When I stepped out the front doors of the Venice train station, I thought I had entered the frame of a painting. The real world wasn’t full of marvels like this — palaces, balconies, canals, steeples, domes, bridges — all reflected, mirrored, echoed by water. This must be a dream. I dropped my suitcase and rubbed my eyes in astonishment. And then I saw them. They were standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to the station, watching me. Linda looked just as I remembered her from her only visit to Louisville six years ago. Her bangs were still a bright flame though now she wore a scarf and sunglasses and Capri pants with ballerina flats instead of a suit and heels. But the little girl with the brace, standing beside her, shocked me. I’d forgotten that Simone had polio, or no, I hadn’t forgotten, I just hadn’t thought about the consequences. At four she’d been a show-off, twirling around in her Polly Flinders smocked dresses, flashing rainbow-colored crinolines. This solemn ten year old, wearing a pleated plaid skirt and a light blue blouse, her blond hair in a smooth page boy, her right saddle oxford attached to two metal bars that supported her withered calf, did not resemble the pretty and frivolous exhibitionist that I remembered.

Linda waved. They waited for me to come down the stairs.

“That look on your face when you came through the door! I love to watch people who are seeing Venice for the first time.” Linda kissed me on the cheeks the way I had seen people kissing in Paris, where I had changed trains with the help of a friend of Linda’s, who had met my boat at Le Harve.

…I thought I had entered the frame of a painting. The real world wasn’t full of marvels like this — palaces, balconies, canals, steeples, domes, bridges — all reflected, mirrored, echoed by water.

My glamorous aunt Linda, divorced, sophisticated, an essayist, reviewer, travel writer and “a real globe-trotter” according to my awestruck mother, was working on a long article on Venetian art for Harper’s. She’d invited me to stay with her for the summer, and my mother had talked my father into letting me go. This was back in the late 50’s. Linda wanted a companion for Simone. I was sixteen going on seventeen and had jumped at the chance to get out of Louisville.

“Oh sweetheart,” Linda said, pulling back to look at me. “You’re so grown-up. Short hair becomes you. Here’s Simone. You remember Simone?”

Simone smiled shyly. We shook hands, and Linda picked up my suitcase.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m used to carrying that.”

“Nonsense. You walk with Simone. We’re going to take that boat over there.”

Simone was able to walk almost normally, and even bend her knee when we climbed from the dock into the boat, though the boatman took her arm and helped her down onto the deck. We stood outside as we chugged down the Grand Canal, and Linda shouted at me, though I couldn’t understand her for the noise of the motor, and pointed to buildings now familiar but at the time fantastic and overwhelming.

We got off just under the Rialto Bridge and plunged into a maze of narrow, crowded streets full of tourists in Bermuda shorts and old women in black dresses carrying baskets of produce. I don’t know how many bridges we crossed, how many canals I peered down or stared into as Simone and I hurried to keep up with Linda, who was always several strides ahead of us, sometimes invisible in the densely packed streets. Simone kept her hand on my elbow, steering me this way and that, and we finally came to a heavy, studded door, which Linda had already swung open.

Now I stepped into another painting. The flagged courtyard was a secret garden full of brilliantly colored flowers — magenta bougainvilla, scarlet geraniums, purple hibiscus. A man in a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, was leaning against the marble basin of a fountain, smoking a cigarette. He looked handsome and boyish, his thick brown hair tousled, as if he’d been running his hands through it. He smiled when he saw Linda.

“So there you are at last. This must be your niece.” He looked me over.

“I was expecting Anne of Green Gables but I think we’ve got Anne Boleyn.”

Linda laughed. “Anne, this is Jack Wilson. He’s a writer.”

I tried to look as if I knew all about him, but I’d never heard of Jack Wilson. I imagined his photo on the back cover of a best-selling novel.

“Can I come up, Linda? I need some lunch.”

“Sure, Jack,” she said. “Simone, take Anne up to your room. We’ll get Jack to bring the bag up. May as well put him to use.”

Jack grinned. Simone said nothing, but her hand tightened on my elbow. She led me silently up an outside staircase.

