When We Believed in Mermaids(29)

“My mom used to bring me here.”

“You have a mom?”

He shook his head. “She died.”

Kit asked, “How old were you?”

“Eight,” he said.

I peered up at him, intrigued by this new information. “Do you miss her?”

He was quiet for a long time. “That’s a hard question. Sometimes she was okay, but most of the time she wasn’t. I liked coming to Chinatown, though. We came at Christmas almost every year.”

“Really?” I tested this, weighing the idea of Christmas dinner as prepared by my father against the lure of something so exotic. “Did you like it?”

He gave me his sideways smile, the one that made his eyes twinkle. “I did, Grasshopper.”

We walked for a while, peering in crowded windows and dodging foot traffic. In the alleyways, people chattered in a language that sounded like music to me, up and down. A woman in red pajamas walked by and smiled, dipping her head at Dylan.

I was enchanted.

Dylan led us to a restaurant tucked at the edge of an alleyway. Inside, it was bright and clean, and a waiter waved us to a table by the window, where we sat down and looked out at the street. Dylan conferred with the waiter while Kit stared out the window and I tried to catalog all the things I could see by just turning my head. Chinese letters looking like houses or snowmen or little people, paintings of houses and fields on the wall. A shelf with red teapots.

Kit simply looked out the window, not even swinging her feet as she ordinarily did. Looking at her made me feel hollow, made me flash on the mess back in the living room, so I peered toward the back of the room to a window cutout that showed two heads in the kitchen.

“We’re going to have dim sum,” Dylan said. “And then a lot of sweets.”

Kit looked at him but only nodded.

He pulled her chair close to his and put his arms around her, pulling her head into his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”

Jealousy ripped through me like a lightning bolt. Why did she always get the attention? I stared at them, seeing the mess in the living room, the broken glass, and my fingers tingled with a need to smash something. My ears burned at the tips, and a wild rage traveled through my throat, into my mouth, and I was about to open my lips and scream when Kit burst into tears.

“Our stockings!” she cried, and sobbed.

Dylan held her closer, his hand smoothing her hair, murmuring soft words. “I know; I’m sorry; it’s okay; go ahead and cry, Kitten.”

I slid out of my chair and rounded the table so that I could wrap my body on the other side of my little sister. She was crying so hard that her body rocked, and I bent into her, my belly against her side, and breathed into her hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll get you a stocking, a better one.”

She cried until the waiter brought our tea, when Dylan said, “Hey, Kitten, look at this. It’s chrysanthemum tea. It’s made with flowers.”

“Really?” She lifted her head, wiping her tears away almost angrily. I gave her a napkin, and she leaned into me for a minute, then took a breath.

Steady. Calm now.

Released, I drifted back around to my place, feeling lost and achy for no reason until Dylan reached over and squeezed my arm. “You’re such a good big sister.”

A little of the ache eased. “Thanks.”

“I’m gonna wash my face,” Kit said, tossing her wild hair out of her face.

Dylan poured tea into my tiny cup. “It’s good for calming,” he said.

“I’m not upset.”

He nodded. “Good.” He poured tea for himself, then reached into his coat pocket and brought out a package and placed it in front of me. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yours is at home!” I cried, but my heart swelled anyway. “Can I open it?”

“Wait for Kit.” He placed another package, a bigger one, beside her place.

I eyed the bigger box, wondering if I should be jealous, but I decided not to be. When Kit came back, we both tore them open. Hers was a Rubik’s Cube, which I would never have wanted anyway.

Mine was a pair of delicate turquoise earrings for pierced ears, which mine were not. I held them up with a question on my face.

“Your mom said you can get your ears pierced over Christmas vacation.”

“What? Really?”

“Yep. She might want to take you, but if she doesn’t, I will.”

“What about me?” Kit asked. “I want pierced ears too.”

“When you’re twelve,” he said. “Your sister is older, and she gets privileges you don’t have yet.”

I sat up straighter and held the earrings to my ears. “What do you guys think?”

Kit nodded. “Beautiful.”

