When We Believed in Mermaids(38)

His hair catches the sunlight, and for the first time, I see that it isn’t black at all but a very warm brown. I brush my fingers through it and tell myself I should say no, but I can’t find the discipline.

And anyway, one of the hallmarks of a great holiday romance is the immersion factor. “I’ll have to check my calendar,” I joke, “but I imagine I’ll be here.”

“Good. Someone told me there’s a very good Israeli restaurant nearby. Would you like to try it?”

“Absolutely.”

He straightens, tucking in his shirt. “What will you do today? More surfing?”

“I’m going to run down some ideas I had about finding my sister.”

He buttons his shirtsleeves, and I find myself wondering if I’ve ever slept with a man who owned a long-sleeve oxford shirt with crisp lines down the arms from ironing.

“Are you sure you wish to find her?”

I tuck the covers over myself more firmly. “No. But I have to follow it through now.”

“I looked for her yesterday.”

I frown. “What?”

He inclines his head. “Miguel has lived here a long time now. He had good ideas.”

I sit up. “You told Miguel about her?”

“Not so much. Only that you were looking for someone.”

“That’s my business, Javier. I only shared it with you because we were—” I struggle with why and give an exasperated sound. “That was very invasive of you.”

He seems unconcerned. “The good news is, he thought he recognized her.”

“I don’t care. This is my business, not yours.”

As if he doesn’t even hear me, he picks up my phone from the side table and hands it to me. “Take my phone number, and then send yours to me.”

I glare at him. “Who do you think you are?”

Finally, he inclines his head. “Are you angry, gatita? I only meant to help you.”

For a long moment, I only look at him, feeling invaded and upset and tangled and yet still so very drawn to him. “I’m not the kind of woman who likes to be shuttled along by a man.”

“I did not intend—”

“Please don’t get in my business like that.”

He sinks down beside me, tucks my hair behind my ear. “Don’t be angry.”

“I am, though.” I slap his hand.

Which makes him laugh. He tries to catch it, fails. “Sorry.”

“I’m not kidding. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I swear.” He holds up his hand, palm out. “I will not help you again.”

Relenting, I pick up my phone and punch in the numbers he gives me, then call the phone so he’ll have mine. It rings on the table in the kitchen. “There you go.”

He smiles at me, the expression slow and appreciative. “Tonight, then.”

I turn on my side to watch him go. My body is soft from making love, a delicious laziness in my spine. When he pauses at the door, I lift a hand to wave, and he blows a kiss.

Ridiculous. And lovely. I know better than to get mixed up with a charmer, to let down my guard, and yet—it’s limited by circumstances. I’m safe enough.

I roll over to look at the harbor. The water shines an opalescent deep blue. No sailboats this morning, but a sturdy-looking barge makes its way toward the open sea. Closer in, the offices are coming alive, and I watch a woman in a dark-blue pencil skirt bustle from her office into the hallway, then pop up in an office a little farther down the way. What would it be like to live her life, I wonder, a person who works in an office, at a desk, wearing fancy clothes? In Auckland.

Not my life at all. I don’t miss the ER, but it has been only a few days. I haven’t had much time to consider what else I might do, what kind of medicine might be calling me next. Or if anything is calling me. It’s possible that what I’m doing right now is giving me a chance to recharge my batteries.

If not for Hobo, I’d volunteer with services like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. Maybe the Peace Corps.

But I can’t leave Hobo.

Speaking of my cat, I need to call my mother. Tossing off the covers, I pad naked into the shower, then dress and make a pot of coffee. As it brews, I text her to see if she’s free to FaceTime.

She rings in on my tablet almost immediately. “Hi, sweetheart!” she says, and moves the camera to show me a little black face poking out from beneath my bed. “Look, Hobo. It’s your mama!”

“Hi, baby!” I coo.

He lets go of a pitiful, squeaky meow. “Oh no. I don’t know if it’s good that he hears me.”