Over the next two weeks we settled into a routine. Linda worked on her article in the morning, and Simone and I wandered around Venice until lunch time, watching boats debark, feeding pigeons, petting sleeping cats, admiring the electric yo-yo salesmen who spun elaborate loops on bridges with their wares, eating gelato, twirling racks of postcards to see if there was anything we hadn’t seen, cooling off in old churches full of stale incense and dark pictures. After lunch I helped Simone with her exercises. There was a pulley attached to the door between the dining room and the long narrow kitchen, the only normal-sized door in the lofty apartment that was part of a palace. She had to lie on her back, her right foot in a harness, and lift iron rings, marked by weight, 1 lb, 2 lb, 3 lb, up and down for half an hour, gradually increasing the weight. After that, her doctor had ordered her to rest in bed. That’s when Linda visited museums, and sometimes she took me with her. Occasionally we’d run into Jack in a café or espresso bar, and he and Linda would laugh together about other writers they knew, and make plans for dinner. Sometimes he put his arm around her, and I’d feel a little jealous. Other times, especially if she were working in a library, she left me behind to read novels in the “salon,” the big room with tall windows where I’d move a couple of uncomfortable brocade chairs together so I could put my feet up.

That day when everything changed I was reading in the salon. It was hot and I was wearing shorts, something I would never have worn outside the house back in those days. The chairs were arranged so that I could get maximum light from the windows, which meant I was turned at an angle from the door to the hall. I didn’t hear anyone come in — I didn’t know anyone besides Linda and the maid, Rita, had a key — and I was deeply engrossed in my novel. Then I felt a hand run along my leg. I jumped, and drew my knees up.

It was Jack, grinning at me. “They’re beauties, your legs. I couldn’t resist.”

“Leave me alone,” I said.

“Just kidding around.” He took off his fedora, and there was a ring of sweat matting his thick hair. “There was a luncheon. At Harry’s Bar. That’s why I’m dressed to the teeth. Do you know Cheever?”

“Who?”

“What the hell are you reading?” He grabbed my paperback. “Agatha Christie? We were talking about the death of American literature this afternoon. You’re a case in point, aren’t you?”

“Just because she’s British?”

“Oh, forget it.” He paced about. “Where’s Linda?”

“She’s out. How did you get in here? The maid’s shopping.”

He was an adult, and a friend of Linda’s, so I felt compelled to do what he asked but I was annoyed and uncomfortable.

He dangled a key, and leaned close to me. I could smell liquor on his breath. “I just had lunch with John Cheever. Simone’s napping, I guess. Or pretending to nap.” He walked over to the old cabinet where Linda kept bottles of whiskey and gin. He opened the door, and took out a bottle of something. “Want to get me some ice, sweetheart?”

I stood up, tugging down my shorts in the back. He was an adult, and a friend of Linda’s, so I felt compelled to do what he asked but I was annoyed and uncomfortable. I went out to the central hall and crossed to the kitchen. The icebox was half the size of the one we had at home. I pulled out the tiny ice tray and emptied the cubes into a ceramic bowl. I carried the bowl back to the salon.

“Thanks, kid.” He took a handful of cubes and plopped them into a highball glass. Then he filled it to the top with bourbon. I carried the bowl back to the kitchen. The door to the salon was open and I could see him settled in a chair, sipping his drink. His hat was on another chair. I hesitated. Simone and I shared a room, and I didn’t want to disturb her. The hairs on my legs pricked. I sat on the steps, half-way up, hugging my knees until Linda returned an hour later.

Jack stayed for dinner. Linda wanted to hear all about the lunch at Harry’s Bar. She was miffed that she hadn’t been invited, though Jack explained that it was a stag affair, that the men had talked about car racing and brands of whiskey and argued about the merits of calling an inky sea creature “squid” or “cuttlefish.” Cheever had told a joke about two Irishmen in a boat lost at sea: They find a bottle with a genie inside, and the genie gives the Irishmen a wish, and the sea turns into Guinness. “But, oh God, now we’ve got to piss in the boat!” one Irishman sobs to the other.

Simone and I both blushed.

