Page 84 of Saltwater

He starts back up the garden, and I know I should go after him. I want to. Or rather, I want to want to. He walks past Naomi, who is working her way toward me. He manages, I’m sure, a smile for her. Naomi, who, despite the drinking and the pills, I know has been watching our interaction from the villa.

When she reaches me, she says: “You need to give him some time to calm down. It’s just a shock. That’s all. He’ll get over it.”

I’m not surprised that she’s known. She’s never received enough credit in this family for watching. And while I can’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, I can guess from her voice that they are unfocused, a little glazed.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she asks. “I find it stifling. Don’t you? This whole island—” She waves a hand. “Maybe I can make you feel better about Freddy. I’ll tell you a very good story.”

Naomi

July19, 1992

Capri

The lights in the livingroom were low. So low that Naomi thought she and Marcus were purposefully hiding in the shadows. She lay on the couch, her body pulled farther and deeper into the cushions by the weight of her exhaustion, her drinking. An upholstered quicksand. Marcus sat across from her, rigid and upright in a chair. His foot tapped idly to a beat from somewhere on the island.

A steady, pumping beat. One that felt like it could move blood, animate a body.

She closed her eyes. Maybe when Richard got home, they would turn the lights back on. Naomi knew there would be repercussions. Especially after he had followed Sarah into the night. But it was getting late. Or early. She couldn’t really remember what time they had gotten home. She let the sleep come up from her toes.

—

“Where is she?”

It was the force of the question that woke her.

Where is she?

Naomi almost sat up and asked:Who?

But then, of course, even through the sleep and the thick heat of summer, she knew.Sarah.

Where is she?

Naomi didn’t dare open her eyes. She heard footsteps approach the couch, felt someone’s breath on her cheek.

“Darling?” her husband whispered in her ear.

Naomi kept her breathing even, throaty. Marcus tried to slide an arm under her legs, under her back, but she made her body heavy.

“I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” he whispered.

“She’s blacked out,” Richard said. “Just leave her.”

Marcus tried again, but Naomi knew he wouldn’t be able to carry her all the way up the stairs, not if she stayed limp. When he pulled his hand out from under her back, she had won. The hardest part now was to keep her eyes closed, not pinched shut, but naturally, seamlessly asleep.

The record hit the end of the side, and Naomi listened to someone flip it over. She heard the spark of a lighter, the delicate clatter of a glass. The room smelled like mold and brown alcohol. The whole island was that way.

Where is she?

“What happened, Richard?” Marcus asked again.

They weren’t near her, Naomi could tell that much. They were clustered around the bar cart, their voices low but not hushed. They didn’t want to wake her.It would be so much more complicated if they wokeher.

“Where’s Sarah?”

The room was silent. A painful, gaping silence, one that lasted long enough for Naomi to consider opening her eyes to see if they were still there, but then she heard him. The sound was something guttural, like from an animal. Then the soft muffle of bodies coming together. Richard was crying.

“It’s all right,” Marcus said. “Tell me what happened.”