When We Believed in Mermaids(19)
Thus my rules, the rules that have kept me safe for my entire adult life, and I’m not going to start breaking them now.
Inside the building, I stab the elevator button irritably and wait, staring up at the numbers.
Damn. He had such promise.
Chapter Six
Mari
After dinner, Sarah helps me with the dishes. Our house is a villa that sits on a rise catty-corner to the harbor, and as I wash glasses and hand them to Sarah, I admire the opalescent pools of light playing over the waves. Across the water is a long bluff, just now starting to twinkle with lights coming on for the evening.
Sarah’s hair is pulled back in a braid in an attempt to tame it, but wild curls spring out around her face and stand up along her forehead. A grass stain mars her T-shirt, and even over the sweetness of dish soap, I smell kid sweat and dirt. She has a thousand little experiments going on outside—trying to grow shoots from celery stubs and an avocado seed and onion scraps; bird feeders in three styles; a fancy barometer her grandfather gave her to go with the little weather station he helped her set up. My father-in-law, Richard, a longtime widower, has a passion for sailing, and he loves the natural world as much as Sarah does. Every afternoon, she’s out there, tinkering and humming to herself and examining everything from feathers to rocks.
A total geek, just like my sister. In every gesture, all her serious attention to science and detail, her sober measuring of the world.
Tonight, she’s been quiet, but I’m forcing myself not to ask about school again. It’ll just put her on edge. Maybe tomorrow. For today, I’ll just love her up at home, and maybe that will fill some of the empty spots mean girls at school are leaving. “After this, you should take a shower, let me do your hair.”
She only nods, her fat lower lip sticking out as she dries a plate.
“Whatcha thinking about?”
She raises her head, blinks. “I want to read a story tonight.”
“Like an actual story? Maybe Harry Potter?”
“No.” She scowls slightly. “You know I don’t like made-up stories.”
I do know. And it was the weirdest thing in the world to me, a lifelong, die-hard reader, but as soon as she was old enough to think for herself, she questioned things. If there were fairies in books, why couldn’t she see them in real life?
When she was barely two, she started picking up bugs to examine them. She trailed after her grandfather as he went on his nature rounds, pointing out various flora and fauna to her. They hiked all the main trails around the city, then went farther afield. He’s teaching her to watch the sky, to read the wind and the waves. They are very close.
Something she will never, ever have with my own family, which is all the more painful because she and Kit would be so enchanted with each other.
“Okay, so what book?”
“A book I got at the library on botany.”
I will myself not to smile. “I’d be happy to.” I hand her the last saucer to dry. “Maybe The Little Mermaid after that?” It’s the one story she likes. Not the Disney classic but the older, darker Hans Christian Andersen version.
I read her the latter when she was five, and she went crazy for Ariel. The Disney version is fine, but fairy tales are dark for a reason. Kids know that life isn’t all sweetness and light. They know. “In the new house I bought, there’s a whole shelf of mermaid stories. Maybe we can explore them together.”
“Okay. Even though mermaids aren’t real.”
“You don’t believe in them, but I do.” I think of Kit and my mother, of a pirate chest full of booty. I think of Dylan, who seemed to come to us out of the sea and took himself back into it.
Why am I thinking of all these things all of a sudden?
“Mum, that’s just silly.”
I point to my forearm, where mermaid scales shimmer against my skin. “I’ve always been part mermaid.”
She shakes her head. “Tattoos don’t make things real.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” She plucks a pair of forks from the drainer. “Dad said we’re going to live in that house.”
“Yeah. It’ll take a while to get it ready, but that is the plan. You can have your own laboratory.” I give the word the New Zealand pronunciation, with the emphasis on bor. “And there’s a greenhouse.”
“Really?” Her eyes light up, the way another girl’s might over new shoes. “When can we see it?”
“Soon.” I pluck the dish towel from her hands. “Go shower.”
“Will you wash my hair?”
“Yes.” She’s only been doing it herself for a couple of months, and the results are uneven. “Yell when you’re ready.”
As I’m stacking plates back into the cupboard, my phone rings in my back pocket. The screen shows that it’s my friend Gweneth. “Hey, what’s up? Not canceling on me, are you?” We walk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday right after the kids go to school. She’s a stay-at-home mother with a vibrant mummy blog, so her hours are her own the same way mine are.
“No, but JoAnn can’t make it. Do you want to hike Takarunga?”
JoAnn doesn’t have as much time as the two of us, so we save more vigorous hikes for when she has to get to work early. We have to coordinate ahead of time because I like having a CamelBak for it, which I otherwise leave at home. “Love it.”