“Oh, Jack!” Linda looked stern, but she was laughing, too. “Watch your language, please.” She looked especially beautiful that night with her thick red hair coiled on top of her head. Her silver bangle bracelets gleamed and tinkled. Her arms, faintly freckled, were bare that night. It was getting hot.

Simone sat across from me, silently eating her linguine, and sipping her glass of milk. I was thirsty and finished my water. Jack picked up the straw-covered bottle of Chanti and filled Linda’s wine glass. Then he filled my water glass with wine.

Linda said nothing. She had never poured me a glass of wine herself, and I had never asked for any, though I saw Italian and French girls my age drinking wine with dinner in restaurants. I was torn between my queasiness about Jack and my longing to drink a glass of wine like a grown up.

One of the paintings Linda admired, and was writing about in her article, was a small canvas ascribed to Giorgione called The Forbidden Fruit which showed Hades, the King of Hell, handing Persephone a small silver plate with a few shimmering pomegranate seeds glowing in the center, so bright they might well be rubies. Persephone, her cheekbones hollow, her eyes huge and starving, is waving the plate away with one hand, but she’s looking at it with longing, her lips parted, and it’s clear that she’s tempted, that she’s on the verge of eating one of the bright, dangerous seeds that will keep her in Hell for part of every year. That’s how I felt as my hand reached out for the stem of the glass, as I brought the ruby liquid closer to my face and lifted the rim to my lips. Jack was watching me, smiling a little, and I told myself to thwart him, to set the glass back down on the table, but I was unable to do anything but swallow a mouthful. I felt my cheeks getting red. I took a larger gulp.

“She likes it.” Jack laughed.

Linda looked at me. “Oh, Christ, Jack! I told her father I wouldn’t give her any alcohol.”

“You didn’t. I did.”

I set the glass down. Simone looked at me.

Well, I didn’t have to finish the glass, I told myself. But I took another sip. A few minutes later I felt something brush my knee under the table, and I jerked my chair back. Jack immediately stood up. “I’ll get some more bread,” he said. He grabbed the bread basket and as he passed Simone, he tousled her hair with an affectionate gesture. Her shoulder blades shot up to her ears.

The next morning at breakfast Linda passed me the basket of rolls. “Jack said he’d be happy to take you out to the Lido today so you can swim. You and Simone. You can have lunch and spend the day. I’m hoping to finish my draft.”

“I don’t want to go.” Simone said.

“He’ll rent you a chair. You can read your new Nancy Drew novel under an umbrella. Your cousin would probably like a chance to get in the water, it’s gotten so hot.”

“I don’t mind the heat,” I said.

“Did you bring your suit?”

My eyes met Simone’s eyes. She was squeezing her turban-shaped hard roll so tightly that the crust was flaking onto the table cloth. I’d shown her my new swim suit. It was blue with a shirred top, and the straps crossed in the back. “No,” I said. “I forgot.”

“Never mind. You can wear one of mine. I have one that should fit you.” Linda laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t pretend to be doing you kids a favor. You’ll be doing me a favor by staying out of my hair all day.” She looked at her watch. “He’ll be here in an hour.”

In hindsight, it seems as if all I had to do was tell Linda that I thought Jack was a little creepy, and that Simone didn’t like him. But I didn’t know exactly how to put it or what I meant by creepy. He was handsome, he was charming, and she was clearly in love with him. Once in the park a man had exposed himself to me, and I’d run home in tears. It had taken me a long time to explain to my mother what had happened, and she seemed to be angrier at me than at the man. When the police came to the house to interview me and get a description of the man, their questions made me feel guilty. Why was I running around the park by myself? Why was I hanging upside down on the monkey bars in a dress? How long had I watched the man?

When Jack arrived, he was wearing blue jeans and a gauzy shirt with rolled up sleeves, and espadrilles. Linda, who was just settling a straw boater on Simone’s head, turned gladly at the sound of his voice as he came into the salon. He kissed her on the cheek, and she put her arms around his neck. “I wish I could go, too. But I’ve got to get this damn thing done.”

“Are they ready?” He looked at Simone’s jumper and blouse. “She looks like she’s going to the dentist, not the beach.”

“Oh, Simone plans to read. I’m sure Anne will swim with you.”

