Page 82 of Saltwater

The officer hesitates. Then, as he gathers his colleagues to leave, he says, low and under his breath: “It’s so much easier to get away with it if you only do it once.”

—

The officers are barelyto the front gate before Freddy leans in and says:

“Can we talk?”

His breath is hot on my skin, and I don’t mean to, but I pull away. The interior of the villa feels suddenly stale, suffocating. When I look at the wall across from us, I can see a place where a bloom of pink mold is spreading near the front door, where the water has seeped in, and I wonder how long everything around us has been slowly disintegrating. The spoiled fruit in the kitchen, collecting flies. This entire island, crumbling into the sea.

I follow Freddy to the edge of the pool. Marcus pulls Naomi aside to talk in the kitchen. My father is already dialing Bud before the gate has closed. He has recovered quickly from his confession on the Salto.But then, I assume that’s how he has survived thirty years with so much guilt. Compartmentalize, block it out, move on. Avoid being alone with your daughter.

He’s following the latter assiduously right now.

But he won’t be able to escape me on Gallo Lungo. The island is even smaller. And by then, I’ll ensure the stakes are only higher.

Freddy slumps onto a chaise longue beneath a striped umbrella and pats the empty space next to him. I join him, and when he reaches for my hands, his are clammy.

“Do you remember what time we got home that night?” Freddy asks me. There’s an urgency to the question that forces me to rewind. In the past sixty hours, I’ve replayed those last moments dozens of times. But there are no time stamps on my memory, and the drinking we did has left the events hazy, almost liquid. I remember being with Lorna in the bathroom, I remember stumbling back to the villa. I remember Stan circulating around the club, like a slow, fatty sturgeon. I remember my blind optimism for the future.

But there are gaps, too, where I don’t remember the details or even the outline.

“Because I think we should be sure that our stories match,” Freddy says.

Our stories.Not the truth. Not necessarily.

I can see us then on the dance floor. I can see us in the sfumato heat of the bar, but I don’t remember what happened when we got home. I don’t remember how we got home, or when. But there are fragments: a glass of water left by the edge of the sink, the dawn already breaking over the Marina Piccola, a pile of clothes on the floor next to the bed. But there’s nothing in between. No tissue that links those moments together.

The correct answer is that we drank too much. We let ourselves fade into the night like countless other people on this island. But I know the only story we will be sharing isNo comment.It’s always been like that.

“To be honest,” I say to Freddy, “I’m not sure. What do you remember?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he says: “You know I love you?”

It’s then that I realize this is very bad.

“Of course,” I say. And since I know I’m expected to say it back, Ido.

He nods, like we’ve just entered into some kind of contract.

“Is it you?” I ask. “In that photo?”

It’s possible. But how would he have known where Lorna was going if he didn’t follow her? I try to picture Freddy and me walking home along the Via Tragara, past the closed restaurants and boutiques,the dawn looming, but I can’t. If he’s in those memories, I can’t access them.

“No, no,” he says. “It’s not me. It can’t be. We came home together. I remember you leaving your shoes in the garden.”

It’s such a strange little detail that I assume it must be true.

“Do you remember me coming to bed?” I ask.

Because some part of me needs to be sure that someone does.

“Helen, it’s not about that.”

He squeezes my hands, but doesn’t answer my question.

“Lorna and I slept together,” he says. “I tried to tell you. That day when we were swimming—”

He waits for me to respond, but there’s no outrage when I reach for it, there’s nothing at all, really. Somehow, it seems like the smallest revelation after everything I’ve experienced this week. He cheated. It’s almost a relief. Something so prosaic, normal.

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