When We Believed in Mermaids

by O'Neal, Barbara

  Which makes sense. Even the details of the bedroom and the multiple stab wounds suggest a jealous lover. And common wisdom says it’s always the spouse.

  The computer freezes suddenly, and no amount of fiddling brings it back up. Outside, the storm is taking on fury and power, and I retreat from the doors to the kitchen, where I find myself taking out a cloth bag full of feijoas, a couple of hands of ginger, and a bowl of lemons. I’ve collected a number of beautiful canning jars over the years, and tonight I dig for the Kilner Vintage jars, with their long lines that reflect the light. They’ll make my chutney look jeweled.

  The light is mellow over my counter. Settling on a stool with a cutting board and a wickedly sharp Japanese knife, I sense my ghosts crowd around me as I slice each lemon and feijoa with precise care. My father leans on the counter, smoking, a bourbon in his hand. Dylan sits on the floor in tattered jeans, his hand in the dog’s fur. Somewhere is a baby, but sometimes I see her and sometimes I don’t. Maybe she found life when Sarah was born; I don’t know.

  My dad rattles the ice in his glass, a big, sturdy man’s man with giant, capable hands and thick black hair on his arms. All his life he wore a gold watch his father had given him before he left Sicily, and he took it off when he cooked, slipping it into the pocket of his shirt. A strip of lighter skin where the watch rested never went away.

  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.

  I drank the daiquiri and started dancing. I can’t remember where Kit was. I can’t remember a lot about it, honestly, even when I try. For years, I thought I made parts of it up.

  Where did we go? Somewhere outside of the main restaurant. Someplace dark. And then he wasn’t as nice anymore. I remember being horrified that he had his penis in his hand, and then his hand was over my mouth, and he said, “If you tell anyone, I’ll cut Cinder’s throat.”

  So I did what he told me to. Let him do what he wanted, things I couldn’t stand to think about afterward. Sometimes I could hear my mother laughing not far away or a conversation that was perfectly ordinary. The music was always playing, covering the sounds he made. Mine were muffled.

  I never told a soul. For a whole summer, I held my breath.

  And by the time it was over, it was too late to tell anyone, even Dylan. I think he might have guessed, but by then I was dirty, as dirty as a person could get. I was so ashamed and filthy that I couldn’t bear to even think about it, much less confess it to anyone. Even Kit.

  When I think of it now, I want to go back in time and give that child tools. I wan
t to shake my oblivious parents, take a hammer to the man’s head.

  And I want that little girl to tell her sister, to confess to Kit the awful thing that had happened. Kit would have killed him. Killed him.

  He’s still on television sometimes, and you’d think he’d look dissipated, disgusting, but he was a beautiful young star then, and he’s matured into an objectively good-looking man. Sometimes I wonder how many other girls he—

  If I had stayed Josie, stayed in the US, I would accuse Billy. Take my place in the #metoo movement.

  Or not.

  I’ve never been particularly brave. Or good. Or wise.

  Or forgiving.

  The knot where Billy lives in my chest is cold and hard, but the surrounding tissue burns with hatred for my mother. I thought I’d overcome it, but as Sarah grows, I see so clearly how unprotected and vulnerable my mother allowed us to be, and I think, How could she have let that happen to me? What did she think would happen if two little girls were left to wander through the forest of adults always filling the patio of Eden? Adults who were drunk, at the bare minimum, or stoned, or coked up. My dad too, but he was in the kitchen all the time. My mother was always out, mingling.

  What did she think would happen?

  Near morning, the rain begins to taper off, turning into a gentle, soothing background. Simon snores softly, his big hand on my hip, anchoring me. Down the hall, my children are tucked safely into their beds. This is the family I wanted so desperately when I was a child, and I created it for myself. I’ve also transformed myself from a lost, drunken wanderer into a woman with purpose, a successful businessperson.

  I escaped. Escaped the woman I became after Billy. I took myself back, made myself over, became a woman I am proud of.

  And I would do it again. A thousand times, I would do it again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kit

  As the storm swirls, I make do with a bunch of apartment-size tools to make brownies. The act of stirring them, making the specific brownies I love so much, with an ancient recipe taken from the Hershey site, eases the anxious tension in my spine. Being so far from everyone and everything I’ve known, I feel unmoored, as if the storm could send me flying out into the atmosphere like Dorothy.

  Oh, Josie, I think, where the hell are you? I feel anxious now that I surfed instead of looking for her, that I avoided the journey. I feel exactly torn in half—I want to find her, but that’s going to mean facing a lot that I’ve buried for a long time.

  Do I even want to find her, really? Maybe it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie.

  Except that I have to admit my life is pretty sterile. Maybe finding Josie will help me make peace with everything, give me some space to—

  What?

  I don’t know. Change things.

  My brownies are ready, and I take them out of the oven, bending my head to inhale the chocolaty, sweet scent as I settle them on the counter to cool. Outside, the storm is working itself up into a fine frenzy, and inside my head, the frenzy is in my thoughts.

  When a knock sounds at my door, I practically fly across the room. It’s Javier, standing there with a bottle of wine and a box of food. “I was worried about you,” he says. “Can I come in?”

  “Yes please.” I take the bottle and the box, set them on the counter, and throw my arms around his waist. Leaning into his solid body. For a moment, I can tell he’s startled, and I wonder if I should pull away, but I’ve been feeling so lost and tortured and . . . young, that he feels like a life raft.

  After the slightest hesitation, his arms circle me. “Are you frightened?”