It was a humid day, and Simone had triangles of sweat under her arms by the time we got to the dock. She wore the same thing day after day, usually a plaid skirt or a jumper, with a pastel blouse, and once, when I bought her a pink chiffon scarf like the one I’d bought myself, in imitation of Brigitte Bardot, she thanked me but folded it into her drawer. “She won’t let me buy her anything pretty,” Linda had told me. “She thinks the brace makes her ugly.”

As soon as we got on the boat, Simone went inside to sit on a bench, but I hadn’t been out on the lagoon before, so I stood at the rail, my chiffon scarf tied at the nape of my neck, my bangs fluttering in the breeze. Jack moved next to me. I noticed that other women on the boat were looking at him, and I couldn’t help feel a slight thrill. Maybe they thought he was my boyfriend. I’d never had a boyfriend, only two blind dates with inarticulate boys from the Jesuit High School across the street from my own girls’ school.

We watched Venice recede. “What’s that?” I asked. “All that green space.”

“The Giardini — the public gardens. If you come back next year you can go to the Biennale.” I must have looked blank because he added: “The art show.” I felt his arm brush mine, but the boat was bobbing up and down and it might have been an accident. I shifted around to face the crowd behind me. An American woman, standing beside a balding dark-haired man in ugly plaid shorts was watching me and I thought she looked jealous.

The boat docked, and we walked down a long avenue lined with shops selling suntan lotion and sun glasses. Jack stopped to buy some peanuts and candy bars at a kiosk, which he stuffed into my straw basket. He asked Simone if she was okay with the walk — the beach was just ahead, he said — and she nodded.

You couldn’t see the water. The sea was blocked off by walls and hedges. We walked along a shady street past some big hotels that looked like palaces to a pink building. Flying Beach, it said in English. We went through the gate, and Jack stopped at a window and paid. Then we passed through a café that opened onto the sand, and a boy in a striped shirt led us to an umbrella, and set up three chaise lounges. We left Simone on the one most securely in the shade, and Jack and I returned to the changing rooms.

Linda’s swimsuit was too big in front. Instead of buttoning the straps in the back, I had to tie them around my neck. It was a Hawaiian suit with a sarong-skirt, not as attractive as my own sleek tank suit, and I was sorry I’d lied since it had done no good. I tucked my hair up into my rubber swim cap, a pretty one covered with multi-colored flowers.

Jack, his chest bare but still wearing his blue jeans, whistled when he saw me. “You look like an island princess. But take that ridiculous swim cap off, will you? You’re not at some American swimming pool.”

“I don’t want my hair to get wet.”

I hadn’t fastened the strap yet, and he grabbed a handful of the loose rubber flowers and yanked it off.

But he kept pulling, and I didn’t struggle, and I was soon up to my knees, feeling the froth against my legs, sand sucking under my feet. Jack let go of me and flung himself forward….

“That’s better.”

I glanced out over the beach. Nobody was wearing a swim cap. I tossed it into my basket, and followed him back to the umbrella where Simone was already reading her Nancy Drew novel. She looked a little pathetic sitting there in her street clothes, her legs extended, the sun glinting off the brace.

“Simone? Would you like to build a sand castle with me?”

She looked up. She smiled, but then she looked past me to where Jack was standing. He was just stepping out of his blue jeans, bending over. I could see the line on his buttocks where the tan stopped and the white began.

Simone lifted her book. “I want to read this,” she said.

As we headed toward the water, where small waves were lapping onto shore, threading our way among chaise lounges and family groups sprawled under the umbrellas, Jack grabbed my hand.

He pulled me forward. “Let’s run in.”

“No,” I said. But he kept pulling, and I didn’t struggle, and I was soon up to my knees, feeling the froth against my legs, sand sucking under my feet. Jack let go of me and flung himself forward into the waves. A wave hit my chest, and I ducked down until the shock of cold water had worn off. When I stood up, the water ran off me, and I saw Jack staring at me. A chill breeze warned me of what had happened. The knot had come undone and my suit had rolled down to my waist.

Quickly I ducked down in the water, squatting, and tied the straps. Keeping low, I maneuvered along the shore line until I was surrounded by splashing children. Only then did I swim out to deeper water.

