When We Believed in Mermaids(58)
I worshipped the very ground he walked upon when I was small. To be granted time in the kitchen with him, I would sweep floors, drag food scraps to the trash, anything. For a long time, he didn’t mind, propping me up on a stool or an overturned box, my body wrapped three times around with a bibbed apron, to teach me what he loved. Cooking. Olives and fresh mozzarella, which we made the old way; squid in its own ink; and simple fresh pastas.
It is because of my father that I slice with such exactitude. My chutneys and jams are perfection. I miss him. I miss Kit. I miss Dylan. Sometimes I even miss my mother.
When I fled France on a stolen passport, I knew only that I had to change my life. I didn’t stop to consider that I’d be lying forever, that I would be the only person who would know my secrets.
It’s so very lonely. Sarah will never know my real story or meet her aunt, never even know where I’m really from. I’ve told everyone I’m from British Columbia and learned to surf at Tofino, the only child of parents who died in a terrible car accident.
A splatter of rain slams into the window, and I jump a foot, the knife slashing a small cut on the top of my thumb. Sucking on it, I turn to go look for a Band-Aid, and Simon is coming into the room, his hair tousled because he never keeps his hands out of it. I smooth it down fondly with my free hand and notice he has circles under his eyes. “Are you feeling all right?”
He catches my hand, plants a kiss on my wrist, and drops it so he can open the fridge and grab a ginger beer. “Just some work troubles, love, nothing to worry yourself about.”
“Maybe you should go ahead and pat me on the head while you’re at the pretty-little-lady routine.”
He gives me a half smile. “I’d rather pat your ass,” he says, and does. Then he bends in and hooks his chin over my shoulder. “We’re having trouble with some of the instructors again, and a man had a heart attack and died last week whilst cycling. And it looks like parceling out the land around Sapphire House might be a right pain in the arse.”
I listen, feeling his cheek against my neck, his hair on my temple, and lift a hand to his face. “That’s a lot.”
“And my wife has been acting a bit weird lately.”
“Weird?”
“Preoccupied. Always thinking of something else.” He kisses my shoulder. “I’m afraid she’s having an affair.”
“What?” I whip around. “Is that what’s on your mind?”
His shoulders move very slightly. Yes/no. “You’ve been weird a lot.”
“Oh, Simon,” I whisper, and lean into him. My thumb is still bleeding, and I can’t go all the way to the medicine cabinet for a Band-Aid when he’s just revealed himself with such vulnerability. “Wait.” I swerve to the right and grab a cup towel, wrapping my thumb tightly so I can put my hands on him. Look into his eyes. With my free hand, I lightly trace the edge of that high, hard cheekbone, touch his wide, beautiful mouth. “I would never, ever cheat on you. Don’t you know that?”
His gray eyes search mine. “Most of the time.”
“I love you so much it’s like all the other men in the world are another species. Rats or sharks or something.”
He drops his head to my forehead. “Good. You’re the best thing in my life.”
I close my eyes and breathe in the moment, the scent of his skin and the feel of his big, solid body around me. The perfection of now. Feeling even more terror, more fear, a sense of impending, inescapable doom.
As if he senses it, he moves his hands gently on my sides. “Is something else the matter?”
A whirl of images moves over the screen of my eyelids—Dylan so battered after the accident, my mother dancing with a movie star on the patio, the photo of Kit on the internet with her cat on her shoulder. “Just ghosts,” I say, the most truthful thing I can come up with.
And because he thinks my parents died in a car accident and I fled from the reality in my grief, he accepts it. Another lie stacked atop the others. So many of them.
“Let’s make popcorn and find a movie to watch with the kids,” I say.
“What about the marmalade?”
“I know where to get more feijoas.”
But even after a movie with my family curled around me and slow, lovely sex with Simon after, I am haunted. Lying on my side in my bed, with the whole house asleep around me, I listen to the storm and let it all come back to me, all the things I ran away from, all the things that haunt me no matter how much time has passed or how much geography I put between us.
That summer I was nine, I had an admirer. Billy was the star of a family show on television. He came to Eden often, bringing one girl after another. My mother had a crush on him and loved dancing with him, but I knew early that he liked me best. He brought me presents—Chupa Chups lollipops and Nerds, a pretty pair of socks. Sometimes he brought things for both Kit and me, like two kites shaped like fish he brought back from Japan and coloring books and big boxes of crayons. Dylan hated the guy, but my parents teased him that he was jealous of the only boy prettier than himself, and he sulked silently after that.
He kept watch, however. Over Kit and me, over Billy.
Until he didn’t. I don’t know how long he was in Mexico.
Long enough.
Billy was so slick. One night he ordered a strawberry daiquiri and drank some of it, then offered me the rest. Everybody was dancing to some kind of hard rock band, and the mood was loud, intense, crazy. My mom was kind of out of it, laughing really loudly, and I knew she was mad at my dad.