“I don’t drink beer anymore,” said his mother.
“Oh, you’ll want a beer,” Grandpa said, stopping at the kitchen.
Her face a mask of helplessness, Diana looked from her father to her son. “All right. One, if you insist.”
“I’ll get them.” AJ opened the fridge and stacked three bottles in his arm as Grandpa slid open the patio door. His mother stepped outside and sat on the glider, and Grandpa sat beside her. AJ handed each a beer, then eased into the chair.
She cracked it open, sipped and set it on the table. “I’m ready any time.” Her back straight, she looked from her son to her father.
“It was over a girl.” AJ glanced at Grandpa, who looked nervously at AJ. “A mermaid.”
His mother listened attentively. “Oh, AJ, not a girl again. When are you going to learn?”
Frustration roiled within him. “This was different, Mom. Didn’t you hear what I said?”
She nodded and rolled her eyes. “OK, so she was one of the girls you both worked with?”
AJ said steadily, “No. She’s a mermaid.”
She knit her brow. “A mermaid from some other show? I thought Weeki Wachee had the only mermaids in the world.” She gave a little laugh.
Grandpa shuffled his feet.“Weeki Wachee has the only girls performing as mermaids. What AJ is trying to tell you is slightly different.”
His mom lifted her hands. “That she’s a mermaid from…” She prompted, waiting for them to fill in the blank.
AJ pushed himself straighter in his seat. “She is a mermaid.”
She tilted the beer to her lips and nodded as she swallowed. “A mermaid. From deep below the ocean, I suppose.”
AJ pressed his lips together and waited for her own words to sink in.
Grandpa cleared his throat and looked toward the sea.
Diana’s mouth opened in surprise, then she smiled. “OK. You’ve had your fun. What’s the real story? You got caught with this guy’s girlfriend, and surprise, the guy took it out on you a little harder than the last few?”
AJ shook his head slowly. “She’s an honest-to-God mermaid. Chime in any time here, Grandpa.” It would take a unified front for her to accept this. And possibly something stronger than beer.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She turned to her dad. “Are you involved somehow?”
Grandpa sat, chest puffed out, as if ready to explode. He looked from her to the table, where a wooden mermaid laid half-submerged in the block of wood.
AJ eased forward. “We all have a part in this story, Mom. Tell her,” he urged his grandfather.
With a grunt, Grandpa brought a hand to his mouth and sat back, looking out toward the Gulf. “What do you remember about your mother, Diana?”
Confusion roiled over her face. “Mom? What does she have to do with anything?”
AJ felt a sting of pity for his mother. She should have known the truth long ago.
AJ picked up the carving that sat on the table between them. “Everything.”
His mom stuttered, “I… don’t understand.”
“You don’t remember Grandpa’s boat?” he prompted. “Him bringing you to the beach after Grandma disappeared?”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips in a hard line. “Wait a minute.” She leveled her gaze at AJ, then her father. “I’m sorry if I’m a little slow, but will you please stop throwing me these ridiculous vague clues and just tell me whatever it is you’re trying to tell me?”
AJ was ready to jump in if his grandfather didn’t cut loose.
Grandpa squared his shoulders and faced his daughter. “Your mother’s a mermaid, Diana. I should have told you long ago. But you were so young… I knew you’d never understand. Then it seemed better for you to believe she had died.”
She shot out of her seat. “Mom’s not dead?” She paced, hands at her temples. “And what the hell do you mean, she’s a mermaid? Are you insane?”
The frantic look on her face pained AJ.
Grandpa looked tortured, too, but continued. “All I know is she left me when you were five years old. I don’t know for certain she’s still alive. I can only assume.”
Her voice rose barely above a whisper. Her lower lip trembled as a haunted look came into her eyes. “She abandoned me?” Rubbing her arms, she paced.
Grandpa could barely look at her. “It killed her to leave us, but she thought I’d cheated on her.”
She whirled to face him. “Did you?” The question was more an accusation.
