to his kind. To our legacy. If I know him at all, he’ll want to at least try to do this the right way first. Because he loves you enough to go through the trouble of setting things straight.”
Grom is more observant than Galen ever gave him credit for. Galen does want to do it the right way. It’s not a small thing to give up everything you’ve ever known. But it’s not a small thing to give up Emma, either. If there is even a slight possibility he can have them both—Emma and his heritage—then it’s certainly worth fighting for.
The small hope in him swells even bigger.
Grom looks at Galen, an obvious request for support. Galen nods down at her. “I think we should try, angelfish. It would mean a lot to me if we could try.”
“And then what?” she says, pulling her hand from Grom’s grasp. “Then Grom will mate with Mom and live happily ever after twenty thousand leagues under the sea? And what about you and me, Galen? How’s that going to work? What about college and—”
“Emma,” Nalia says softly. “These are all decisions that don’t need to be made right now. These are all decisions that shouldn’t be made right now.”
Grom nods. “Your mother is right. We need to do what we can now so we have the freedom to make these decisions later, when the time comes to make them. Would you not agree, Emma?”
Emma bites her lip. “I guess so.”
Nalia stands. “Let’s hit the road. I have some arrangements that need to be made before we can leave. I’ll change Rachel’s bandage before we go. We can set her up in the back of Galen’s SUV with some pillows.”
9
IT’S ONE of those moments where life seems to pause, and the universe opens its mouth and vomits comprehension on you. It’s not knowledge, not cold hard facts that you can talk about in casual conversation, like we did in the motel room, surrounded by Galen and Rayna and Toraf. People who I’d already accepted could sprout a fin. Sure we’d talked about Mom being one of those people, too. But until now, until this, I guess I didn’t really believe it.
Even when Galen had stood there in my kitchen and accused my mom of being a dead fish monarch, I thought we’d be having an awkward conversation right now. Maybe trying to explain some inside joke he’d been telling. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Nalia.” Chuckle, chuckle.
Talk is talk is talk. Talk is what we did before true realization hit. Realization that there had been an inside joke, and I was the butt of it. For eighteen freaking years. Hardy. Har. Har.
But those were just facts. Knowledge. Like knowing how many feet are in a mile or knowing which city is the capital of China. Facts with no emotion attached. I’d even heard her on the phone a while ago, calling her employer to arrange a leave of absence, paying all the utilities way ahead, droning on about all the things I shouldn’t forget to do at the house. It was like planning a vacation or something.
But this? Watching my mom’s long silver fin move her through the water behind our house with none of the clumsiness of Natalie McIntosh, the wife-mother-nurse, and every bit the grace and precision you’d expect from Nalia, the long-lost Poseidon princess … This is slap-you-in-the-face comprehension.
And all I can do is watch.
Stretching and twisting, Mom seems relieved to ditch her human legs, the corners of her mouth pulling up in satisfaction. Watching her face, it’s easy to believe the transition feels as good as Galen describes. Her tail flits in controlled elegance, in a way that makes Galen’s and Rayna’s somehow look immature and unseasoned. But the grandeur of the scene seems cheapened by the fact that she’s still wearing her tank top—the same one she’d worn on the car ride home, when I still felt, in spite of everything that had happened, that she was just my mom.
She swims toward me now where I wait with my feet anchored into the sand in the shallow water to keep me floating to topside. As she approaches, I study everything about her, taking it all in and trying to process it, but it’s her face that gets me more than anything else; she doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Guilty would be best, but I’d settle for apologetic. Because she’s about to use this