Page 87 of Saltwater

Oh for goodness’ sake, Helen. Can’t you turn off that light? I can’t sleep in this house with a light on!

I learned to accept the darkness because of Naomi.

“Do you know why Marcus and I didn’t have children?” she asks when I don’t say anything.

“I assumed it was by choice,” I say.

She drains the glass and asks for another before beckoning me to follow her to a seating area by a rack of swimsuits.

“I can’t have children.” She says it like she’s sharing a secret, her voice low. “We tried. Unexplained, they said.”

I reach out and touch her arm because it seems like the right thing to do, but she pulls away.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she says.

She brushes a stray hair out of her face and takes another sip of champagne, fingers the swimsuits next to her.

“Anyway, it worked out well for you,” she says.

“Me?”

“Yes. Who do you think I will leave things to? I was an only child. I didn’t manage to have children of my own, and my parents’ estate—”

She waves her hand.

It will be years. I know it will be years, decades probably, but themoney is a balm. Something that my father and uncle won’t be able to take away. Won’t be able to spend. The news makes me feel lighter. I’m ashamed. But it’s true that the money has always mattered.

“I had no idea,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she says. “I have a weakness for my husband. I always have. Even now.”

Even now.

I think of the look Marcus gave Naomi back at the house. She means Lorna. It was jealousy. It’s why Stan said as much that night on his yacht. It was the quickest way to sow division between them. He knew it would make Naomi jealous. And she is, ferociously. I can feel it, the indignation coming off her in waves.

“It was Freddy,” I say. “He just told me by the pool. He’s worried the police will find out. You don’t need to worry about Lorna and Marcus having an affair. The baby wasn’t his.”

She looks at me then, pulling her sunglasses onto the top of her head, and I can see that her makeup has smudged black under her eyes, that the whites are bloodshot from crying or drinking or downers, maybe all three.

“We owe you an apology,” she says.

Her mouth pulls down at the corners in an exaggerated frown, and it’s even worse—this face—scarier in its cartoonishness.

“Families,” she continues, “they try to do their best. But that doesn’t mean they’re always right. Or good.”

I suspect then that she knows about my father. About my mother. That the inheritance is something like an apology for keeping it secret all these years. It’s what has kept them so strong, their unity.

The sales associate comes over with three boxes, each of them containing sandals in my size—everything from an elaborate gladiator wrap to simple, chunky heels. She leaves after propping them out of their boxes. No one else wants to hear this conversation.

“Mmm,” Naomi says, sipping her champagne. “I hope you and Freddy can work this out. It’s important, you know, to have someone in your corner like Freddy. A teammate. I thought I had that once. But—” She pauses. “He’s wrong about the baby.”

—

Naomi is drunk. Sheweaves between boutiques—Gucci, Pucci, Prada—and veers into Hermès. When we enter, a security guard closes the door and stands sentry.

He’s wrong about the baby.

She’s angry. And it isn’t lost on me that Naomi’s anger might be useful.

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