Maybe it was because I didn’t entirely trust Ferragamo’s arrangements. I knew how fickle Italians could be. At the same time, the circumstances surrounding Paolo’s death in Malibu were attracting scrutiny here and it might not be safe to linger.

I did nothing.

One day passed, then the next. I didn’t get on the plane. Ferragamo sent papers by courier so I might get the process started, but I let the papers sit. More days passed. They passed in a haze. I fell into a kind of lethargy, suspended in inaction, caught between going and coming. Looking back, my behavior—my lack of decisiveness—seems inexplicable, but I had fallen prey to a kind of inertia. Maybe that inertia had something to do with my brother. With his absence. That inertia was made palpable by the expanse of the ocean in front of our house. It was easy, in the face of that great emptiness, to imagine there was no outside world. There was just this strip of sand, sun blaring down through the fog.

I spread my blanket and lay down in my colorful two-piece.

Dazio lay beside me.

Gasparo and Zanche lounged on the deck. Whether they stayed out of loyalty or for some other reason, I didn’t contemplate. They existed in the same suspended state as I did.

This place lulled you.

Others might dream of coming here, but they couldn’t.

They were stuck in that other world.

Meanwhile we were safe, away from the clamor, anonymous as the sand. I sighed. I closed my eyes.

I felt a horrible dread.

31.

That night I went alone to the house of the swimmer who lived on the jetty overlooking the rocks. Though I hadn’t talked to him since that day on the beach, I’d seen him at a distance and watched through my shades as he emerged from his swim. He’d linger at the edge of the surf, drying himself, and at the last minute he’d glance toward where I lay on the chaise, up on the deck.

He was a nice-looking man.

I had learned his name since then and looked him up in the online gossips, and read about his career and a little about his life. None of that interested me so much. Maybe it was his looks that drew me. Or the vacancy in his eyes. Or because what I knew about him didn’t add up to much, and I could imagine anything I wanted. It didn’t take him long to answer the door. He wore a white shirt rolled at the sleeves, a little bit rumpled.

“I hope I’m not disturbing anything.”

“No. I’m glad you stopped by.”

“I’m sorry I missed your party. I’d hoped to come.”

“Well, that’s nice.”