Page 35

Helen

Now

When we get back to the villa, I can hear their voices from the street. They are high-pitched, strained. I hear my father say, in protest: “You can clearly see that isn’t me! Look at the hair! Look at the build. There’s no way you can think this is me.”

We find them clustered in the foyer, where the oversize floral arrangement, filled with dusky green olive branches and pink peonies, is at odds with the mood of the room. But several of the flowers have begun to wilt, their petals wrinkling and decaying, dragging pollen across the marble table. My father holds a piece of paper in his hands. I can only make out the gray scale, nothing else. Whatever it depicts is out of focus.

The officer who led the questioning yesterday is now flanked by two new carabinieri, who are more formally dressed. There are no shirtsleeves anymore, only handcuffs and starched, thick uniforms, despite the heat. They stand with their hands clasped behind their backs.

“I told you,” my uncle says, “we have nothing to say without our attorney present.”

My father passes the photograph back to the officer, who hands it to Freddy.

“Is this familiar to you?” the officer says.

I look over his shoulder while he reviews the image on the piece of paper—it’s grainy, taken at a distance, but it shows Lorna, her arms wrapped around her body, and a man walking alongside her. He’s gesturing, his hands open in front of them. But the faces are scrubbed, even the shape of the heads—it’s only Lorna’s legs that give her away, long and limber.

“What is it?” Freddy says.

He’s good at this.

The officer is impatient. He points a finger at Lorna, then at the man. “This,” he says, “is security footage from a bank in the Marina Grande. From the night she died. You can see that she is walking with a man.” The officer gestures around the foyer to include everyone present, except for Naomi and me. “Does he look familiar to you?”

The man wears a collared shirt and shorts. Loafers. But they all do. Someone must have photos from that night. Giulia or Sasha. Maybe Martina. I think of the crowds clustered around the dance floor, the flash of the cameras in the darkness. Somewhere there is a record of the man who wore this outfit. Unless, of course, it isn’t someone from the club at all, but a stranger.

“I’m sorry,” Freddy says, passing the photo back to the officer. “Do you have any other footage? Maybe if we could see another angle—”

Am I imagining it, or is there an edge in his voice? A sliver of concern slithers from my wrists to the back of my neck and coils itself there. He’s asking if there’s another angle to reassure himself they don’t have it.

The officer seems to notice, too, because he says, “Of course we have other footage. This was just the first we came across. We are still working through the rest. There are more cameras than you think in Italy.”

“When they work,” my uncle says.

No one acknowledges his comment, but of course the officers know it’s true. How many nonfunctional cameras litter the streets of any place in the world, how many are just for show.

“So none of you recognize this man,” the officer says.

“I do hope you find him,” my uncle says.

“May I take a look?” Naomi says. She has been leaning up against the wall, behind the fray, observing.

The way she says it is slow, as if the labor required to move her lips is overwhelming in the summer heat. She holds out a hand, and it’s quick, but I catch Marcus giving her a look. It’s only a moment, but it’s there. A question that she doesn’t answer.

The officer moves to the corner where Naomi has stationed herself and passes her the photograph. She examines it, holds it by her thumb and middle finger. And through the fog that follows Naomi on this island, I watch something flicker in her eyes. Recognition. I don’t know if anyone else has seen it, but I’m certain Naomi knows who it is in the photograph.

Even so, she passes it back to the officer and says nothing, her lips slack. I can see the tips of her teeth. Her pink tongue darts out, obsessively wets her lips, retreats.

I want to take her aside and say, Who is it? But then, how often have I thought I recognized someone since arriving on the island—Lorna, my mother, Ciro—only to discover I was wrong? Recognition is a funny thing—we often mistake those we know best, their faces so familiar they become like ciphers.

“Well.” The officer rejoins his colleagues, folds the paper in half. “We haven’t only come with this.” He opens his notebook and flips a few pages in, the gesture deliberate. He’s enjoying himself. “We also got word from the medical examiner this morning. The cause of death was drowning, not blunt force trauma. But that wasn’t the surprise—the surprise was that Lorna was four, maybe five weeks pregnant. Very early, of course, but a routine blood test—”

Drowning. I see Lorna in the water, holding me under in an attempt to hold herself up.

He pauses, flips through his notes again.

The pregnancy test I saw in Lorna’s room falls into place. I didn’t imagine it. Someone in the house took it.

“The medical examiner is optimistic, however, that we will be able to gather fetal cells and identify who the father of the child would have been. Did any of you know Lorna to have a boyfriend? Perhaps someone who might have been jealous? Who would have the means to travel here?”