I helped some noisy children with their sandcastle. Then, trying to look nonchalant, I returned to the umbrella where Jack was sitting at the foot of Simone’s chaise lounge. He’d taken off one of her shoes, the one without the brace, and was sifting sand over her toes. Simone’s shoulders were hunched and her eyes were closed.

“Don’t you think she should go wading,” Jack said. “She won’t let me take off her brace.”

Simone opened her eyes. She looked panic stricken. “No,” she said.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“Lunch it shall be.” Jack leaped up. He grinned at me.

Simone sat up, shook her foot, and put her sock and shoe back on. I put my blouse on over my swimsuit, and we followed Jack to a table on the terrace, right at the edge of the sand. As we sat down, someone put lire into the jukebox, and Bobby Darin began to sing about Mack the Knife. Simone and I ordered hamburgers and French fries and Cokes. Jack ordered a sandwich and something else I didn’t catch. It turned out to be wine on a silver tray, and the waiter brought it first. It fizzed when he poured it out.

Jack handed me a glass. “Cheers,” he said. “It’s very light, hardly more than Coke.”

I could feel the bubbles under my nose, and I took a sip. It was lovely, and I finished my glass before my hamburger arrived, and Jack poured me another. He tried to get Simone to talk about her book — what was the mystery, what was Nancy Drew up to — but she only answered him in monosyllables. She ate her fries slowly, one by one, licking off the salt. I looked out at the sea, listened to the cries of swimmers, and sank back in my woven straw chair. Jack asked me about school and he seemed to be interested as I babbled on about Sister Helen and how I hated term papers and gym class. I asked him about his books and he told me he was working on his third novel. The first had won a prize, the second had bombed, but this one, the comic adventures of an American vagabond in Europe, was going to be the best seller.

I heard the jukebox blare Sea of Love. It was one of my favorite songs at home, and I always turned up the volume when it came on the radio, and imagined I was slow dancing with somebody.

“This silence is driving me crazy.” Jack jumped up and disappeared. My ears were buzzing after my third or fourth glass of wine so I didn’t know what he was talking about at first until I heard the jukebox blare Sea of Love. It was one of my favorite songs at home, and I always turned up the volume when it came on the radio, and imagined I was slow dancing with somebody. Now I smiled to think that here I was, in Venice, sitting by a real sea.

Jack came back. “Let’s dance,” he said. He pulled me out my chair, and I stood willingly and fell into his arms while Simone sat staring at us over her half-eaten hamburger. I felt like Cinderella. Jack’s hand pressed against the small of my back, just so, just where I’d always imagined a man’s hand, and we swayed around the tables and out onto the sand under some pine trees where two Italian couples were also dancing in their wet suits, clinging to each other. I could feel Jack pressing against me, I could feel something hard against my bare leg, but he started whispering the words of the song into my ear and I was dizzy and full of sweet longing, and pressed back, so that when I felt his hands on my buttocks, squeezing gently, then his finger probing along the edge of my suit, it felt natural, and only when the jukebox abruptly stopped did I feel embarrassed. I pulled away from him, flushed and breathless.

On the way home, Jack gave up teasing me out of what he called my “bad mood” and tried to get Simone to play twenty questions, but she refused and hung over the rail, watching the water. Nothing had happened, I told myself, we were just slow dancing, but I had a hangover and my skin itched from sea salt, and I felt sticky and miserable. Linda had just made a pitcher of martinis for her and Jack when we got back, to celebrate the completion of the first draft of her big article, so Simone and I went upstairs and took baths, and when she called us later Jack was gone. She took us to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, a small place hidden in a narrow street near the Ghetto, and though she offered me a glass of wine, I was happy to drink green tea.

The next day Linda announced that she was going out to the church on Torcello that afternoon to revisit the mosaics of The Last Judgment. She needed to look at them again. “Interpretation is so subjective,” she said. “Jack thinks I’ve missed something important. When the angels blow their trumpets, it’s not just the sea monsters that are depicted eating the dead. Ordinary fish are chewing on hands and feet, too. That’s significant, he says.” She said I could go with her if I wanted, but Simone was to stay home and nap. Two long days in a row would not be good for her.

