WE WALKED BACK to the house, keeping the silence we’d had by the ocean, a silence that felt like a pause. I felt like I was walking alone even though she was right next to me; she was so far away and inexplicably brooding. Something was happening, I knew. But I didn’t know what, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Traversing the square I noticed a group of teens on the stairs to the city hall. I thought I recognized them from the dock, though they could easily have been other kids; they all looked the same to me. The same smooth skin and long hair, the same posture, the same bounce to their bodies. Compared to us they seemed bundled up in their jeans and big sweaters and sneakers. Olga was wearing a sweater but her legs were bare. I had on my shirt with the yellowed collar, which was getting a bit smelly by now, a mixture of sweat, SPF, salt.

The kids were passing a soda bottle between themselves and it was a choreography I remembered: dodge the dregs, don’t get stuck with the saliva. Their school bags were scattered all around with garish books peeking out of them. It was late afternoon, the freedom before home called with evening meals, homework, TV, before sleep called in a bed that would soon be too narrow. Infatuations that were largely fantasies. The first unrequited love. The first happy, very solemn love: this love is forever, I’ll never forget you, we’ll never change.

I noticed Olga glancing at them, or I thought I did. I furtively touched her neck and she swatted my hand away. What? Nothing.

We kept walking. At the harbor she slowed down until she was walking very slowly, irritatingly slowly, as if she were testing the limits of how slowly she could move without stopping altogether. I mimicked her pace. We arrived at the house and she continued inward, upstairs; she closed the door and I showered, I poured myself a glass of wine and I waited, Helena came home, we ate dinner at the kitchen table, the wax candles, yellow light. Helena: you look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, what’s going on? Olga: nothing. She left the table with the plate still at her seat.

But in the night she came to my room. In the night I held her while she cried softly, she couldn’t tell me why. All she could do was repeat, again and again, in a voice that was quiet and restrained: I have nobody, I have nobody.