And there was always the chance that the dead man had a relative—a lover, a wife, a child—at that homeless camp or another, someone who would find out why Sharkey and Olive were asking about the dead man and would stalk them and take revenge. So they were afraid, cowed by what they had seen, and kept to themselves. Olive had taken a short leave of absence from the hospital but she worked a few days, filling in for someone who was sick. It was a relief for her to be back in the hospital, dealing with trauma and fractures and wounds and seizures, rather than at home with Sharkey, who had become more withdrawn, or on futile searches for the identity of the man he had killed, the corpse with the tag on his toe—a number, no name.

On one of those days, after working at the hospital, Olive returned home to find Sharkey on the lanai among the potted plants—ferny feathery pakalolo—his legs drawn up beneath him, more like royal ease than a yoga posture. He was staring at the sea beyond the treetops. His empty gaze, his motionless head, his slack body, reminded her of how his life had contracted and narrowed, his vitality drained away—the image no longer of a surfer but of a drowning victim, propped upright. The pity of it was not that his life had stalled and become smaller but that he was indifferent to it—the melancholy fact that he didn’t seem to notice it. This became normal now, the sitting, the blank expression, his silences, a kind of dying that had set in the night he had killed the cyclist, and this an effect of it, the thud to his memory acting on him like an anesthetic. On this night Olive pondered his slack egotistical posture—not like a man watching a sunset but rather like a big stupid boy distracted by cartoons—and thought, I can’t leave you like this.

“I’m back,” she said brightly, to get his attention.

He didn’t respond, but when she repeated it, he said, “Where have you been?”

“The hospital. I did Keola’s shift.”

“That’s cool.” Spoken without emphasis through barely parted lips, it was no more than a two-syllable grunt. Now she saw a joint in his fingers.

“Should you be doing that? I thought you were cutting down on the pakalolo.”

That had been the agreement—that he would try to stay sharp, regain his health, and resume surfing to build his confidence after his near drowning at Waimea.

“This is only number six.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Six is cutting down.”

And with that he reached and stroked the feathery leaves of the pakalolo in the pots. It was the caress he might have used on the fur of a beloved animal. She forgave him his selfishness—he seldom touched her that way these days.

“Did anyone call?”