“Great!” I said.

But Simone started to cry.

“Sweetheart,” Linda said. “You know your blood is weak, and you won’t eat liver. You gag when I give you the iron medicine. The doctor wants you to rest — every day. You know that”

“I’ll stay with her,” I said.

“That’s silly. The maid will be here. She won’t be alone.”

I was eager to take another boat ride, but I felt bad about Simone. We went out together in the morning, but she walked slowly, dragging her right leg as if the brace were weighing her down, and I thought that maybe her mother was right, she did need to rest. We stopped at a tourist kiosk near St. Marks, and I bought her an Archie comic book. After lunch, I helped her with her exercises, and went up with her to the room. She took off the black velvet ribbon that she wore around her head, under her page boy, undressed to her slip, and flung herself on the bed. She looked sullen. “I’m tired of reading,” she said when I handed her the comic book. “I hate naps. I wish I were grown up.”

A shudder ran down my spine. I saw Jack letting himself into the apartment, then climbing the stairs to Simone’s room. The maid would be busy in the kitchen, or out back gossiping with someone in the neighborhood. Simone would lie there listening to his steps.

“Do you want me to close the shutters?”

“I don’t care.”

I pushed the curtains aside, and fastened the shutter half-way open so she’d have some air with the darkness. She’d buried her face in her pillow. I put my hand lightly on her hair, to say goodbye, and she jerked away.

Linda was waiting in the hall. I could hear the maid clattering pails in the kitchen. We walked together, not saying much, pushing through crowds as we got closer to St. Marks.

“I don’t know what gets into her sometimes,” Linda said as we stood waiting for the boat to Burano. We’d missed the launch from Harry’s Bar, and would now have to get a gondola from Burano over to Torcello. She gestured with her cigarette. “Well, anyway, Jack called while you were upstairs. He’d said he’d look in on her.”

A shudder ran down my spine. I saw Jack letting himself into the apartment, then climbing the stairs to Simone’s room. The maid would be busy in the kitchen, or out back gossiping with someone in the neighborhood. Simone would lie there listening to his steps. I didn’t know what he would do to her — I couldn’t imagine what men did with children — but I knew she’d be frightened.

The boat was chugging toward us. I put my hand on Linda’s arm. “I’m not feeling well all of a sudden, Aunt Linda” I said. “I’d better go back — I think it’s — you know.”

“Cramps?”

“Bad ones. I think I need to lie down for a while.”

She sighed. “All right, all right. Do what you need to do.” The boat was docking now, and people were jostling forward. “I’ll see you this evening.”

I nodded, trying to look as if I were in pain, and waved goodbye. I hurried down the first narrow street I came to, and rushed in the direction of the apartment. I knew my way now, and only got lost once, when I hurried down a blind street and had to turn around. I didn’t have a plan. My only idea was to prevent Simone from being alone with Jack.

But as I walked down the wide shopping street, I saw Jack strolling ahead of me, headed the same direction. He was wearing a straw hat and carried a parcel. When he paused to look into the window of a cheese shop, I darted down a narrow street that led over a canal.

In five minutes I was at the apartment. “Rita?” I called to the maid as I let myself in. There was no answer.

I rushed up the stairs. Simone was asleep. I shook her, and she roused herself, looking confused.

“Would you like to go somewhere?” I asked.

She blinked and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Where’s Mom?”

“She went on to the island. I told her I wasn’t feeling well. But now I’m okay, I thought we could go for a walk somewhere.”

The sun was blazing in the courtyard, and my heart was pounding as we crossed the flagstones, scaring a lizard up the wall, and opened the gate. I looked down the narrow street both ways.

“Okay,” she said. She heaved her legs over the side of the bed. I handed her the shoe with the brace, surprised by how heavy it was. She dressed slowly and I kept pacing out to the hall, listening at the top of the stairs. I wanted to be gone from the apartment before Jack arrived. I didn’t know what I’d do or say if I heard his key in the lock. I could feel the hairs prickling on the back on my neck.

I grabbed Simone’s hat, and followed her downstairs. The sun was blazing in the courtyard, and my heart was pounding as we crossed the flagstones, scaring a lizard up the wall, and opened the gate. I looked down the narrow street both ways. No one was in sight.