  “No,” I say. “Not of the storm.” I lift my head. “I didn’t want to be alone in it.”

  “Nor did I,” he murmurs, and kisses me, and then walks me backward toward my bed near the window. We fall down together and make love while the storm rages, the air smelling of chocolate and ozone.

  This time it’s different. I find myself slowing down, tasting him, breathing in the scent of his skin, looking at him more carefully. His stomach is slightly soft and very sensitive, and I spend time there, kissing and tasting. His thighs are sturdy, covered with the hair I tried not to look at when he wore slightly more.

  And he takes his time too, hands touching what his eyes see—my breasts and the sides of my ribs, my neck, which he kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses until I’m squirming and giggling, and then he captures my mouth and slides his fingers between my legs, and I have an almost instantaneous orgasm.

  Afterward, we lie sprawled and open to the night, covering nothing. It feels lush and intimate, and a ripple of warning moves through me.

  But there’s a built-in limit to this connection—we live on different continents and met on a third. That’s enough of a safeguard that I feel comfortable simply being myself.

  After a little while, we get up to make ourselves plates and pour wine into the goblets I find in a cupboard above the sink. It’s a little chilly, so we carry it all back to the bed and curl up with the covers over us, propped against the pillows. Outside, the storm rages. Inside, we eat.

  “Where did you get the tapas?” I ask, popping a roasted, salted pepper in my mouth.

  “La Olla, where I took you.”

  “Were you there?”

  “We rehearsed there, and when the cyclone blew in, they gave us all plates of food and sent us home.” He plucks an olive from his plate. “Miguel wanted me to come home with him.”

  I laugh, touching his foot with mine under the covers. “What did you tell him?”

  A shrug. “Only the truth. That I worried about you being alone here.” With his long fingers, he plucks out a roll of ham. “I told him that you were coming to hear me sing. And that you promised not to run away this time.”

  “Your holiday romance.”

  “Is that what you are?” He cocks his head, looking at me with those dark, dark eyes. In this light, I can see the scars of long-ago acne in the hollows of his cheeks and the network of lines time has woven at the corners of his eyes. For a moment I’m captured, falling into a cool and fragrant atmosphere that fills the air around us, binds us.

  But only until I straighten to shake it off. “How long are you staying in New Zealand?”

  “I don’t know.” He sets his plate aside and takes my free hand, opening the fingers that are slightly clenched. He smooths them flat, revealing the heart of my palm, and strokes the center lightly before he presses his against mine. It is somehow a thousand times more intimate than all the things we just did to each other. A hitch catches in my throat. “I think, mi sirenita, that there is more here than a fling.”

  I keep my gaze on our hands until he touches the tender area beneath my chin. I allow it, allow myself to feel the yearning, the sense of possibility. For one minute, or maybe two, or maybe as long as the storm lasts. Seeing my acquiescence, he smiles gently.

  “Tell me something you loved as a child.”

  “My sister,” I reply without hesitation. “We had our own little world, just the two of us—it was full of magic and beautiful things.”

  “Mm,” he says, moving his palm lightly over mine. “What magic?”

  “Mountain Dew was an actual magic elixir. Do you know Mountain Dew?”

  He nods.

  “There were kitchen fairies and mermaids who moved things around to make the grown-ups crazy.”

  “Sounds happy,” he says.

  “That part of it,” I agree.

  “And your sister, what was she like?”

  I take a breath. “Beautiful—not just pretty but really beautiful, with this amazing, bright light around her all the time. Everyone loved her, but none of them loved her as much as I did.”

  He brings the hand he smoothed up to his mouth, kisses my knuckles. “You must miss her so very much.”

  I nod and take my hand back on the pretext of wanting to eat. “Your turn. What did you love as a child?”

  “Books,” he says with a laugh. “I
loved to read more than anything. My father grew angry with me—‘Javier, you need to run! You need to play with the other boys. Go outside.’” He lifts a shoulder. “I only wanted to lie in the grass and think about other worlds, other places.”

  “What did you read?”

  “Whatever I could find—” He makes a psshting sound, sends his hand out in a gesture of circles through the air. “Adventure and mysteries and ghost stories. Whatever.”

  “You still love reading, don’t you?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I like to read. I just don’t like to work hard to read. I like books that take me away the same way television or the movies do.”

  “Like what?”

  I frown and then reach for my phone, where all the books are listed in my reader. Scrolling through it, I say, “Okay, in the past few months I’ve read two historical romances, a mystery by a woman I like because I can trust her not to get too dark, and a cooking memoir.”

  “Romance? Are you seeking love, gatita?”

  “No,” I say definitively. “Passion ruined my family’s lives. I make it a practice to avoid it.”

  “Love is not always destructive,” he says quietly, and slides a finger up my shin. “Sometimes love creates.”

  I’m unexpectedly caught by something in his voice, a promise I can barely see, shimmering faintly on the horizon, and that scares me enough to throw out a gauntlet. “Tell me a time that love didn’t destroy what it first created.” He is divorced, clearly not involved with anyone. “In your own life,” I add.

  He nods, stretching out sideways in front of me, close enough to touch my knee. I could press my palms to his shoulder, his head, but I don’t. I keep my arms crossed, one hand cradling the wine.

  “When I was seventeen, a girl came to our neighborhood. She had the shiniest hair I had ever seen, and pretty ankles, and I could not find my voice to talk to her, but one day we met at the library, in the very same row. She was looking for the very same book I was.”