The Mermaid Girl by Erika Swyler

 
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    When evening crawled in, Paulina was lying in bed, watching a migraine’s oily blind spot drip across her field of vision, remembering the years of hand-stitching sequins. She listened to the waves roll against the cliffs, the creaking of her very old house, and pictured the two boxes. The first was a cigar box in which she kept red sequins for the magician’s assistant dress she wore when working with Michel Lareille—a tube with a wire frame buried inside, which gave her a figure before she’d grown one. The second was a hatbox filled with green sequins for her mermaid tail. The absent hat had been her mother’s. The cigars had been her father’s. The boxes were hers, though she shared the red sequins with Michel. His hands shook too much after shows, so she’d repaired his bowtie and vest. Though it was Michel’s circus, later his carnival, it had always felt like hers.
    She touched the tips of her fingers together, where years later the skin was still tough from the needle, from the hundreds and thousands of times she’d stabbed herself, drawn blood, and buried the stain beneath a sequin.
    The baby was crying. Oh, God. Small feet stumbled down the hallway. Simon, running to check on his sister. Nothing made noise quite like a six-year-old boy. The relief that she wouldn’t have to get up was matched by the guilt that she’d already trained her son around her headaches. But these were things you did. All the books she’d read said it was imperative to make sure that your older children understood that a baby was theirs, too. That a younger sibling was a gift, like a puppy or a kitten, only better because they’d be there your entire life. Her children would never be alone. Simon took to brothering so well it was almost criminal. The caring in him came from Daniel. The craving to have someone for himself came from her.
    When she was eleven, to stop the bleeding, Michel had kissed her fingertips as though they were a scraped knee, frightening the part of her that still believed that age was contagious.
    â€œI sometimes feel like your grandpapa,” he’d said. “Would you like that?”
    â€œYou’re old enough,” she’d said.
    He’d laughed. “So I am. Enough sewing.” He spent the rest of the morning showing her a card trick he called the Four Dominions . He made the kings bounce and slide, and disappear.
    She’d wanted that, a grandfather. Someone who would stay. Michel had an eyetooth that turned sideways and she loved it more than anything else in the world. But someone wasn’t yours because you loved a tooth.
    Now she missed him during headaches, when she was on the edge of dreaming. She missed him when she smelled clove cigarettes and anytime she was in a car. He’d let her ride in the passenger’s seat of his panel truck whenever her father was in a foul mood. He twirled the radio knobs until he found jazz. Michel liked 1930s singers, nasal-voiced women, and men who sounded like they gargled marbles. She learned that there were stretches of Route A1A that made her heart buzz like a trumpet with a Harmon mute. During the quiet he smoked to stay awake.
    â€œIt’s a terrible habit,” he’d said, a cigarette pinched between his thumb and index finger. “If you start, I’ll tell your father to feed you to one of the cats. That’s a quicker, better death.”
    An idle threat. Her father wouldn’t risk the cats getting indigestion.
    â€œIf it’s so bad, why don’t you stop?” she’d asked.
    â€œIt’s not the same for me. I was born to it.”
    She’d wondered if smoking was for him like the Russos and their red underwear. The Russo girls had liked to sit on the trapeze and flash everyone their bright red panties as they warmed up. Lucia Russo had said it was a family thing. Tradition.
    The blind spot spread and drifted to the side, sliding across