Chapter 6: Kate
I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a war inside myself. As I sat making jewelry and thinking about Cooper, and I couldn’t help but smile. It had been a long time since I’d met anyone who lit up a spark inside me. And Cooper, well, just seeing him from a distance had lit up a spark. Watching him walk down the beach every dawn and dusk had made me feel like lightning was shooting through my skin. Now that I’d actually met him, I felt like a bonfire was burning inside me. I hadn’t felt anything like it since my first love, Kadan, the merman I’d lost along with everything and everyone else I loved in the black days.
Our life had been simple, peaceful, a respectful accord drawn between the Native Americans and my kind. Then the Europeans arrived. We hid from them. They came and went across Lake Erie for a decade, never knowing what lay beneath the waves. While we kept the peace with the native people, the Europeans did not. It didn’t take long for them to start killing one another, and shortly thereafter, war began. It was 1812, and the Europeans had been all over the lake, confiscating our most sacred islands for their own use, sinking ships with their thunderous canons. When winter arrived that year, we found our regular wintering island inhabited by Europeans. We did not speak their language and feared their ways, so we did the only thing we could do. My father, the leader of my people, conferred with the Native Americans who permitted us to live on one of their islands. They knew what we were, but they also knew we meant them no harm. An accord was struck.
In the days leading up to the great lake freeze, however, several of the mers became ill. A strange sickness blackened their fingers and gave them a terrible cough. At the time, I was the strongest and fastest swimmer among my people. My father sent me back to our home below the waves for medicines we knew would ward off the disease. The frigid waters made the swim difficult. By the time I returned to the island, everyone was dead. They had wasted away, their fingers and noses turning black. I found the island riddled with corpses. I was too late. I burned the place, stopping the contamination, then fled to the mainland. In the days that followed, I too took ill. The medicines I carried saved me, and I survived the winter sheltering in a cave. The medicine cured my body, but the sorrow forever wounded my soul. My entire species, including my father, mother, sisters, and my betrothed, Kadan, had died. For many years, I lived with aching guilt. I had the medicine they needed. I just wasn’t fast enough to get it to them. Maybe if I’d tried harder, I could have saved them. But I had failed them all.
And now, my time was coming to an end. I could feel it. More and more my body felt…human. The first wrinkles at the corners of my eyes appeared two years before. The magic that lives inside mermaids endures until the end…or until we shed our dying tear. Mermaids’ tears carry the spark of life. I must have lost more than five-hundred years of life in the tears I shed for my people. It had taken all my power not to cry the life from me. But I had carried on. And now, my last spark was leaving me. When I was gone, mermaids would truly become what humans thought us to be, nothing more than legend.
Knowing what I did, what business did I have playing around with a man? If I grew to love him, eventually I would have to tell him what I was. That was impossible. And I had no idea how long I had left. A single teardrop could kill me or I might live on another hundred years, slowly aging. How could I explain that?
I had worn my mind out as I thought it over. At five o’clock, I locked up the shop and headed across the street. If there was anything or anyone that could take my mind off my worries, it was Alice.
“A date!” Alice said so loudly that her patrons turned and looked at her.
“Shush,” I scolded her.
“Finally. Okay, what are you going to wear?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know what I’m doing. Should I go? I don’t know.”
“Uh, yeah! I mean, he brought you a painting. Who does something like that? That’s like the classy version of a mixed tape. Snag him up, girl, or I’ll take a run at him.”
“Oh, no you won’t,” I replied. “Besides, what happened to Mr. Fix-it?” I asked, referring to the brawny repairman for whom she kept breaking things so she’d have a chance to win his heart.
“Not interested in me, that’s for sure. Nice guy, though. But,” Alice said as she sliced open an onion bagel, neatly arranging rolls of salmon-wrapped asparagus beside it in a basket, slathering the bagel with hummus, “the college brought in a new history professor. He’s doing some kind of archeology camp this summer. An Indiana Jones, but a ginger, type. Cute. I always had a thing for gingers. I can tell he’s a good guy…turkey and pepper jack, red onions, sprouts, and he likes his buns toasted!” she said, gesturing with a little spanking at the end. She stabbed a pickle from the jar with a long fork then gazed at it. “And from what I could see, that package was pretty…” she nodded to the pickle, raising her eyebrows up and down.
“Alice!”
“What?” she asked with mock confusion. She dropped the pickle into the basket beside the bagel and grabbed a cup of her freshly made avocado cream cheese. “Be right back,” she said, then headed across the café to serve her customer. She quickly scampered back, grinning, then said, “So, seriously, what are you going to wear?”
“I don’t know. The purple dress?”
Alice shook her head. “Too girly.”
“I have that gauzy blue one I wore to that wine-tasting you catered.”
She shook her head. “You need something with sparkle. You’re the glass mermaid. Let your inner mermaid out!” she said jokingly.
Alice had no idea what I really was. If she only knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “Okay, I’ll think of something.”
I stayed at the café for another couple of hours, getting an earful from Alice. A brief spring rain storm washed through while I was in the café, the rain pounding on the roof in earnest, but it had gone as quickly as it came. Once the rains let up, I headed home. I still wanted to get in my nightly walk, and after a rain storm, there was always more glass on the beach. As well, I hoped I’d see Cooper again. There was still an hour before dark. I had time.
Dropping my bag in the foyer, I rushed upstairs to slip on a pair of shorts and T-shirt before I headed out. The night was turning humid. Finally, summer weather had arrived. I changed quickly. By the time I came out of my room and onto the balcony that overlooked the living room and had a fabulous view of the lake, it had started raining again. Dark clouds rolled across the lake from Canada, obscuring the sunset. Lightning illuminated the black clouds.
Frowning, I scanned the beach. I couldn’t see Cooper. Usually I could catch sight of him from the farthest corner of my balcony. He wasn’t there. He must have packed it in early because of the rain. A couple of minutes later, large drops splattered against the large windows of the A-frame. Yep, definitely too late. Thunder rolled across the lake.
I headed back to my bedroom and looked it over with assessing eyes. It was painted a soft tan color, almost pink, like a conch shell. I had sepia-hued photos of sailboats on the walls and framed sea stars and shells. My white bed was covered with an unbleached cotton coverlet. All in all, the room looked good, but I should probably change the sheets and tidy up…just in case.
My thoughts surprised me. Just in case of what? In case I brought a man to my bedroom? Yep, that was exactly in case of what. Rather than feeling embarrassed about it, the idea of lying naked with Cooper in my bed thrilled me. I imagined his lean body next to mine. I imagined entwining my fingers in his and feeling his body below me, our flesh pressed against one another. It had been so long since I’d made love to anyone. Maybe I could allow myself just one last hurrah.