The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [43]
Millie looked at them intently for a while, then sniffed her cup of tea. “I don’t know what they put in this,” she said, draining the cup and heading back inside, “but I’ll have to get some.”
Mom buttoned up her coat, her eyes fixed on the lights.
“All of this,” she whispered. “I remember it all.”
“Do you remember my dad?” I asked nervously, recalling what happened last time I had tried to find out about him.
“We never meant it to happen,” she said, her eyes misting over. “He told me right from the start how dangerous it would be. It was after the regatta.”
“The regatta?”
“We used to hold it every year, but that was the last one. I don’t know how we went so wrong, but we did. I went with Mrs. Brig, who used to run the Sea View B & B. She had a little two-person yacht. We got into trouble on the rocks. That was when I met Jake.” She looked at me for the first time. “Your father,” she added before looking away again. “I don’t know what happened to Mrs. Brig. She moved away soon afterward. But Jake and I — well, I couldn’t help it. I went back to Rainbow Rocks every night.”
“Rainbow Rocks?”
“Well, near enough. I waited by those rocks you took me to. You know?”
“Yes. I know.”
She smiled sadly. “You knew more than I did. But not anymore. I remember it all.”
“So did he come?”
She shook her head. “I waited every night. Then one night I told myself I’d give it one last try before giving up for good. I just wanted to thank him.” She turned to face me again. “He saved my life, Emily.”
“And he came?”
She smiled. “He’d been there every night.”
“Every night? But you said —”
“He had hidden himself. But he had seen me every time I went. Said he couldn’t keep away either, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk to me.”
“Why not?”
“You know, that first time, when he helped us . . . he never got out of the water.” Mom laughed. “I thought at the time, what an amazing swimmer!”
“So you didn’t know . . .”
“He thought I’d be shocked, or disgusted or something.”
I took a deep breath. “And were you?”
Mom put her hand out to me, cupped my chin. “Emily, when I saw his tail, when I knew what he was — I think that was the moment I fell in love with him.”
“Really?”
She smiled. “Really.”
“So then what happened?”
“Well, that was when I left home.”
“Left home? You mean Nan and Granddad used to live here?”
Mom swallowed hard. “I remember why we argued, now. They wouldn’t believe me. They thought I was crazy. They tried to make me see a psychiatrist.”
“And you wouldn’t.”
She shook her head. “So then they sold off everything and moved away from the ocean for good. They gave me an ultimatum — either I came with them, or . . .”
“Or they didn’t want to know anything about you.” I finished her sentence for her.
“The boat was your granddad’s. He didn’t want anything more to do with it — or me. Said he’d had enough of the sea to last him a lifetime.”
“He gave it to you?”
She nodded. “I like to think the gesture meant that a part of him knew it was true. That he knew I wasn’t crazy.”
“And what about Jake?”
“I used to sail out to sea to meet him, or around to Rainbow Rocks.”
“Was that where they caught him?”
She dabbed the edge of her eye with the palm of her hand. “I never believed it would happen,” she said. “Somehow, I thought everything would be all right. Especially after you were born.”
“How come they didn’t make you move away?”
“Maybe they wanted to keep an eye on us.”
“On me, you mean?”
She pulled me close, hugging me tight. “Oh, Emily,” she whispered into my hair. “You only saw him once. You were so tiny.”
“I’m going to see him again, Mom,” I said, my voice coming out in a squeak. “I’m going to find him.”
She smiled at me through misty eyes.
“I am.”
A moment