🏁 Tetrology Of The Sea - Book 1: From The Sea 🪼🔨💻 💞 🔮

Four

"Fascinating..." Josh said, looking over the boney ringlets of Travis' tail. "This is amazing!"
"Yeah, great, amazing. Josh, what am I supposed to do with a seahorse-boy thing? I can't just take him around and introduce him that way? What do I tell people?"
"The truth. You found him."
"Yeah, in the sea with no family, no social security number, and oh, by the way, he's a mermaid thingy! That'll make me popular."
"You don't have to tell anybody that part, Ruth. Why do you keep focusing on that?"
"I don't know... I just... This is all so new. He's already attached to me, calling me mommy like he wants to live here... I dunno..."
"You don't know how to deal with kids or something? You handle the Gray kids pretty well."
"I'm still trying to figure out why they like me in the first place."
"Aylin is a smart-assed little kid and you are a smart-assed, cranky older woman. He doesn't get attention from his father, he doesn't get very much discipline from him, and he has to take care of his little sister who is only about two years younger than him; in that aspect, being with you makes him feel like the kid he needs to be."
"I guess so..."
Ruth looked at Travis and ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and smiled at her. Josh was still picking at his tail.
"Ow!" Travis said and Ruth looked at Josh.
"Josh!"
"What? I need a sample."
"Hurt!" Travis said, scrambling up and wrapping his arms around Ruth's neck.
"Sorry, Travis..."
"Mean!" he said with an angry look to him.
Josh chuckled at him and rustled his hair. He stuck his tongue at him and Josh laughed even more.
"I like him. He'll be good for you, Ruth. Now we just need to go get him a social security number and have him actually exist and we'll be on our way."
"But I don't even know when he was born. How am I supposed to do this, Joshua?"
"Very carefully and very simply if you don't sweat the details. Forget the fact that he's a seahorse mermaid thing and focus on the fact that he's a little boy with no family and has become attached to you. You're his mother now and he will rely on you for everything. You must focus on the fact that he is your life now. It will never be the same."
Ruth looked at Travis as he slept on her shoulder, conked out already. She smiled and Josh smiled at her as well.
"I'll go send this in and I'll call you when the results come in. I would take him home and let him sleep it off. Then I would find all the kid shows you can and let him learn the basics that children his age should already learn. While he's asleep, let me take a sample of what is in that pouch."
Ruth nodded as Josh grabbed a cotton ball, swabbed Travis' stomach, and inserted a needle into the pouch. Instead of blood, a strange looking thick liquid oozed into the syringe and Joshua capped it off.
"Why did you name him that?"
"What?"
"Why did you name him after Travis?"
Ruth looked at the little boy and grabbed him up under his tail to carry him out the door.
"It was an accident. I didn't mean to let his name slip out but it just seemed to fit. I mean... if we had actually had children and it turned out to be a boy, I would have wanted to name him after his father. I guess it was an unconscious thing."
He nodded and Ruth took Travis home.

When Travis woke up, he looked around but he was in a strange room. Ruth wasn't around and neither was that man who had cut him. He blinked and then moved the covers from his legs. They were no longer boney and strange but two pale sticks with funny looking fingers at the end that moved. He wiggled his leg-fingers and giggled at them. He turned and found that one of the sticks had a gash on it that was slightly red. He frowned, for that was where the man had nicked him. Either way, he was glad for the sticks and was surprised he was able to use them as easily as the tail. He knew he came from the ocean but before that or how he was made was unknown to him. All he knew was that the woman who found him needed him and she was a good person to him.
He climbed out of the bed and ran across the floor, going toward the funny looking up and down place. He crawled down each step toward the place where the food came from. He had a funny feeling that the woman didn't like him anymore and was scared to find her but needed to know. He didn't know why he had the feeling but he thought it might have been the tail.
He peeked around the corner of the food place but the woman wasn't there. He looked across the hall and heard other voices. He tiptoed over and found the woman sitting on a bed of fur watching a box with flashing lights. As he watched her, she laughed and slapped her knee a little bit. She looked like she was in a happy mood and so he walked over to her, standing out of the way.
Ruth looked over and saw Travis staring at her.
"Yes?"
"Sit?"
She nodded and he climbed onto the couch, crossing his legs at the ankles and looking down.
"What is it?"
"Like?"
"Like? Like what?"
"Me." He looked at her and pointed at himself. "Me..."
Ruth smiled and held out her arms. He crawled over and nestled himself in her arms as she wrapped them around his body.
"Of course I like you. In fact, I love you, Travis."
"Love?" he asked, looking up at her.
Ruth smiled. "It's a whole lot more than liking. It's from my heart, can you hear it?" she said as she pushed his head to her chest. "Can you hear it beating?"
Travis put his ear to her chest and smiled as he heard her heart.
"It's blubbing."
"Yes it is. Just remember that as long as my heart beats that I will always love you. No matter what form you're in or what you look like. Remember that."
"Love is more than like?"
"Much more."
"Then... Travis loves Mommy!" he said, wrapping his arms around her neck.
Ruth laughed and kissed his cheek.
"I love you too, sweetheart."
And at that moment, Ruth knew that her life was going to be different, wonderful, and alive for the first time since she lost her fiancé.