’t seen her yet this trip, when normally she’s my first stop. And I feel guilty that in my moment of need, I still expect her to be available to me. Or if not to me, at least to Ciro. What, I wonder, must it be like to have a parent who is available like this?

“You don’t mind if Helen joins you for dinner, do you?”

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