One Fifth Avenue

“I don’t know.” He hit a button on his computer. “On the other hand, as you’ve learned from the Billy Litchfield situation, death can be a much more practical solution. If Billy hadn’t died, he’d probably be in jail. That would have been terrible. Who knows what happens to people like him in prison?”

So she had her answer. And since then she kept wondering if it was only a matter of time before Paul did her in as well. What imaginary slight would set him off? If she stayed with him, she’d be in a prison herself, always watching him, trying to gauge his mood, living in fear of the day when she couldn’t mollify him.

Paul returned from scuba diving half an hour later, full of information about the various sea life he’d seen. At one o’clock, they sat down at opposite ends of a long table covered in crisp white linen and ate lobster and a citrus salad. “Are you going to dive this afternoon?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about it. I want to explore the wreck of the Endeavor. Captain James Cook’s ship.”

Two servers came in wearing gray uniforms and white gloves. They removed the plates and carefully laid out the silver for dessert. “Would you like more wine, ma’am?”

“No, thank you,” Annalisa said. “I have a bit of a headache.”

“It’s the barometric pressure. It’s changing. We may have some bad weather tomorrow.”

“I’ll have more wine,” Paul said.

As the server filled his glass, Annalisa said, “I really wish you wouldn’t dive this afternoon. You know it’s dangerous to do more than two dives a day. Especially after you’ve been drinking.”

“I’ve had less than two glasses,” Paul said.

“It’s enough,” she protested.

Paul ignored her and defiantly took another sip of wine. “It’s my vacation. I’ll do as I please.”

After lunch, Annalisa went to the stateroom to take a nap. While she was lying on the king-size bed, Paul came in to get changed. “I don’t know,” he said, yawning. “I might not dive after all.”

“I’m glad you’re being sensible,” Annalisa said. “And you heard what the server said. The pressure’s changing. You don’t want to get caught in bad weather.”

Paul looked out the stateroom window. “It’s perfectly sunny,” he said in his usual contrarian style. “If I don’t go, it could be days before I have another chance.”

As Paul was suiting up, the captain of the yacht came out, holding a dive table. “Mr. Rice,” he said. “I need to remind you that this is your third deep dive today. You can’t stay down for longer than thirty minutes total, and you’ll need to include ten minutes to surface.”

“I’m well aware of the time/nitrogen/oxygen ratio,” Paul said. “I’ve been doing math since I was three.” Holding the regulator over his face, he jumped in.

As Paul descended, weightless and with the familiar childlike joy he’d recently discovered in being unfettered by gravity, he was joined by the yacht’s scuba instructor. The water was particularly clear in the Great Barrier Reef, even at eighty feet, and Paul had no trouble finding the wreck. The old ship was fascinating, and as Paul swam in and out of the hull, he was overcome by a feeling of pure happiness. This was why he couldn’t stop diving, he told himself. Then Paul recalled something from the diving manual and tried to remind himself that the giddy feeling could be a sign of impending nitrogen narcosis, but he quickly dismissed it. Surely he had another five or ten minutes. The giddy feeling increased, and when Paul saw the scuba instructor motioning for him to go up, instead of following his instructions, Paul swam away. For the first time in his life, he thought irrationally, he was denying the rigid rules of the monstrous numbers that had dominated his life. He was free.

The scuba instructor swam after him, and what ensued next was an underwater tussle worthy of a James Bond movie. Eventually, the instructor won, twisting himself behind Paul’s back and putting him in a choke hold. Slowly, they ascended to the surface, but it was too late. An air bubble had formed and lodged itself in Paul’s spine; as he rose, the air bubble expanded rapidly. When Paul reached the surface, it exploded, ripping apart the nerves in his spine.

“Yoo-hoo,” Enid Merle said, shouting up to Annalisa Rice. Annalisa looked over the side of the terrace, where she was overseeing the erection of a large white tent, and spotted Enid waving in excitement. “A reporter at the paper just called me—Sandy Brewer has been convicted. He’s going to jail.”

“Come upstairs and tell me about it,” Annalisa called to her below.

In a few minutes, Enid arrived on the terrace, panting slightly as she fanned the air in front of her face. “It’s so hot. I can’t believe how hot it is for September. They say it’s going to be ninety degrees on Saturday. And we’ll probably have a thunderstorm.”

“We’ll be fine,” Annalisa said. “We have the tent and the whole apartment. I’ve cleared out most of Paul’s things from the ballroom, so we’ll have that space as well.”

“How is Paul?” Enid asked, by rote.

“Exactly the same,” Annalisa said. As she always did when she spoke about Paul, she lowered her voice and solemnly s

hook her head. “I saw him this morning.”

“My dear, I don’t know how you can bear it,” Enid said.

“There’s always the slight chance that he’ll recover. They say miracles do occur.”

“Then he could end up being another Stephen Hawking,” Enid said reassuringly, patting Annalisa on the arm.

“I’ve decided to donate money to the facility for a wing in Paul’s name. Even if Paul never comes out of the coma, it’s possible, in ten years, someone with similar injuries will.”