What is it about tall men that always makes me think they can help? I reached for Antonio, and was surprised by how long and how tightly he held me, pressing my face sideways into the rough wool of his coat. When he let me go I rushed down the steps as if released by a spring, waving one hand behind my back in case he was still watching.

36

The airplane’s shadow rushed sideways over grass and runway apparatus, growing smaller and more uncertain, an earthbound version of itself that the plane was shedding as it rose up. In London the winter sun never parted from the horizon for long, and set at four in the afternoon. But up here the sun was high and unblinking, and it hunted down every line and curve of water and silvered it fleetingly.

I had spoken to Robin the night before. He couldn’t wait to see me, he said. With many air miles already between me and Antonio, everything I had been tamping down erupted to the surface. The unnatural darkness and inhuman smell; backing up to the laddered wall . . . The images were powerful enough, it seemed likely that Robin, wherever he was, would be able to see them.

Maddy put a high value on loyalty. She once told me that cheating on someone was the meanest thing she could think of anyone doing. Would she be appalled, or would she exempt me because I was her mother or because she longed for a parental reunion, something children of divided families supposedly do?

When I closed my eyes, Robin was there, gaining volume and definition as the plane hurtled toward him. I hoped time spent at the lake had put him in a philosophical frame of mind. Robin would understand. He would have to. Maybe Norma, who had planted the idea in the first place, could explain the nuances better than I could. They had met. The subject must have come up. I would impress on him how essential it had been to see Antonio, how the echoes of Maddy had unhinged me a little but it was all behind me now, as far as London was behind me and the Atlantic was below, shifting its miniature waves. How much would I say? A conversation with Robin was not something to rehearse for.

Clouds were moving in like a slowly gathering herd, packing together to hide the earth from view. Don’t look. Don’t be fooled by the magical sight of what we were about to destroy. Sip cheap wine, feed from a tray, spin tales until the real tragedy swallows up our little personal ones. Don’t think about pulling up to the silent house and going inside. I began my special pleading to Maddy, wherever she was, in whatever form. Forgive the missing father, the faulty genes, the late diagnosis. Forgive me for being stubborn, divided, bitter, alive. And a new one: Forgive me my trespasses.

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