Grandpa straightened. “No, of course not. I loved your mother more than anything. I’d have gone to live in her world, if she’d asked. But she wanted to live with me in mine.”
“I’m supposed to believe my mother came from the ocean? And went back to it?” She shook her head with a laugh, her eyes wide as she looked from her father to her son. “You two have been spending too much time together.”
“It’s the truth,” AJ said.
“The truth. Mom was a mermaid.” Her hands covered her face. She looked toward the sound of the waves. “If AJ hadn’t been shot–hadn’t come here…” She turned to face her father. “…would you ever have told me the truth?”
Grandpa’s bottom lip stiffened. He couldn’t answer what he didn’t know.
AJ pushed himself unsteadily from the chair. “The important thing is, you know now. And there might be a way to contact her.”
His mom’s eyes widened as she looked from AJ to Grandpa.
His grandfather held up a hand. “No, no, no. Don’t even suggest something like that.”
AJ seized the opportunity. “That’s why I have to go to the beach. To find her. She could find Grandma. Tell her the truth.”
“It’s impossible,” Grandpa insisted.
AJ wondered whether the fear in his grandfather’s eyes came from the fear he’d have to see her again. Lose her all over again.
“No, don’t you see? I’ll go talk with Cassiopeia, she can go find Grandma. Ask her to come and talk to us. To me, if she won’t talk to you. Or to mom. She’d come talk to Mom. You know she would.”
His mom looked from AJ to Grandpa, disbelieving. “I feel like I’m hallucinating or something. Or maybe you two are.”
“I said contacting her is impossible.” When AJ began to argue, Grandpa blurted, “I already went to speak with Cassiopeia.”
AJ sat speechless. His mom listened silently.
Agitated, Grandpa continued. “The night after you were taken to the hospital. I pretended to be a fisherman, out on the rocks. She recognized me.”
Something wild fluttered in AJ’s chest. “I told you she was smart. What did she say? Did you tell her I’d come find her?”
“No.” Grandpa picked up his beer. “I told her to go back to her own kind and stay there.” He emptied the can.
Stunned, AJ could only stand and listen. All the feelings he had for his grandfather drained away. All AJ saw sitting there before him was a pitiful old man.
Stepping toward her father, his mother spoke for AJ. “How could you? You had no right.”
Grandpa fixed his gaze on her. “It’s for his own good. He belongs to this world. She belongs to another world. Am I not proof such relationships cannot work?”
AJ blinked back tears, incredulous. “You can’t put that on me. Just because it didn’t work for you, that means nothing. Cassie loves me. And I love her.”
Steady as a rudder, Grandpa looked at AJ. “Love is not enough. It would never work.”
AJ clenched his jaw. “Is this how we become a family again, Grandpa? Based on what you believe and nothing else?”
Grandpa set the beer down hard on the table. “AJ, it cannot—”
“You’re pathetic. Don’t speak to me.” He threw himself at the patio door and slid it open.
“AJ?” His mother called, and followed him inside.
“Leave me alone.” AJ thrust open the front door, then slammed it shut behind him.
The night carried a br
eeze from the ocean. He walked toward it. The sea was partly his home too. Or had the old man conveniently forgotten that?
Tears blurred his sight. AJ wiped angrily at his cheek and headed for the beach. The sand slowed his pace, made his side ache like hell, but he pressed on until he reached the rocks, which tripped up his feet. His balance wasn’t so great yet. Or his strength. He moved himself by sheer force of will.
He stumbled to the end, where the sea was calm. A crescent moon rose above the horizon.
How could he tell her to go away? Grandpa wrecked everything. The old sonofabitch.
AJ let out a long, anguished scream. His side split with pain.
He didn’t care. He’d stand here all night if it brought her to him. Taking as much air in his lungs as he could stand, he yelled as loud as he could. “Cassiopeia…”
The waves rolled to shore, one after the other. Somewhere deep beneath them, Cassiopeia lived.
