Thorpe stared down at his hands on his legs. “Anyway, I never did hear from the Muellers again. I tried, I searched. I was frantic. After Poland, after the war started, I asked certain friends of mine to—to do what they could. Find them and get them the hell out of Germany, somehow. But I haven’t heard. Anke . . .” He paused. His thumbs went still against his trousers. I couldn’t see his face. I thought he was hiding from me deliberately, that he’d said more than he planned, and now he couldn’t go back. But he could hide his face from me.

“Are you still in love with her?” I whispered.

Now he looked up, with an expression that seemed to regard me as if I hadn’t understood a word he’d said, hadn’t understood the point of it at all. “Lulu, that was years ago. I was a boy.”

“But she was that kind of girl, wasn’t she?”

“She was. But she told me it was impossible, and I—well, I suppose you could say I honored her enough to believe her.”

I couldn’t speak. I sat there mutely and stared not at his face, which was too much, but his hair, which had caught a glint of sunlight from the window, and looked sort of rumpled, as if he’d gone for a swim earlier and not bothered to brush it afterward. I’m sorry, I thought, and it seemed to me that I hadn’t understood the meaning of that word until now.

Thorpe rose from the crates and turned back to the French doors, to the ocean behind them. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I can’t say what I believe in anymore,” he said. “A just God in heaven? I don’t know. But if anyone deserves mercy from the Almighty, it’s her.”

I looked down at my hands, which were twisted together on my dress of blood orange. I had picked out this dress with great care. I thought it suited my eyes of light brown, my olive complexion, my hair now streaked with Bahamian sunshine. I had wanted to look my best for such an important encounter. How my heart had drummed away as I stood there on the dock, waiting for Thorpe to arrive in his boat.

“I killed my husband,” I said.

He spun around. “What did you say?”

“I killed him myself. Sort of an accident, but not really. We were living in Bakersfield at that point. It was a new town every four or five months, until the bills caught up with us, and now it was Bakersfield, California. I don’t guess you’ve ever been there. Charming spot. Hot and dry. They bring in water in ditches to irrigate the place for farming, for ranching and that kind of thing, olive groves, almonds. Otherwise you could hardly live there.”