“Blink at him,” Suzanne orders. “That’s cat language for ‘I love you.’”

“I know that, but how did you know it?”

“I looked it up.”

“You did?” Pierced, I realize that she’s taking this very seriously. Her devotion to the task slides beneath my defenses, reveals how much my mother has changed. She carries the tablet closer to the bed, and Hobo stays where he is, making that same pitiful little meep.

“Hey, Hobo,” I say, and give him a slow blink. “You’re safe, and I love you, okay?”

He stares at the screen as if suspecting a trick, then skitters backward, hiding behind the drop of the bedspread. Suzanne’s face comes back on camera. “He’s okay, honey, just scared.”

This is the only creature who’s ever depended on me, and I’m letting him down. “Is he eating?”

“Not as much as I’d like. He must come out when I’m gone, because he’s using the litter box, but he doesn’t come out when I’m here. I put his food by the bed, and he eats it when I’m out, so I’ve been filling a plate in the morning and then going for a walk.”

Poor Hobo. “Oh my God, I feel terrible!”

“Don’t,” my mother says firmly. “I’m taking good care of him. He’s healthy and safe.”

“You promise he’s eating?”

“I swear, Kit.” She raises a long-fingered hand in an oath.

I swallow, feeling a strange welling of gratitude and softness. “Thank you, Mom.”

She waves a hand. “Now, tell me what’s happening with you. Any leads?”

“No, but I do have some ideas.”

“Good. I have to say, sweetheart, that it’s doing you some good to get away. You have color in your cheeks.”

I try very hard not to allow more color to seep into my face, forcing an offhand smile. “I went surfing yesterday, and it made me wonder why I haven’t done more travel like that, you know? I mean, why not?”

“You should! I could get you rooms at any of the NorHall hotels anywhere in the world.” She works as a concierge at the one in Santa Cruz.

“Maybe you should do some of that yourself.”

Her slim shoulders twitch. “I think I feel safer with my routines.” She twirls the most recent of her AA chips between her fingers, over and over.

“Mom, you’ve been sober a long time. But you know, I bet they even have sober tours these days.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” she says, but I know it’s a dismissal. “Do you like it there?”

“It’s amazing.” I carry my tablet over to the window. “We had the edge of a cyclone go through last night, and everything is pretty quiet, but look at that view!”

“It seems like the kind of place your sister would love, don’t you think?”

Something about that comment irks me, and I turn the camera back to my face. “I guess.”

“What are you planning for today?”

“I’m going to call surf shops,” I say. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. No way she’d give up surfing.”

“If she was still herself, I agree. But what if she had amnesia or something?”

I frown. “I guess it’s possible. Not that likely.”

“You see it in books and TV all the time. And why else would she leave us to grieve her like that?”

“Because she was selfish? Because she was an alcoholic and an addict?”

Thousands of miles away in my own little house, my mother sits at my table and gazes calmly, steadily through the camera at me. This is what Josie will look like in twenty-five years, the graying blonde hair, the high cheekbones, the full lips that have thinned only a little with time. “Or maybe,” she offers, “she was lost. Broken.”

“Poor Josie,” I say with sharpness. “You know, I was thinking about the way she drank when she was only eleven or twelve, stealing sips from everyone, getting smashed. Why didn’t you stop her?”

Suzanne has the grace to look away. Her rich voice rasps a bit as she says, “Honestly, Kitten, I never even noticed. By then, I was pretty much drunk all the time myself.”

The frankness pokes a needle through the balloon of my self-righteousness. “I know. I’m sorry. I just keep going over things, wondering why she got so bad so young.” With a visceral sense of loss, I remember how it felt as she slipped away from me, as if she had really become a mermaid and lived most of the time beneath the waves. It was the start of my great loneliness, and the memory is so painful even now that I have to shove it away. “She was so lost.”

“Yes,” my mother says. It’s the way she listens now, acknowledging without embroidery, but it irks me a little anyway. “It was a terrible environment.”