And his grandmother. One-quarter merman, Grandpa had said. If he were to sink beneath the surface, what would happen? Would some innate instinct kick in, and draw him to her?
He dropped to his knees and peered into the cold waves lapping at the rocks, deepening into murky depths.
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d drown. Of course he’d drown.
He fell back on the rocks and laughed, holding his side. The stars shone through a haze.
“AJ?” a woman called.
He froze until he heard it again. The voice sounded wrong. And coming from shore, not the ocean.
“AJ, are you all right?” Footsteps. Definitely wrong.
He held a hand to his forehead. “Oh, yeah, Mom. I’m great. Absolutely great.”
The rocks clattered as she walked nearer. “What are you doing lying down? You frightened me.”
“Nothing. Looking at the stars.” And puncturing a kidney on these damn rocks.
She stood over him. “Come home. Talk to your grandfather.”
His grandfather. He never wanted to see him again. “No. He ruined my life. He sent away the one girl I ever loved.”
His mom crouched beside him. “He only wanted to protect you. He doesn’t want you to go through what he went through.” She said it as if not quite convinced herself.
Anger surged through AJ. He struggled to sit up. “That’s not his decision. It’s mine. And Cassiopeia’s. But she can’t make that decision, either, now, can she? He told her to get lost.”
His mother sat next to him. “Think of what it’s been like for Dad all these years. Mom left when I was five. He’s been lonely and miserable ever since.”
“That’s his problem. He should have tried harder to get her back.”
She sighed. “He did. I remember him going out on the boat night after night. He thinks I was too young to understand, but I knew Mom left. And I was afraid he was going to leave too. Later when I asked him where Mom was, he said she was gone. He’d tell me she would come back. But she didn’t. I guess he finally gave up. That’s when he told me she was dead. He thought I was too young to know the difference. But I knew she wasn’t, really.”
An image of his mom as a little girl came into his head. A sad little girl, waiting for her own mother, who never came. “That must have been hard.”
“Yes. I think that’s why all my relationships have been so screwed up. I could never trust anyone. Couldn’t trust myself… not to be like my own mother and disappear.” Rather than self-pitying, her tone sounded resolute. She’d come to peace with it.
Her complacence made AJ angrier. “So you should hate him for lying to you. Why are you so Zen about all this?”
“Zen? This has been the most bizarre night of my life.” She looked out over the sea, the breeze blowing her hair. “Though in some ways, things make more sense now.”
He rolled a stone in his hand. “Like what?”
“I used to see things in the water. Shapes, shadows. They felt familiar, but not. No one else seemed to see them, so I never said anything. But I had the feeling they were watching.”
Wow. On some level, she sensed the presence of the mers.
She searched AJ’s face. “I feel sorry for him. Maybe I should hate her, not him. She’s the one who left. He stayed and took care of me. Tried to protect me.” She grasped his knee. “The same way he’s trying to protect you.”
AJ didn’t flinch away from her touch. He realized, then, why his mom hadn’t stayed with any guys.
She went on. “And for the first time in a long time, I am truly happy, AJ. I’m in love.” She sounded so wistful. So syrupy sweet.
A breath burst from him in a laugh. AJ didn’t doubt she meant it, at this moment. But he couldn’t help but wonder whether next month, or six months from now, she’d hate the guy as much as she loved him.
In a fervent tone, she continued, as if she knew what he was thinking. “It’s different this time, AJ. I know it’s going to work. You’ll see.”
AJ took a deep breath. No point in arguing. “So what’s his name, anyway?”
“Mike. Mike Miller.” The pride in her tone was new. She’d always been reluctant to tell him anything about the guys she dated.
AJ chuckled, and tossed a pebble into the water. “Sounds pretty vanilla.”
She laughed. “He is. He’s ordinary, and wonderful.”
“Not an artist or a guru?” he teased.
“A financial advisor at a bank.” She hugged her knees.
“Wow. That is a switch.” Sounds like he might have even held a job longer than a year.
