Adrift: A Little Mermaid Retelling

38: Daniel

I had seen happiness return to Hali's eyes little by little over the months we spent in Seaside. It was there in the way she looked at me. When I gave her the harp, it was there in the way she played. Her slender, nimble fingers danced over the strings with more grace, I thought, than they ever had.

I was going to be a father. Life had been unkind, but the promise of a child brought a light into our peaceful home. Hali seemed more anxious about it than glad. Sometimes I came home to see her pacing the room, her hand on her stomach. I wondered if it pained her to carry the child, or if there was something else that weighed on her.

"Halimeda," I asked her at last one night as we sat in our cottage. "Does it make you nervous? Does it frighten you?"

She glanced up at me questioningly and laid a hand on her stomach.

"Yes," I said. "It's just that you seem afraid sometimes. Are you?"

She sighed and looked away from me, her small hand rubbing up and down over her midriff. She seemed to be thinking. I wished, not for the first time, that I knew how to read; how much easier it would be if I could simply ask her to write out what was on her mind.

Hali took my hand suddenly and placed it on her stomach. I felt a fluttering within. The sensation thrilled through me—the child was moving. Grinning like a fool, I met her eyes. "It's moving."

She nodded, pressing her hand over mine. Then she gestured at her stomach and lifted her other hand, raising a finger, then two, then three. She rolled her hand in a gesture that I knew meant, Continue, continue.

I struggled to follow. "More children?"

She nodded, but tossed her hand backward, as if throwing something over her shoulder. Understanding dawned on me slowly, painfully. "You mean, before? Children before?"

Again, she nodded, and placed a hand on her chest. Me. I did.

"What happened?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head, looked down. Violently, she clenched her fists, holding them near her stomach, then threw them open, casting something out. Again. Again. Again.

I felt sick. "I'm sorry, dear heart," I whispered. "I think ... I think I understand. They did not ... I mean ..."

Hali shushed me with her glance, with her woeful smile. She placed my hand over her stomach again, held it there, her fingers cool and firm. Ours. Ours now.

"Does it make you happy, Hali?"

She nodded her head, smiling at me.

"You should stay home. Stop working in the garden, too; it's hard on you." I took her roughened hand in mine and pressed it.

My wife frowned at me, pulling her hand back from mine. She raised her arm, clenched her fist. Strong.

"I know," I said, fighting the urge to smile. "You know I don't rule you, Hali. Do as you wish—but please. Think on it."

But she listened to me of her own accord. She stayed home and left me to make trips to the village for the shopping; she spent her time tending to the winter vegetables and practicing her music.

On another night, I asked Hali what we would name the child. She immediately reached for her harp and pointed to one of the mermaids, her finger resting lightly atop the long necklace one of the figures wore over her bare torso.

"Pearl?" I said, smiling. "Very well—a beautiful name. And if it is a boy?"

Halimeda firmly shook her head.