“Just right,” Dylan said, and I basked in the aquamarine focus of his gaze.



The memory runs down my spine as I look at my mother now in her photographs on Facebook.

I needed her. Every girl needs a mother who protects her with a savage fury. Mine didn’t even meow in my direction.

On her page, however, I find photos of Kit. Today there is nothing new, just the same ones I’ve seen before. Kit in her scrubs, pale green, in the ER. Kit with a black cat who sits on her shoulder.

A doctor who surfs. Who doesn’t seem to have a husband or family, because my mom would have posted those pictures. It makes me sad for Kit that she’s so alone, and I wonder how much blame I bear for that.

I’ve given up guilt over the things I did, the losses I caused. Guilt wants erasing in a big bottle of ice-cold vodka. Regret asks for amends, and I wish I could offer them. I wish Kit could see me now, healed and whole. Would she love me again? Or would she still give me that expression of resignation that became so familiar toward the end?

The rain has stopped, leaving behind a stillness that echoes. These are the times I want to drink and smoke, when all my demons come crawling out of the closets and drawers to taunt me with my past sins. There are so many of them.

So many. The chambers of my heart feel shredded as I sit in the dark, staring at my lost sister’s face. I miss her so damn much.

And by the end, I’m sure she hated me for all the ways I let her down. Stole from her, because I was hungry. Stayed away too much even though I knew she was practically dying of loneliness. So was I, but the only thing I knew then was that I had to stomp down the pain. I had sex with everything that moved, drugged myself into numbness. It was the only way. I couldn’t bear to tell her everything that had happened, the things that were out of my control and the things that were not.

The things I would change if I could.

But even if you’re suffering, you don’t get to do whatever you want, and even if I could make amends, even if we were living side by side, how could I?

A well of pain opens in my chest and spills into my gut. Beyond the windows, the water is restless, catching flashes of light, rumbling with intent.

I close the computer. Wallowing is not just a bad idea; it’s dangerous. I made my choices, and I have to live with them.



In the morning, while I’m getting dressed, Simon inclines his head. “Will you wear the turquoise I bought a few weeks ago?”

I don’t think much of it. He likes dressing me, in the best possible way. The dress is a simple sleeveless cotton that makes the most of my coloring, and it’s a perfectly good choice.

We load up the family and head out first thing in the morning. Leo is annoyed at first, because he’d been hoping to spend the day with a friend with a sailboat, but Simon quashes his rebellion with a sentence. “There will be other days to sail, mate,” he said, “but you’ll never get another chance to join the family for the big reveal.”

Leo snorts and play punches his dad in the stomach. Simon play doubles over.

We make a morning of it, stopping first at a café in Mount Eden for a decadent breakfast. Sarah is animated and cheerful—but then, it’s a weekend, and she won’t have to go to school for two days. Leo sits next to me, talking a mile a minute about his mates and swimming and sport and mountaineering, which is his new obsession. He’s been reading about Sir Edmund Hillary, a local hero and the first to climb Mount Everest.

“How long did it take you to climb the Golden Hinde, Mom?” he asks, chomping on a piece of bacon.

I’m lost in imagining the climb up Everest and the continual need people feel to do it, and I answer offhandedly. I don’t honestly remember which mountain it is, only that it’s on Vancouver Island, where I supposedly grew up. “I don’t know. A day, I guess.”

“Not the Hinde,” Simon says with a frown. “Takes a couple to ascend that one, eh?”

My heart is racing, making a noise in my ears, and I’m sure that my skin has gone bright red. “Of course!” I cry, slapping my hands to my cheeks. “Oh my goodness, I’m so embarrassed.”

Simon bumps me with his shoulder. “It’s all good, sweetheart. We won’t put you in the home yet, will we, kids?”

Sarah says, very seriously, “I’ll never put you in a home, Mum. Ever.”

I reach over the table and squeeze her hand. “Thank you, baby. I love you too.”

“We aren’t going to put Grandpa in a home, are we?”

“Oh, no! No way.” I squeeze her hand more tightly. “Your grandpa is just fine.”