is good, because obviously it’s more important to these townsfolk to salvage things like fire-hazard gas pumps that still have the rolling-dial numbers instead of preserving something more useful, like pay phones.
And at least the interstate had decent fast-food choices. In the backwoods route Mom opted for, we’ve got to choose between mom-and-pop diners with mismatched tables and hot sauce bottles for toothpick holders, or fast-food chain knockoffs with questionable health standards.
My stomach growls for the eleventeenth time. With Mom’s urgency to put as much distance between us and Galen as possible, I’ve now skipped breakfast and lunch.
“I’m hungry, too,” Mom says without looking at me. “I think we’re just going to have to tough it out at one of these little hole-in-the-wall places.” When I roll my eyes, she says, “Remember when we took that road trip to Atlanta, and we found that dumpy little diner right outside the city? You said they had the best peach cobbler in the world. Maybe we could get lucky here.” But her expression doesn’t look quite as hopeful as she scans the roadside for options.
She chooses a stucco building that boasts “We Serve Breakfast All Day” with a huge sign in the front window. When we open the door, a velvet sash tied to the handle and overwhelmed with jingle bells alerts the five patrons that we’ve arrived. We take a booth by the front window and Mom orders coffee.
I peer over my menu, watching as she dumps sugar into the steaming cup. It’s something I’ve seen a million times; she’s always had a little coffee with her sugar. But I’ve never seen it knowing who and what she is. Before, she was just Mom with a caffeine addiction. Now, she’s Nalia, the Poseidon princess. There is no sugar in the Syrena world. There is no coffee. Galen dry heaves at the first taste of either.
Mom notices me noticing her. “You might as well ask,” she says, as if any amount of stirring could dissolve the pound of sugar she’s dumped in her cup.
I unroll my silverware. “I was just wondering how long it took you to get used to human food.” I eye her cup for emphasis.
“Ah.” Just then, the waitress, whose name tag says “Agnes,” returns for our order. As if to promote irony, Mom orders pancakes with extra syrup. I get a burger. Restaurants like these usually build a decent burger.
When Agnes leaves, Mom corrals the mug with both hands as if trying to keep it warm. “I don’t drink coffee for the taste. But what’s not to like about sugar, right?”
“Galen gags on anything sweet. Mostly, he gags on anything not seafood.”
Mom smiles, as if she’s only tolerating the sound of Galen’s name for the sake of talking about sugar. “It takes some time. I’ve been on land quite a while, Emma.” She leans closer, lowers her voice. “Since World War II. If you think about it, that means I’ve been human longer than I was ever Syrena.”
She says this as if I actually know the real date of her birth. My eyes are in danger of falling out of their sockets. I already knew that Syrena live to be hundreds of years old. That they age well. Sure, Mom has a few grays streaking her hair. Some wrinkles tugging at her blue eyes. But she doesn’t look like the moldy four years old she’s claiming.
She presses her lips together as the waitress sets a bottle of syrup on the table. When she leaves again, Mom says, “That’s it? No more questions?”
Oh, but there are. “How did you really meet Dad?” I realize then that I feel a sense of disconnection with my life. That if Mom isn’t who I thought she was, then Dad couldn’t possibly be, either. The story was always that they met in college and fell in love at first sight. Now that I reflect on it, the whole story sounds like a generic, all-purpose romance. Boring and cliché and BS.
Mom nods, as if I asked the right question. “We met years after I’d come ashore. I was selling souvenirs on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and at night I worked at a freak show.” She grins. “As a mermaid.”
I gasp and she laughs. “Oh, not a real one, mind you,” she says, eyes full of nostalgia. “They dressed me up in this ridiculous costume with a sequined fin and had me swim around a huge tank and wave at the tourists. The ring