Anne Brown: Deep Betrayal

“And since I haven’t seen any sign of … him … Don’t look at me like that, you know who I mean. I don’t think we’ll have any more—”

“Dad, this isn’t about begging to come home, although I’m really glad you want me to. Really. But what I want to talk about … well, it is kind of related to that.”

“Related to what?”

“Home. I know you haven’t been feeling yourself lately.”

He looked at me intently then.

“And I think I know why.” I waited for him to give me permission to go on. He didn’t say anything more, though, so I faltered. “Um … so yeah. Well … Maybe I should tell you a story.”

Dad ran his fingers through his hair. “Is this about what happened last month? Because I don’t—”

“Sure, Dad. But that’s where the story ends. It’s not the beginning.”

I watched the replay of last month’s events in his eyes, the panic of seeing me in the water, the terror of seeing the monster his dad had warned him about, the uncertainty of not knowing what to do. “Do I want to hear this?” he asked.

“I’m hoping you already know what I’m going to tell you.”

He shook his head and started to stand up. “Your mother needs some help packing. We want to leave by five.”

I caught his hand when he was halfway up. “Sit down, Dad. This is important. You need to hear this before you leave.”

He collapsed with a sigh into his chair and ran his finger up and down one of the grooves in the white plastic table. “Fine, Lily. You talk. But I can’t promise to listen.”

I pulled my chair up to his, bringing our knees together. The skin on his hands was dry and cracked. I rubbed my finger over my own knuckles a few times, looking for the words to start. “Okay, so, once upon a time …”

He raised his eyebrows, and I looked into his eyes. How many times had this situation been reversed? Him reading me a bedtime story that began exactly this way. My story wasn’t starting the way he expected.

“There was a woman named Nadia. She lived on Lake Superior, or I should say, she lived in the lake.”

His lips tightened in response.

“Dad, remember that story Jack told us around the campfire? The one about the mermaids who walked around like regular people?”

“That’s just a story, Lily.”

“That was Nadia,” I said. “Nadia had children. Three daughters. And a son.”

Dad closed his eyes and sighed in resignation. “You’re right, Lily. I do know what you’re telling me. I saw it. And him. That boy. That … thing . Calder.” He said his name like a curse. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Calder is this Nadia’s son?” He shook his head to clear the impossible image of the mermaids from his memory.

“No, Dad. Not Calder. You . You are Nadia’s son.”

The words hung there. In the air. Hovering. Like a soap bubble waiting to pop.

“No,” he said.

“Dad, just listen to what I’m—”

“No,” he said again. This time louder. He nearly growled. “I know who my mother was.”

I nodded and bowed my head. I’d always known Grandma would be the biggest obstacle to making him believe. “Dad, I don’t know what Grandpa told Grandma, but after what you saw last month, you have to realize that Grandpa wasn’t crazy after all. He kept the truth a secret from you because he must have thought he was protecting you.”

Dad pressed his fists against his forehead. “You’re being preposterous.”

I could tell it was just as Calder had predicted: Not believing and not wanting to believe were two different things, and in that moment they were battling to the death in my dad’s head.

For a second, I wished I’d taken Calder’s advice. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Dad. He’d gone all this time not knowing and things had been fine. Well, maybe not fine, but he’d managed. Still, I couldn’t shake the thought of him giving in to temptation, jumping into the lake, the full transformation happening without any warning or explanation.

A family with three shrieking children arrived at the pool. The oldest did a cannonball, drenching his dad, who shook the water from his magazine.

I pressed on. “The way I understand it, Grandpa was supposed to give you back to Nadia when you turned one, but he refused.”

“Stop it, Lily,” Dad said.

“Think about it. He kept you from the water. He refused to ever go back to the lake. Didn’t you yourself say that you always felt the pull?”

Dad stood up fast, and his chair toppled over behind him. “I’ve been losing my mind. You have no idea what I’ve been suffering.”

He was pacing now. “You have no idea. I’ve been insane with worry, thinking I’m going crazy just like him. Seeing mermaids. My God, what next? And what about your mother? If I lose it, how am I supposed to take care of her? How can I take care of her when I’m falling apart?”

I glanced over at the other father at the pool and caught him watching us. He quickly looked away and turned back to his magazine.

“Dad, sit.”

“Gah!” He righted his chair and sat down, his head dropping to his chest. His face, pale with exhaustion. “What am I supposed to tell your mother?”

“Nothing! Don’t tell her a thing. She couldn’t handle this.”

The next time he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “Why is it so much worse for me now?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. I turned around, hoping Calder would come help—he had to be able to hear everything being said—but the landscaped shrubs surrounding the pool were too thick for me to see him. “I have a theory.”

“What?”

“When you jumped in after me that day. That day you saw the mermaid. And Calder. You started to change. I saw the first sign. A silver ring. Right there.” I touched my finger gingerly to his throat. “But you didn’t make the full transformation. I think your body has tasted a bit of it. You’re craving the water. Your body wants it.”

“It’s always been like that. It’s only worse now.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Again, the doubt weighed down on me, crushing me. “The mermaid, Dad. The one Jack shot? She washed up onshore. If Calder’s other sisters find out she’s dead, he thinks they’ll come after you.”

“Me? Why—? Wait, have you been in contact with that … that …? You know I told you to—”

“Calm down, Dad. Focus on what’s important here.” I launched into the rest of the story: How Nadia had grieved for him after he was taken from her. How she suffered when he didn’t return. How she died. How Maris and Pavati blamed him for her death.

“I was a baby!” he protested.

I went on to explain how Calder had come to join the mermaid family and how my attempt to save my family had all gone terribly wrong, though Dad had been there for that part.

“You’re saying that … that was my sister in the water with you,” he said, slowly accepting the truth. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill her.”

“No,” I said. “But Maris and Pavati don’t know the truth, and they won’t believe Calder if he tells them.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a longer story, Dad.”

He stared straight ahead at the motel swimming pool, and I could guess where his thoughts were going.

Dad opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again and asked, “If I dove into that pool, would I turn into a mermaid?”

“Mer man ,” Calder said, coming up behind me.

I spun around in my chair.

“And you don’t want to do that in chlorine. It’s a nasty business.”

“You!” Dad exclaimed, rising from his chair. He recoiled in disgust, and a vein popped down the center of his forehead. “What are you doing here?” Dad threw out an arm as if to shield me from Calder, and the other father at the pool gathered his children closer to his lounge chair.