Page 76 of Saltwater

Enough. Knock it off.

But I’ve seen photos of Renata when she was younger. She’s always a fixture in the background. As permanent as the columns, the Islamic tile. A prim apron wrapped around her waist, hands clasped behind her back. There’s one photo of her and my mother, arm in arm by the pool, wearing matching smiles. I see more of Ciro in those earlier photos of her than I see in her now. It must be hard for her that he looks so much like his father. At least, that’s what I assume. I’ve never met him. I don’t think Ciro has, either.

“I don’t think they stopped with my mother,” I say quietly.

“That family,” she says, and now she looks at me. “They are corrosive.”

I think ofSaltwater.Of the gradual disintegration of the siblings, their fortune and fortunes. On this very island, maybe. And I know she’s right. I’m living proof of it.

“So help me,” I say. If it sounds like I’m begging, I’m fine with that.

“I wasn’t there that night,” she says.

“But you know more than you told the police.”

She doesn’t dispute the accusation. “I didn’t want to get involved with the investigation. My version of events wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Not with a family like that. But I thought—I still think—they never should have come to the island that week. That even when they arrived, something seemed rotten. But not just between your parents, with all of them. Every conversation was like a knife”—she runs a finger up her arm—“running against the skin.”

It could be, I realize, a description ofthisweek.

“That is why you won’t get near them,” I say.

“Partly.”

She takes a sip of water.

“They lie,” she says. “To each other. To you. And they never get caught.” She fishes a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. I’ve never seen Renata smoke. “No matter what they do, they never get caught.”

“It can be different this time,” I say. Even though I’m not sure I believe it. Not yet.

“They don’t realize it,” she says. “But jealousy and greed make people weak.” Then she lights the cigarette and claps her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. Renata reaches across the space that separates us and squeezes my arm. “They are your family. I don’t want to talk about them like this. Because in the end, you will still love them.”

She looks like she genuinely regrets it, these words that have somehow escaped her good judgment. What she doesn’t realize is that I’m desperate to talk to someone who sees them for what they are. Even more, for what they are becoming in my imagination—the transition from claustrophobic and controlling to monstrous so seamless I can’t even locate the moment when the shift occurred.

But if Lorna were here, I’m certain she could.

—

The next morning, Iwake in Ciro’s bed. I didn’t mean to sleep here. I meant to slip back into the villa. But I waited for Ciro. Ciro, who came home late. Ciro, who knew about Lorna before I did.

I’ve been so preoccupied with Lorna’s disappearance and my father’s confession that I haven’t put all the pieces together: that Ciro knew about the money, that he knew what Lorna looked like, that he knew where she was supposed to meet the boat.

I trace a finger down Ciro’s hand where the cut has been healing. I’m bad at seeing things that are close to me—Lorna, my father, Alma. Perhaps I’ve been bad at seeing Ciro, too.

“You can stay with me,” Ciro says. “You don’t ever have to go back.”

He sits up in bed and puts a hand on my shoulder. I only allow myself a sidelong glance at him. Over the years, I’ve watched his face go from the soft optimism of a child to the hollowed practicality of an adult. But he’s summoned all the optimism left in himself for me, and I want to throw myself into it, borrow it as my own. To let it save me from the mess I’ve half made, half inherited.

“I have to,” I say, pulling back the bedsheets. “Especially now.”

We both know it’s the truth.

My father told me, I know, because despite his admission of guilt, I need him. I need them. I need the money. He told me because I had no other choice but to share his burden. Every minute I don’t turn him in pulls me deeper into the fold. Because even at their worst moments, the Lingates don’t turn on blood. They turn on people like my mother, like Lorna, Ciro, even Naomi. The ones who aren’t Lingate by birth. He’s counting on that.

“Will going back put you at risk?” Ciro asks.

He’s trying to find a reason to keep me away from them. Maybe in another world, we could shuttle back and forth between Capri and Naples. It would be simpler, but it would be ours. And if it weren’t for Lorna, for my mother, I might say yes.

I am drowning and Ciro is offering me a lifeline, but I can’t take it. Not yet.

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