Page 92 of Saltwater

By the time they were almost to the house, Sarah had started to say, over and over again:

“You don’t have to, Marcus. You don’t have to.”

And then, just as they were nearing the gate, she said something that brought him up short.

“I haven’t told anyone. If that’s what you’re worried about. I haven’t told anyone and I never will.”

“What do you mean?”

“About Helen,” she said, her body now coming to life. “I haven’t told anyone about Helen. You know I don’t want to do that. So if that’s what you’re worried about—”

They had never talked about it. But it was always there. A land mine that every year became more deeply buried, its ultimate explosion more devastating. He almost couldn’t bear to hear her talk aboutit. And despite his ability to push through the unpleasant, often violent decisions in life, this one caught him off guard.

His daughter.

“I’m not worried about that,” he finally said. “I’m not.”

But as he said it, he realized he was trying to convince himself of it as much as he was her.

“I would never tell, Marcus, I would never tell,” Sarah repeated, almost like an incantation, a prayer.

Before he could reach for the gate, it swung in on its own. Waiting for them, between the columns that flanked the entrance, under the dark canopy of stone pines, was Naomi.

Marcus couldn’t be sure how much of their conversation she had heard. The gate to the garden was inches thick, but seeing her there made the impossible situation Richard had put them in even more clear.

“You have to help me with her,” he said, pushing past his wife and bypassing the house. “You have to help me fix this.”

“No!” Sarah said, her voice now a higher pitch as she tried to squirm free of his arms. “No! Richard! Renata!”

Just as Marcus was about to drop her, to free an arm so that he could cover her mouth, Naomi did it for him.

“Shut up,” she whispered. “Just shut up.”

Helen

Now

Naomi leaves me in Hermès.And for a moment, I’m frozen. The good daughter, waiting for her bags. Despite everything, the training is cellular. I collect them and step out into the street, but Naomi is already gone, swept up in the midday crowds that swarm the shopping district of Capri.

I start walking toward the villa, looking for her dark hair pulled back severely into a bun. But I don’t see her.

My mother.

Marcus.

The force of it hits me. I stop walking and the tourists flow around me. I had read it, of course. But there were other dissimilarities in the work, enough elements of fiction that I assumed other pieces ofSaltwatercouldn’t be autobiographical.

The worst part was, I could see it. I could see the way I looked more like him—my forehead slightly broader, my body a little bigger. I had stared at photographs of my mother, trying to find evidence of her in me, but I could have seen the truth at any time.

Did my father see it? Wasn’t it always there? Wasn’t I the ultimate betrayal?

I can’t help but wonder if Naomi is wrong. If maybe my father, too afraid to place the blame on his own brother, did kill her. All his jealousy, all the infidelity, spilling over in one terrible, angry moment.

I think I finally understand his paternal uninterest in me. I was a reminder of his crime, of hers—murder, an affair, it was the same. A continual haunting.

The ache of this realization lodges itself behind my sternum and presses down on my lungs. Making them smaller and smaller until I feel like I can’t manage even the shallowest breath. Countless times I have felt like I’m being punished for something I never did. For my mother’s death. For the suspicion it brought to my family. For my father’s fear of overexposure. For their collective desire to keep the myth of the family alive. But maybe the reason was always more prosaic. That I’m being punished for what my mother did. For the one thing she couldn’t take back. The one thing that left permanent material evidence of her mistake.

Me.