Cosima
The family trip to the shore is an annual tradition. Every year they find the town waiting for them just as they last left it- the same cottage, the same mini golf courses, the same diner, where Cosima likes to order a stack of chocolate pancakes that her dad always calls dessert, not breakfast. The pancakes always taste the same. Her mom always steals some of the whip cream off of her plate, a wicked smile on her face.
This year should be no exception- the town is exactly as it was, frozen in time. From the passenger seat Cosima watches the rows of one-story houses pass by, each decorated with maritime charm. She sees the teenagers dashing through cross walks with surfboards under their arms, their skin turned golden by the sun. As her father pulls into the driveway that they share with three other cottages she spots Mr. Collins already outside, smoking on his deck.
It's all so familiar, but they've brought change with them and now it feels different.
"Crack open some windows, could you, 'Sima?" her dad asks on their way into the house. The usual stifling scent of mold and dust lingers from the condo's long hibernation; Cosima knows her dad hates it but she finds it pleasantly nostalgic. She lugs her suitcase up the staircase, letting the wheels thud into the coral walls, and drags it to rest in the bedroom she has to herself. The room faces the sea, and as Cosima slides the window open a draft of damp ocean air kisses her face.
Beyond the window the lawn of the housing complex cuts away to a slope of red rocks, which narrows as it draws close to the sandy shore until it becomes a slender pathway extending into the ocean. Lines of white foam form where the waves hit the rock and cling to both sides of the natural bridge. Cosima's eyes follow them to their point of convergence.
"At night, mermaids come and lie on that rock there at the end," her mother once told her as they'd lain out on the lawn sunbathing. Cosima's younger cousin Carly had joined them that summer and she'd rolled over onto her back upon hearing the fantastic claim, eyes lit up. "Mermaids?"
"Yea right," Cosima had said, propping herself on her elbows and rolling her eyes. "Mermaids don't really exist. They're scientifically impossible." Her father had recently been stirring her inherent curiosity in science, buying her copious educational books that bestowed her with the power to proudly dispel many of the myths of her childhood. Mermaids included.
"Nothing is scientifically impossible, Cosima," her mother had replied with a wry smile. "The mermaids come to the rock to sing to humans."
"I haven't heard any singing," Carly said.
"That's because in order to hear the song a person has to be chosen, at a special time in their life. When someone hears a mermaid's song, that mermaid is given the chance to become a human, so that they can meet the human that heard them. They cross that bridge of rocks to land." She'd brushed a strand of wavy blonde hair out of her eyes and taken a sip of her lemonade, glancing up over the glass at the girls mischievously. "Sometimes, a mermaid falls in love with the human, and then she can never switch back."
"What if she wants to become a mermaid again?" Carly asked.
"She can't. But it's okay, because she loves the human."
At the time Cosima had found the story insultingly childish, and had buried her face in her elbow disdainfully. But now she finds herself thinking of mermaids. Beautiful creatures with salty skin and hair bleached and tangled by sun and breeze, their songs carrying silently in from the sea. She can't imagine something as exotic and free as a mermaid being happy with human existence forever, just for love.
Her father comes into the room and she turns away from the window and perches on the bed. He glances around slightly nervously from the doorway before his eyes find a trilobite fossil resting on the top of a small bookshelf.
"I remember when we bought that for you. We thought we would end up buying a nice painting or a stuffed animal for your room, but that fossil was the only thing that caught your eye."
"Trilobites are cool," Cosima says with a soft grin and a shrug.
"You definitely caught the science bug from me, that's for sure. I don't know what I would do with one of those kids that can't even tell you what Newton's laws are. Remember that time I took you and your cousin to that science museum and all she wanted to do was play some game in one of the rooms. And you were mad, because there was an exhibit on space at the top floor and she wouldn't come see it with you?"
Cosima chuckles. "Yea, kind of. I can't even remember the last time we went to a museum. You always want to go, but then-" mom always just wants to tan or go to the beach, she doesn't say. Her father knows what words she's left unspoken, and drums his fingers along the doorframe uncomfortably. Cosima's eyes flicker back to the window. Both are incapable of bridging the silence for a moment, until Cosima speaks up.
