Anne Brown - Promise Bound

She looked at the phone for a second longer, then took it from me. “You really think Pavati has a baby?”

“Let’s just be prepared, okay? If she does, she’s going to want to hand it off as soon as she gets here.”

“So much for motherly affection,” Lily muttered.

“It’s not that.” I didn’t bother to explain. Lily had never experienced the normal desolation of the mermaid mind or the incessant need to medicate with human emotion. Whether that was because of her Half nature, or because I was the balm to her that she was to me, I didn’t know. It didn’t really matter. I was only too grateful for her immunity, and I hated to bring up anything that might make her think of it, like how a landlocked baby would interfere with Pavati’s hunting schedule.

“Whatever,” Lily said. She slid open her phone and hit Daniel Catron’s number on speed dial. When he picked up, Lily switched to speaker (though I could have heard him clearly enough without it), and laid the phone on the kitchen counter.

“She’s back?” Daniel asked, not even bothering with hello.

“Just about,” Lily said. “You need to be at the pier by noon.”

There were a few beats of silence, then Daniel whispered, “You’ve got to help me. My God, what was I thinking?”

Lily looked at me with an expression of restrained exasperation, then said, “Danny, you told me you had a plan. You said you had this all figured out. For crying out loud, you’ve had over ten months .”

Of course the kid had no plan. Give him another ten months and he’d still have nothing. Hey, Mom and Dad. Yeah, I know I’m only nineteen, but I thought it would be a good résumé builder to raise my mermaid child for a year. I hear college admissions boards are always looking for unique extracurricular activities .… I didn’t know who’d thought this through less: Daniel or Pavati. I could only imagine the conversation between my sisters in the car ride up, especially with a wailing infant in the backseat. Maris had to be loving that.

I pulled myself up onto the kitchen counter and turned on the faucet. The warm water calmed my mind as I ran my hand through it.

“Of course I have a plan,” I heard Daniel say. “It’s just that the time went quicker than I thought it would. No one in Cornucopia even knows I have a girlfriend.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend,” Lily said. “I’m telling you, keep it up with the girlfriend talk and you’re going to end up dead, just like Jack Pettit. In fact, if Pavati doesn’t take you down, I might. So knock it off.”

There was another prolonged moment of silence on the other end. Although Daniel had once prematurely assumed Lily was a mermaid, he was now fully informed when it came to the Hancock family. I knew Lily was bluffing when she talked about murder, but Daniel had every reason to take her at her word. She was strong, and he knew she could do enough damage to make her point.

Daniel whispered, “I haven’t said anything to anyone.”

I butted into the conversation, speaking only to Lily but loud enough for Daniel to hear. “Tell him he should have thought about the consequences before he took off with Pavati.”

Lily waved at me to shut up.

Daniel groaned. “How was I supposed to say no to her? You can’t imagine how amaz—”

“Spare me the gruesome details!” I yelled, and Lily rolled her eyes. She’d heard Daniel’s account of his mermaid hookup at least a dozen times. She agreed with me that Daniel Catron had been a supreme idiot, but she assured me it was only a symptom of Pavati-itis, and that he hadn’t always been so dense.

I was going to need more convincing. As it stood, I gave Daniel three months. By that time, I was pretty sure he’d either stick the baby with us, or he’d go in search of Pavati. And even an idiot knew how that would work out.

“Be at the fishing pier in fifteen minutes,” Lily said again. “You are coming, right?”

There was silence on the other end. I mouthed his unspoken answer to Lily: Nope .

She scooped up my car keys from the kitchen counter and tossed them to me, saying, “You better be there, Daniel Catron, or so help me.” Then she hung up. He would be a fool not to show.

But just as I expected, when Lily and I got to the fishing pier, there was no sign of Daniel. The adjacent playground was abandoned, save for one mother and her toddler, who was climbing a pink and blue dragon made out of old semitruck tires. We walked to the pier and took our places alongside the splintered rail, leaning against it, smelling the fresh clarity of springtime in the air. We all needed a new beginning.

I took Lily’s hand and absentmindedly rubbed my thumb over her ring finger. If she’d only be convinced to set up a new home, with me, somewhere else, far away … Lily squeezed my hand, and for a second, I had an unfamiliar flash of optimism.

But then she fidgeted and worry darkened the small bit of human light that still radiated from her body. I was thankful for even that glimmer of her humanity. I clung to it as it clung to her.

“He’ll come,” I said, hoping my reassurance would refresh her aura to its former raspberry glow.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Twelve oh two.”

She turned away from me and walked to the swing set, taking a seat in one of the black rubber slings. She hung there, barely swaying, picking at a loose thread on her leg warmers.

“Do you think this is going to work out?” she asked as I came up behind her.

“Are you asking me if I think Daniel Catron can raise a baby for a year, or are you asking me if I think there will be a problem at the end of the year?”

“Both.”

I sat down on the ground in front of her swing and picked up a handful of wood chips. “From what I know of Daniel Catron, he wants Pavati. Nothing more. I’m more concerned about him not showing up than I am about him not giving the baby back next spring. When Tom Hancock … when your grandfather refused to return your dad, that was unheard of. At least, I should say Mother never expected it. Daniel seems like the least likely candidate to … well … shall we call it ‘pull a Hancock’?”

“What time is it now?” she asked.

Before I could answer, a blue VW Bug wheeled into one of the many empty parking spots, and Daniel jumped out, slamming the door behind him. “I don’t even have a car seat,” he moaned. “I think I’m supposed to have one of those.”

“Would you settle down?” I said, chucking a wood chip in his direction. “Just tell people you found the baby on the side of the road. No one will expect you to have the necessary baby equipment.”

Daniel’s face brightened at my suggestion.

“He’s kidding,” Lily said.

“No, I’m not.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “If Danny says he found a baby on the side of the road, someone’s going to call social services. That’s not exactly ideal.”

“Can’t I just keep the baby at your house?” Daniel asked Lily.

Lily paled. “First of all, I’m not going to do anything with the baby. This is all on you. Second of all, what about my mom?”

“ Your mom at least has a clue about all of this mermaid stuff,” Danny said.

“No way. My mom is in no shape to be raising a baby.”

“Think of it as babysitting,” Daniel pressed.

“At seven dollars an hour? For a year?” Lily whipped out her phone and did the calculation. “That’s … sixty-one thousand three hundred twenty dollars. Cough it up. I get paid in advance.”

“Be serious,” Daniel said.

“I couldn’t be more serious,” Lily said. “I’m eighteen. If I wanted a baby, I could get married and have one of my own.”