A warming of the light all around us. I feel it, just as I feel Mother’s voice all around me. Telling me its last story. The story of her and me and a piece of glass. The glass is gone at last. Shattered and returned to sand. I close my eyes in the warmth of it. And my throat opens like a rose.
I love you too.
And the kiss is over. She’s gone from me. Nothing but air on my skin. When I open my eyes, she’s water. White foaming waves lapping against the shore, against my breathing body. The sun on my face. And my heart beating all by itself.
32
Something is licking my face. A great, panting tongue. I feel a very cold nose sniffing me tenderly. Mother? I open my eyes. A dog. Looking at me with large liquid eyes, one blue, one brown. When it sees I’m awake, it barks its face off very happily. Then it goes galloping away.
I’m lying in the wet sand. Shivering though overhead the sky is a bright blue. Early morning sun on my face. Mother’s not with me anymore. I’m alone except for the dog. Where am I? At first, a blank. Then slowly words come to me. California shore. The cove near home. The children’s beach that the seals took over long ago. Look, there are seals over there on a rock in a stinking huddle, tilting their bodies backward so gracefully. Exposing their necks and bellies to the sun. Mother used to take me here, remember? Look how sweet, she’d say, pointing to them lying there. Look at the little one thumping his way toward the shore. Home’s not too far at all from here. A walk if I could walk. But I can’t seem to move just now. Can’t even cover my ears against the sound of the still-barking dog, getting louder again. Mother’s gone is a fact coursing through me. Turned to foam. And somehow I’m alive still. Though my breath is quick, my heart beats slow. Cold skin and getting colder. Shivering in the sun. Then I hear a name being called.
“Belle! Belle!” My name, I know.
With all my strength, I look in the direction of the sound. A little blond woman in activewear, running toward me with the golden-haired dog that happily licked my face running along beside her. The dog’s leading her to me. I found her, I found her, its face says. Look! And the woman is looking. Very worriedly. Her face is creased with it. Sylvia’s her name. Because she knows Mother and me very well, I remember. Because she’s a friend.
“Where were you?” she’s saying to me. “I was looking everywhere, everywhere. Thank god. Thank god we found you.”
“Mother’s gone,” I tell her. My voice is an empty shell. My teeth chatter through my words. “She was right here a minute ago and now she’s gone.”
Sylvia looks at me lying in the sand. My bare legs in the cold, lapping water. My shivering wet body in ripped silk. How I’m gripping the shore in my hands. My fists clutching crystals of sand.
She nods. “I know,” she says in a lower voice. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. They are the only words I have breath to speak.
“Let’s get you home,” she says. She picks up her phone. “Emergency? Hi, yes, I need help at…”
Help, I think. And I’m nodding, my cheek in the shining sand crystals.
33
After they drag me up from the beach, I sleep for a week at Sylvia’s place across from Mother’s. Her guest bedroom is entirely blue. Blue walls, blue pillows, blue bed. Glass seashells and starfish everywhere you look. Peaceful, Sylvia said. I hope you’ll be comfortable here. There’s a little placard on the nightstand that reads MERMAID KISSES STARFISH WISHES. I look at that whenever I open my eyes. The mermaid kiss and the starfish wish. Mostly, though, I keep my eyes closed. Sometimes I dream of black veils and red jellyfish. I wake up screaming. Sylvia’s there in an instant. Shhhh, she says like I’m a child. It’s all right. You’re safe. Only a dream. She does not say tell me your dreams. She does not say what’s this about black veils and red fish? She does not ask what the hell were you doing in a torn dress, washed up by the waves, anyway?
A doctor comes and takes my pulse and shines a light into my eyes. He listens to my heart and lungs and he says Yup. Just fine. Unbelievably. “No hypothermia. No concussion. No psychosis,” he whispers to Sylvia, who blushes. “Of sound body and mind,” he declares, like he could declare such a thing in five minutes. I’m a very lucky young lady. Especially given how long I seem to have been lying there half-naked, submerged in ocean water. Who knows? Maybe I’m part fish. A mermaid. Is that my secret? And he winks at us.
We stare at him.