WE WALKED HOME along the shoreline. Helena and Olga were ahead of me, arm in arm, complexly linked. Behind them I felt like a stranger, someone who had picked two people at random to trail, a menacing shadow. I walked like a watcher; I adapted to their pace. Helena and Olga had their names and their boundaries, mother and daughter, their roles and their particular duties, their story. I had nothing. I was a guest.

Helena walked on the side closest to the sea, like a keeper or a prison guard. The wine had made her slow and quiet.

Olga turned around and looked at me one single time during that walk by the sea, and I was scared at the thought of what she saw then, the look I gave her, lonely, caught in the act. I too was slow, quiet.