Page 89 of Saltwater

Maybe when I get home, I’ll chronicle every time they used me to back up their story. Sell the details to the highest bidder. But even that they’ll weasel their way out of. My father may not have told me everything about the night my mother died, but I know she was a risk to them because she was on theinsideof the family. They’re only vulnerable tous.To me, Naomi, each other.

“He told me,” I finally confirm.

“You’re taking it very well,” she says. “You’re like your uncle that way. Stronger than your father. So what did he tell you? That he didit?”

I nod. I see my father’s face on the Salto.His anguish. He didn’t want to tell me. He might never have told me, but the reopening of my mother’s death, Lorna, forced his hand.

Naomi sighs. But it’s thick and wet, like her breath has been caught and comes out wrong.

“I always thought it might happen again,” she says. “She was so pretty. Just too pretty maybe. You’re beautiful”—she looks at me—“but not like that.”

Her voice has taken on a milky quality, her words strung together, one right after the other:justtooprettymaybe.And it’s then that I realize she’s slurring, probably from whatever pill she took fifteen minutes ago.

“I don’t think anything could have made her happy,” she continues. “She justwantedso much.”

I don’t know if she means my mother or Lorna. The same could be said about both.

“Do you know what that’s like, Helen? To really want?”

Before I can tell her yes, emphaticallyyes,she waves a hand.

“No. People like us never do,” she muses. Then: “You know, she was better than he was. Much more accomplished.”

It seems she’s talking about my mother. But the thread is hard to follow, the pills working their way through her system.

Naomi frowns, exaggerated. “Men don’t like that, do they? It makes them sad.”

I’ve never known anything about my parents’ marriage, but her implication is clear: he killed her because he was jealous. Not over an argument, but because of her talent.

The arc ofSaltwaterconfirms everything Naomi is telling me. And I wonder if he read it, if he didn’t like what was reflected in her pages. If, as Naomi said,it made him sad.

My phone rings again. It’s Ciro; I decline.

“I think you should get that,” she says.

When I ignore her, she changes subjects. “I forgave him,” she says, back to slurring. “I decided to forgive him years ago.Years.Because I loved him. Because we were family. But this thing with Lorna—”

This thing with Lorna.

My mother and Lorna keep blurring into the same history, the same person, in Naomi’s retelling. And I’m not sure we’re talking about my father anymore.

She reaches into her purse and pulls out a folded piece of paper and pushes it at me. I unfold it. The paper is worn, and I can see now that Naomi has looked at it dozens, hundreds, of times, this simple piece of paper. It’s a bank statement from their joint account. And there, on the page, is a check to Lorna for five hundred thousand dollars. Deposited the day before we left for Capri.

“It’s for her totake care of it,” Naomi says.

She seems certain. And the evidence, the date on the check, is damning.

“You think he bribed her to get an abortion?” I ask.

“Of course she didn’tgetit,” Naomi says. She seems exasperated with me now, like I’m not following quickly enough. Like it’s all so obvious and I just can’t see it. But all I can see is that Naomi is getting more and more frustrated. When she speaks, it’s as if her mind is working faster than her mouth can operate, as if everything has slowed physically, while mentally she’s still sharp. Even though I know neither is really true.

“There must be another explanation,” I say.

I want to reach out and touch her, but for the first time, I’m afraid of her, I’m afraid of Naomi. I can see it. I can see that beneath the drinking and the pills and the sunglasses, an anger has been growing, frothing, waiting for the right moment. And now that it’s here, she’s going to play her hand through. People like that—people willing to bet it all and risk a loss—are scary. I should know. I’m one of them.

“You’re not listening to me,” she says. “I forgave him. But he did itagain.”

“Cheated on you?” I ask. And then: “Killed her?” Because suddenly both seem possible.

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