“Yes, a good one.” The guy’s stability seemed to have rubbed off on her.
AJ picked up another pebble to toss, but held it, ran his finger along its smooth edges. “I’m glad you’re happy.” At least one of them had a shot at it.
Her eyes sparkled in the dim light. “You will be, too, honey. I know it.”
AJ couldn’t answer. If only he shared her confidence. His life had taken so many twists and turns lately, to guess where it might head next would be impossible.
She scanned the horizon, then the beach. “Wow, this is really beautiful here. It would be perfect for the wedding.”
“It’s where I met her.” AJ couldn’t help looking for her here, expecting to see her rise from the water like an angel.
His mom shifted on the rock. “Oh, well...”
He leaned back, surveying their surroundings. “You should get married here.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“No. In a way, it would make me feel like she was part of it.”
“Thank you, AJ.” Her tone sounded heartfelt. “Come on. Let’s go back.” She rose and extended a hand to him.
With a sigh that evolved to a groan, he pushed himself up, finally giving in to grasp her hand. Before letting go, she squeezed. Her hand felt stronger in his. Like someone he could count on, finally.
She wrapped her sweater tighter and walked to shore. He stared out over the dark sea undulating in the night. He tried to pinpoint the spot where Cassie had taken him that night, to dance for him in the open sea. It was impossible. Like it never even happened.
His mom stopped to wait. “AJ?”
He turned and made his way to his mom, who linked her arm through his as they walked.
Chapter Thirty-One
The house appeared still and dark when his mom pushed open the door. “He’s probably asleep,” she whispered, shutting the door with a slow click after AJ stepped inside.
From the sofa, Grandpa said, “No, but I’m trying to.”
Diana went to the kitchen and switched on the light. Her father wrenched his arm to cover his eyes.
“What are you doing on the sofa?” she asked.
He sat up with a grunt. “You need a bed. AJ can’t very well sleep out here, so I am.”
Diana crossed her arms. “Dad, I can’t let you do that.”
AJ touched her back and shook his head. No use arguing with the old man.
Grandpa furrowed his brows. “Where hav
e you been?” Worry showed in his face.
His mom walked to the sofa and sat on the end. “At the beach. Talking.” She looked at AJ, a prompt for him to jump in any time. He went to the fridge and poured some milk.
Grandpa rubbed his head.
“We were talking,” his mom continued, pointedly, “about how much our family means to each of us.”
AJ leaned against the fridge. Grandpa cleared his throat loudly.
His mom widened her eyes and jerked her head, urging AJ to sit with them.
He sipped his milk.
With a look of determination, she went on. “For instance, Dad, I told AJ how proud you were of him. How much you loved him.”
Grandpa grunted, a distant look in his eyes.
Undaunted, she continued. “And AJ said how grateful he was to you, and how much he loved you too.”
AJ choked back his milk. Now she was putting words in his mouth.
His mother shot him a look, then turned to her father. “Dad, is there something you wanted to say to AJ?”
“Mom, we’re not in kindergarten.” AJ set his glass in the sink.
Her tone pleasant, she said, “Then stop acting as if you are.”
AJ clenched his teeth. “Grandpa has nothing to say.” It would take an act of divine intervention for the old man to admit any wrongdoing.
“You’re wrong.” Grandpa’s booming voice startled AJ, though he aimed it at the television, not looking at AJ. In an even tone, he spoke slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “I would like to apologize for interfering. It’s your life, AJ. I can’t make your choices for you.”
The night held many surprises. This was a big one. AJ started to speak, but it came out garbled, the only clear word being, “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, appreciate all you’ve done for me.” He’d never put himself out there like this. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he thought. It felt kind of good, actually, to bare his soul even so sparsely.
Grandpa glanced up and gave a nod.
His mom’s smile appeared to be one of satisfaction. “Well.” She stood, leaned over and kissed her father’s forehead. “I’ll say good night.” She walked to AJ, kissed his cheek, then went to Grandpa’s room.
Surfacing Page 15