Holding her fists at her side, Olive stood in the darkness of the lanai, in a cloud of fragrance from the night-blooming jasmine, watching him through the wide opening of the sliding screens. Sharkey looked caged, squatting under the glare of a floor lamp, digging at the cuticle around a fingernail like a monkey in a grooming ritual, his teeth bared, his hair wild, his tattoos gleaming on his golden skin. He wore only his board shorts—he’d been surfing; crusts of sea salt glinted on his shoulders, salt crystals also dusting his hair and his sticky arms.

As Olive stepped into the light he twisted his head—also a monkey move, swiveling his eyes—and, looking up, he ceased grubbing with his fingers and flashed his teeth at her. In her green nurse’s scrubs she was easily seen in the panel of light from the window.

She thought she heard him grunt—or was it a word?—and drew back, a little afraid. She’d been away a week, in silence, and had never run from him before. She did not know what to expect and was so short of breath in her anxiety she couldn’t speak—in any case did not know what to say.

He sometimes smiled when he was furious. He was smiling now. She took another slight step backward.

“Pass me that towel, eh?” he muttered.

She slid the screens apart, kicked her slippers off, and walked through, shutting them behind her, and stooped to pick up the rag that lay beyond his reach. Handing it to him, she drew away, bowing involuntarily.

With the rag in his fist he worked the cloth over his sweaty face, clawing his hair at the same time, another ritual she knew. Then he dropped the rag and began examining his toes. Even from a distance—she was about eight feet away—she could see that he was scratched, the cuts showing as pale scores and grooves and reddened skin.

“You’ve been out?” The words lumped and seemed to catch in her throat.

“Like I said, yeah.”

When would that have been?

“Got pinched in the barrel—gas-chamber action.”

He made a noise softly, kek-kek, that might have been a laugh. He was calm, and so, reassured, she took a seat in the chair near where he squatted.

“Tossed in the foam ball.”

He splayed his fingers, showing how they were badly scratched, then he crooked them like monkey paws.

“Motion in the ocean,” he said. “And after all that I got planted on the rocks.” He gathered himself and hopped upright and stood, grunting again, walking away from her, round-shouldered in his fatigue. “Never mind. A good day. How was yours?”

Now he was lit by the open refrigerator, leaning at the shelves, poking at plastic containers of leftovers—broccoli, pasta sauce, salad, cubes of raw fish.

“I’m hungry.”