“Let’s head to the nearest water,” I said. “It’ll be cooler there.” I guided her in the opposite direction of the shopping street, where I hoped Jack was still lingering, looking in shop windows, knowing he had all afternoon.

Simone was groggy and slow, but once we’d turned the corner, I relaxed. We crossed a weedy square, empty except for a white cat with a fish tail in its mouth that darted around some garbage cans. A nice breeze was blowing down the street that led to the lagoon. The water was choppy, lapping up against the stones. Motorboats were zipping along, and their wakes washed up and left slippery puddles on the marble quay. We walked along the edge, stepping over the wet spots. I felt exhilarated by the open sea. A boat was waiting to take people over to the cemetery island. Some women with bouquets of flowers were filing on board.

I glanced back. A man wearing a straw hat had just turned the corner. The glare was so strong that even when I shaded my eyes with my hand, I couldn’t tell if it was Jack marching toward us or not, but I felt a twist of panic in my groin.

I’ve gone over and over this in the years that followed. What could Jack have done to me or Simone out there in the bright sunlight? Nothing, comes the answer. A scolding, perhaps. Some cajoling, to get us to return to the apartment. A threat to tell Linda. But tell her what?

The boat was about to leave. It was moored just a few steps further down the quay. People were still milling about.

“It’s him,” I said to Simone. “C’mon, let’s get on the boat.”

“Him?” She said, and she looked at me, and I looked at her.

“Hurry,” I said.

Her mouth opened and shut. She read my eyes. I rushed ahead in my panic. And so did she. But the stones were worn and slippery, and behind me she slid and lost her balance. I heard a splash. Somebody screamed. I turned, and saw Simone flailing in the lagoon.

Two men threw themselves into the water. For a second I saw Simone’s face in the foam from the boat. The motor had just started, but people at the rail were screaming and shouting and pointing. I stood on the edge of the stones, paralyzed, hardly able to breathe, watching the swimmers dive down. I waited for one of the men to emerge with Simone. Another man kicked off his shoes and flung himself into the water. The boat turned off its motor. A motorboat sped across the lagoon and the wake washed over my feet. I heard sirens. I was sobbing. A woman in a black dress put her arm around me and tried to comfort me. Two of the swimmers clambered up, shaking water and seaweed off their heads. The third kept diving but it was no use. The metal brace on her leg had kept Simone on the bottom, and only later, when professional divers in wet suits entered the lagoon, and probed the trash and seaweed, were they able to find her body.

Linda blamed me, of course. I was never able to explain why I’d disturbed Simone’s nap and taken her to the quay that afternoon. I just kept telling the truth, that we’d gone for a walk. Anyway, the man I thought was Jack could not have been Jack. Jack had stopped by the apartment, he’d told Linda, but nobody was there, and he’d just assumed she’d taken Simone with her to Torcello, and had forgotten to tell him, so he’d gone home and worked on his novel. He took tender care of Linda and looked at me strangely. I was sent home. Simone’s body was shipped back to New York, but my parents told me that Linda did not want me at the funeral. I never saw her again.

Nothing ever changes in Venice. Was I hoping that a sleek blond head might emerge from the foam and beckon me to jump? I looked at the water for a long time, but didn’t even see a fish.

If I came across one of Linda’s articles in a magazine, I didn’t read it. Just seeing her name filled me with sorrow. My parents told me that she was engaged to Jack Wilson, but then something happened and they never got married. He married a much younger woman, then another and another. I read his third novel, the one published by New Directions, and it seemed to me, from his description of the kind of sex that his anti-hero enjoyed, that he might have been abusing Simone.

But had I interpreted everything the wrong way? Interpretation is subjective, Linda had told me.

What should I have done? I ask myself that question again and again. Last year I returned to Venice for the Biennale, and as I always do when I go back I found the apartment Linda had rented all those years ago. From there, I walked to the quay and stood on the edge where the water was lapping. Nothing ever changes in Venice. Was I hoping that a sleek blond head might emerge from the foam and beckon me to jump? I looked at the water for a long time, but didn’t even see a fish.