When We Believed in Mermaids(76)

He laughs, spreads his hands in a what can I do gesture.

It makes me smile. “Thank you, Javier.”

He winks. “De nada.”



The restaurant is called Ima. It’s just starting to fill up, and we have seats in the back, tucked into a corner so we can sit at right angles in the booth. It smells so good, my mouth is watering. Javier asks for wine and bread, and the server brings a basket of bread with olive oil and a bottle of Pinot Noir.

Javier is engrossed in the menu, asking the server questions as she pours water for us both, and I can see that he’s familiar with the kind of food on the menu, which I am not. He orders a roast chicken and an array of vegetables for dinner, then something called brik for an appetizer. “A treat, I promise,” he says, handing the menus over. “Egg and preserved lemons and tuna in a pastry. So nice.”

“My father loved preserved lemons,” I say. “They’re not traditional Sicilian fare, but he spent some time in Morocco as a young man, and he loved them. He used them a lot in his dishes.”

“Do you remember any of them?”

I sip my wine. After several generous gulps, I’m feeling the magic on the back of my neck, down my spine. There is again space in my lungs for breath. “He made a roast chicken with olives and preserved lemons that was to die for. It was one of my very favorite things when I was a child.”

“Most children like blander food.”

“He didn’t believe in giving children different food from adults. We learned to like things very young.”

It’s his turn to pause. “Were there things you did not like?”

“Not really. Josie was pickier than I was. She didn’t like a lot of different kinds of fish. They used to fight about it.” Again, I’m back at Eden, a child trying to hold the center of a dramatic and intense family. “She’s called Mari now. With an I.” I repeat it. “Mari with an I.”

“Did you speak with her?”

I nod a bit stiffly and take another tiny sip of wine, suddenly aware that alcohol might not be my friend when I’m in such a state. “More than that. I found her. Saw her.” The moment comes back to me, visceral and more powerful than I’d anticipated. “Briefly. She’s done very well for herself—a mom, wife, entrepreneur. She just bought a big house that belonged to a famous movie star from the thirties.”

He nods.

“I tracked her to her neighborhood, and then by chance I ran into her on the promenade in Devonport.”

“Not by chance,” he says, and nudges the bread plate toward me.

“No, you’re right.” The moment of our meeting rushes back through me. “She looks so good! I expected something else. I don’t know what.” Dutifully, I dip bread into the dish of oil. “The last time I saw her, I was in med school. She just showed up one day, and she was . . . a mess. Like she hadn’t bathed, and her hair was greasy, and she looked like she’d been living on the streets, which I think she actually had. She wasn’t drunk, but she was desperate, and it broke my heart to see her like that, so I let her in.” I tear the bread and take a bite, remembering. “She stayed with me for a few weeks. I had an apartment, and she slept on the couch, and she made meals for me, which I appreciated so much I can’t even tell you. And then one day, I came home and everything was gone. Just gone.” I shake my head. “I still can’t believe she did that.” My throat is so dry, my voice rasps. “Stole everything.”

“Was she an addict?”

I nod. “I’m pretty sure she was an alcoholic by the time she was thirteen, and she was drinking long before that.” A wisp of horror crosses his face, and I wave my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s a sad, terrible story. I don’t know why I’m dumping it on you.”

“You are not ‘dumping.’” He covers my hand with his own. The weight of it eases the fluttery sensation along my nerves. “I’m here to listen.”

And really, I’m too tired to dissimulate. “When I was little, she was the star of my life. I mean, the very middle of everything. My best friend, my sister, my—” I halt.

“Your . . . ?”

“My soul mate,” I finish, and a welter of tears swells in my eyes. I have to swallow hard to control them. “Like we’ve known each other always.”

“In Spanish, we say alma gemela. Soul twin.”

The words sting the raw space of my heart. “Alma gemela,” I repeat.

“Good.”

“The thing is, my soul mate abandoned me, over and over again.” I shake my head. “After the earthquake, I was so lonely, it felt like a disease. Like something I could die of.”

“Ah, mi sirenita.” He picks up my hand, kisses my wrist, holds my palm against his heart. Quietly, he says, “People do. Die of it.”

It’s such a relief to spill this out, to feel the heat of his body close to mine, the solid strength of his hand. “I just don’t know what to think about any of this.”

“Perhaps,” he says gently, “it is time to stop thinking and feel.”

But the very idea makes me dizzy, because I am so very full of lava, simmering, simmering, beginning to boil. If I allow those feelings out, the spew will burn us all to pieces.