"We should go to the aquarium."
"You want to?" There's relief in his voice.
"Yea, its kind of like a museum. Come on, I'm bored."
The aquarium is only a few miles away from their cottage. A new exhibit on jellyfish has opened recently. Cosima learns that jellyfish have no brains, although some do have eyes. She also discovers that a jellyfish can sting even when dead.
They still haven't eaten lunch, so after clearing one floor they find their way up to the café. This level is opened in the middle, and Cosima chooses a table next to the railing so that she can look down and see people crossing the floor below them. As she eats her sandwich she chats nonstop with her father, trying to prevent the conversation from faltering into unbearable silence. The words feel rushed and hollow but she spits them out anyway.
"Which one's Anna, again?"
"Tall, red hair, freckles. Has a Southern accent, kind of. Anyway, she's smart but she's not really that good at the labs, so I always trick her into doing the write-ups instead."
"You know, you're a real brat. You can't have gotten that from me." His tone is critical but he's smiling.
"I think we know who I got it from," Cosima says with a roll of her eyes. She freezes halfway into a bite of her sandwich as she realizes what she's said, and her father notices. He sighs, running a hand through his thinning hair.
"'Sima, it can't be like this for the whole trip."
She looks up from her sandwich, feigning ignorance. "Like what?" It's unconvincing, she knows. "It's been fun so far."
"If I'd known that it would remind you so much-"
"Dad, seriously. It's fine."
"I just want you to know, that if you're trying not to bring anything up for my sake, you don't have to worry about it, okay? It's not your job to worry about upsetting me, or Mom."
"I know, I know that," she says.
They eat in silence for a few more minutes. Cosima finishes the last of her sandwich half-heartedly and watches a woman and her child pass by below, hand in hand.
"It's just…" She hesitates, unsure whether she has a right to be angry. "I don't understand- it seemed like nothing changed. And then all of the sudden she's in New Mexico."
She thinks of the last time they were at the shore. How her mother had laughed at all of her father's jokes, how she'd kissed Cosima goodnight every evening. It didn't make sense.
"Sometimes, even love isn't enough. Something gets in the way. It's not very fair, but that's how it is."
She huffs, unsatisfied by the answer.
"What's the point in trying, then?"
Her dad is quiet for a moment and then his mouth curves into an unexpected smile. "The best things won't last forever," he says wistfully. "You have to be willing to take a chance on the good times, even if there's an even greater chance that something will go wrong."
She thinks of the mermaids again, leaving the water behind for land. Would it be worth it to change your life in such an enormous way, just in case what was waiting on the shore was even better than what you'd had before?
"Cosima, try to understand that it's nobody's fault what happened, it's just life. We've got to take the good times for what they were."
She doesn't want to remember the good times. It seems sad somehow. She just wants to make new memories.
"Well, it's not like there won't be even better times now, right?" she asks.
There's that relieved look again, but this time the air has cleared and the sight of it makes her feel better, not worse. The mood has shifted. Her father begins to stack the trays and asks, "So what do you want to see next? The octopus or the otters?"
"The octopus, obviously," Cosima replies.
Her father smiles at her preference for the stranger organism. Some things never change.
The octopus isn't in view when they get to the tank. Cosima stares into the water for a while, hoping for a shape to emerge from the impenetrable blue, but nothing does. Sometime while she's searching she's struck by the loneliness of the ocean, simulated in the depths of the tank. Vast and unpredictable, stretching in every direction. It would be so easy to become lost.
"I want to stay with you, baby. I do," her mother had said before she'd left. But she'd left anyway, and Cosima is learning that actions speak louder than words.
She decides she'll take an action of her own. Write her mother, forgive her for doing what she'd felt compelled to do. Maybe one day she'll act just as impulsively, and she'll need someone to forgive her just the same.
Beside her, her father is smiling into the distance. It must have been worth it, like he'd said. How could she really hold it against them?
When they get back to the cottage Cosima walks out to the end of the land bridge. It's high tide- waves beat the rock beneath her, foam splashing onto her bare feet. She closes her eyes and imagines that she can hear a song riding in with them.