At this, he looks around the foyer, as if to emphasize the luxury of it all, the vaulted ceilings and the fact the simple arches are inlaid with decorative tile. Even the flowers seem to nod in agreement with his assessment. Yes, people like us can travel great distances for revenge.

“Maybe Helen can tell you?” my uncle says.

They turn to look at me, the entire group. But Lorna and I never talked about men. Not about Freddy or Ciro. Not about anyone she was seeing. Not about Stan. Looking back, there’s so much we never talked about. And maybe if we had been more honest, she would be here now.

“She never mentioned anyone,” I say.

My father catches my eye before I look back at the officer, and it’s the funny thing about families—how much can be said without sound. He thinks I’m protecting them. But I’m not.

The officer straightens his shirt, clears his throat. “We still have your DNA on file from the unfortunate accident with your wife, many decades ago. We kept that.”

He seems pleased with this revelation, as if he always knew the police would be back here, at this villa.

He was right.

“We will be testing that DNA against the fetal cells. And would the rest of you”—he looks at Freddy now—“be willing to give a sample?”

Freddy hesitates, his mouth opens and closes without anything coming out, but finally he manages, “Whatever you need.”

“No one,” Marcus says, “will be doing anything until we receive advice from counsel. And I highly doubt our 1992 samples have been stored in immaculate conditions.”

The officer seems to deflate, his bluff called. If they have the DNA, it’s unlikely to be the type to hold up in court.

From counsel. I realize, although perhaps I should have always known, that Bud must have been part of the investigation thirty years ago. His age makes it possible. My family has always liked continuity.

It was probably to Bud that they took the necklace earlier. When they met with him about the money. I’m happy to let them think that part of it, at least, is real.

Marcus doesn’t answer the officer’s question; he holds open his hand in the direction of the door— Please show yourselves out.

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 barely to 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 is No 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.

“All right,” I say. And I realize there may never be a better time to tell him about Ciro. Afterward, we could start fresh. If that’s what we want. It all feels too far in the future right now to think about what I might want from Freddy, what he might want from me.

“It was just a few times,” he adds. As if that’s supposed to make me feel better. Maybe it should, after all; I’ve only cheated a few times, too. Is it better or worse that I only do it here?

“But you should know,” he says, “I think the baby could be mine.” He unwinds one hand from mine and wraps it around the back of his neck. “The timing—”

“Is it possible she was sleeping with someone else and you didn’t know?”

“It’s always possible. I mean, you know what Lorna was like.”

Had Freddy said that before this week, I would have agreed— I do know what she’s like —but now I don’t know. Lorna was better at keeping secrets than I ever gave her credit for, and it’s not hard to imagine her with someone else. Could it have even been Stan? My father? Someone back home?

“But you’re worried that if you have to give a DNA sample—”

He nods vigorously.

“Helen, look. I fucked up. I’m not going to try to make excuses for that. But I didn’t kill her. I would never kill anyone.”

I know he’s telling the truth. Even without him saying it, I would have known it. Freddy, who gets squeamish when his dinner comes in the shape of the thing it was when it was alive—whole fishes, small birds—isn’t capable of leaving someone he knew to drown. At least I don’t think he is.

“I’ve made a mistake too,” I say. There might not be a better time, so I squeeze his hand. “And maybe after this,” I say, even though I’m not sure I want it, “we can start over. Put this all behind us. Maybe go to Majorca. Or the Seychelles.” I can imagine it, us having that kind of life together. There are so many lives. That’s the hardest part.

“Ciro and I…” I stop. “Ciro and I have been seeing each other on the island.”

“Ciro?”

He doesn’t recognize the name, even though Ciro was sitting with him in this very garden a day ago.

“Yes,” I say.

“Wait,” he says, “you mean the gardener?”

He pulls his hand from mine. The severing is total.

“You slept with the gardener?”

“He’s also a childhood friend,” I add.

“I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands. “I know what I’m about to say is completely irrational, considering what I’ve just told you, but how could you do that to me? Have you been doing it here? This week?”

“I don’t think the details are that important,” I say.

After all, I never pressed for them. I didn’t ask Freddy: How many times? What was she like in bed? Where did you have sex?

“What happened between Lorna and me was a mistake. I was drinking. She picked me up from a party. She wanted me to go to a meeting with her, so I spent the night at her apartment. It was an accident. It only happened a handful of times. You’re telling me that you’ve had an ongoing thing with this guy—”

“Ciro,” I supply.

“With Ciro for, what?”

“Years,” I say.

It feels good, that word. Thick and long and chewy— years.

“Years?”

It comes out like a screech, and even though I know I should apologize, some part of me feels Freddy owes me for how coolly I absorbed the news about Lorna. I allowed the guilt to shift off him so smoothly, he never had to wear the yoke at all.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He stands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

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.”