Page 75 of Saltwater

I look at Ciro. He hasn’t mentioned leaving. Our hands are still clasped. I consider what would happen if I simply refused to let go.

“I have to help a friend from Naples,” he says to me. Then he pulls away and holds up his hand, where the gash is still healing. “I couldn’t finish the job after this. But it’s better now. I promised him earlier.”

He holds it out, palm up, for me to inspect.

See. Healed.

But I remember what it looked like the morning after Lorna disappeared. Everything, it seems, can heal. Enough, at least, that the injury isn’t as visible.

I hear my father’s voice:I killed your mother.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he says. “You can stay as long as you need to.”

“Do you mind?” I ask Renata.

“Of course not,” she says. “I’ll make us something. Go. Sit outside.”

Her garden is small and private. The entire space a profusion of green: ivy climbing the stacked stone walls, a junior stone pine, figs and lemons. Some of the plantings so thick they seem ancient, others decidedly new. It’s easy, here, to imagine my family isn’t within arm’s reach, but they are. I wonder how she manages it during the week we are here.

“You like him, don’t you?” Renata asks.

She sets a tray of spritzes, potato chips, and olives between the two of us. A little votive offering to the gods of Capri.

“Yes,” I say. It feels good to finally say it out loud.

She doesn’t say anything. Just tips her glass in my direction. And after I’ve taken a sip to steady my nerves, I turn toward her and ask: “Can you tell me what happened that night?”

She swirls her drink and watches the condensation run down the side of the glass.

“I already gave a statement to the police.” She pulls an olive from the bowl that separates us.

I’ve never asked her this. It’s always been unspoken that we won’t talk about that night. That she can’t. Through all the dinners I’ve had with her and Ciro, through the childhood spent playing in this garden, sitting around this table, I’ve respected the way she walled herself off. Maybe I neverwantedto know.

“He told me he did it,” I say, my tone flat.

I watch her and she doesn’t even flinch. She knew. Of course she did.

“But that’s all he said,” I say. “I was hoping you might—”

Renata stands and disappears into her small kitchen. I hear the stove fan and the rattle of the coffee canister. Then the Moka being rinsed, reassembled. She comes back out with little glass cups and apitcher of water. Even though it is dark, the daytime heat clings to the island, and her table feels sticky, the chairs, too.

“You matter very much to me, Helen,” she says, and takes a breath. “I liked your mother. She wasn’t like them. Since she has been gone, I have tried to look after you the way she would want you to be looked after. But I worry about how they have responded to everything this summer. To the necklace, to the death of the girl.”

“Lorna,” I supply.

She nods.

“I have to focus on taking care of the villa,” she says. “Not the people who occupy it. Not if I want to survive.”

It’s a cruel distinction. But after what happened to my mother, to Lorna, I understand. Lorna once said to me,I don’t think about the rich as individuals, but as a category. After all, that’s how they think of us.It didn’t offend me. I knew she was right.

Renata pours us water and lets her attention wander to where the coffee is boiling on the stove.

“You were there every day,” I push. She must have seen them—my family—up close over the years. She must have seen their mess, their physical mess, the dirty underwear and stained wineglasses, along with their big fights and petty backstabs.

She holds her hands up, closes her eyes.

“Basta.”

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