Fins

by Ashley L. Knight

  “I’m sure there’s a lot you two need to discuss, and much is going to be overwhelming. We should start with something simple.” He reached over and pulled Mom to him. “Breakfast, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” She kissed him and took my hand. They led me in a partial daze to the edge of the courtyard where a gazebo housed a dining table and chairs already set with breakfast. Fresh orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, sausages – the works. Hungrily, I dug in. Tammer and Mom didn’t touch the food.

  “Aren’t you guys hungry?” I asked, my mouth filled with pineapple.

  “We’re on a special diet,” Mom said.

  “Diet? You don’t need to lose weight!”

  Tammer laughed and kissed her hand. “No, you’re correct. But we don’t eat meat.”

  “Oh!” I said. “So you’re vegetarian?”

  He nodded. “Something like that.” He picked up a glass of water and drank it all.

  Mom twirled a hibiscus blossom between her thumb and forefinger. The silence was deafening. Something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I asked and put my fork down.

  “What do you mean, dear?” Mom asked a bit too innocently.

  “What aren’t you telling me? Are you sick? You’re not dying are you?”

  She shook her head and looked at Tammer.

  “I know something’s going on,” I could see it in their body language.

  “You’re just going to have to tell her,” Tammer said matter-of-factly.

  I watched them gaze at each other. It was sort of nice, actually, seeing Mom so in love. It was better than watching her flounder around after her and Dad divorced. But something was definitely wrong and I could hardly take it anymore. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Mama!”

  A sweet, musical voice rang out across the courtyard. I turned around to see a gorgeous blonde child running toward us. I looked back at Mom who was smiling at me. Was this a joke? The little girl ran into her embrace and pulled herself up into her lap.

  “Mama,” She nestled into Mom’s chest. Tammer smiled lovingly at them both.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, and the little girl turned toward me, staring with enormous green eyes. Her blonde hair fell in soft ringlets around her shoulders.

  “Morgandy, this is our little girl, Naira. She’s your sister.”

  I nearly puked.

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “No, it’s not, honey.” Mom said in a quiet voice.

  “But, how?” I stood up. This was too weird.

  “She’s one, Morgandy,” Tammer said. “She’s very special. You’ll come to realize that.”

  “How is this possible?” I asked again. “You two were just married!” I looked at Mom. “You haven’t even been in Florida for two years!”

  “That’s right,” she said, “but Tammer and I met in Vancouver just after you left. We’ve been together ever since.”

  “You never told me you were pregnant!” I said and Naira continued to look at me. I couldn’t hold her gaze. “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t have understood.”

  “What’s not to understand? Hi Morgan, it’s Mom, I’m pregnant. What’s so hard about that?” I was yelling now and Tammer stood up.

  “Morgandy…” he began and I interrupted him.

  “It’s Morgan, ok? I hate Morgandy.”

  Mom winced.

  “Morgan,” Tammer began again, “Please don’t yell. We’re sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. We didn’t because we didn’t want something like this to happen. We knew it’d be hard for you. There’s still so much more to discuss.”

  “What? Do you have another kid I don’t know about?”

  “No. Naira’s the only one. But there’s more.”

  I couldn’t take it anymore and walked away. Naira slid out of Mom’s lap and walked next to me.

  “Naira! Come back here, darling!” Mom called after her, but she didn’t return. Rather, she continued to walk alongside me as I stormed toward my room. It wasn’t until I tried to reach for the door that I noticed she was holding my hand. I stopped and stared down at her. She stared back at me. Suddenly, I wasn’t really angry anymore, just spent. Tired, I raised an eyebrow.

  “And what do you think about all this?” I asked and was astounded when she actually answered.

  “I like you.”

  I just stared at the little child who looked up at me. What else could I do? No one year old is that advanced. Are they? Naira stared back with those huge green eyes.

  “Naira, please go to your mother,” Tammer said as he walked toward us. She let go of my hand and left my side. Tammer stopped in front of me.

  “I’m sorry this has been sprung on you so quickly. Naira was so excited to meet you that I think she just couldn’t wait any longer.” He looked down. “I hope you’ll grow to like her.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t angry with them, just shocked and totally surprised.

  “I know,” Tammer said absentmindedly.

  “Huh?” I said and his head snapped back up.

  “Sorry, didn’t you say something?” he asked.

  “No,” I frowned. This was all so strange. It was too much; the house, the handsome new “Dad”, finding out I had a baby sister. I felt like I was going to faint.

  “Do you need to sit down?” Tammer waved his hand to a distressed wooden bench just outside my door. I sat and he eased down next to me.

  “There’s so much going on and I know we’ve overwhelmed you. Tell you what. If you’re tired, you are more than welcome to go back to bed and face it all tomorrow. Or I can have Elan talk to you. I want you to feel this is your home as much as the one you have with Richard.”

  It was strange hearing Dad’s name – everyone’s names seemed so exotic and Richard was such a normal name. I remained quiet.

  “Elan has missed you so much. I knew we couldn’t keep this from you anymore. I’m sorry we waited so long to tell you.”

  I felt bad for him. “You’re a treasure hunter, huh?” I said, changing the subject.

  “Yes!” He said, brightening. He looked over the water. “The sea is my home. I run a business, salvaging treasure. Treasure hunter sounds much more exotic and mysterious, though.”

  “What’s the name of your business?”

  “It’s really boring – Tammer Salvaging.”

  I looked around at the perfectly manicured lawn and the rainbow of flowers all looking so perfect. “You must do quite well. I haven’t even seen the rest of your home and already this is way more than my dad ever had.”

  Tammer coughed lightly. “Well, I’ve been fortunate.” He left it at that. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”

  I didn’t know what else to do. I nodded and stood with him.

  “I’ll give you the tour,” he said, “and I’ll deliver you to your Mom when we’re done. How does that sound?”

  He walked to a small gate in the hedge and held it open for me.

  “Please, after you,” he said, and we went through the gate leading to the outside grounds.

  Within seconds of walking through the gate, a man arrived with a golf cart. As quickly as he appeared, he was gone and Tammer ushered me into the cart.

  Tammer’s home was a Utopia - that was all there was to it. It was from out of a luscious, opulent dream. He owned ten perfectly maintained acres on the island. In addition to his sprawling mansion on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, he had a barn that put our house back in Stanley to shame. The horse riding area was pristine.

  The barn was really another huge house for his treasured Andalusian horses. He had five - all with strange names. It was obvious they adored him. All of them ran up to him the second they heard his whistle. Three were black and two were white. They were massive and yet as graceful as ballet dancers when they moved.

  “This big one is called Yanix.” He patted the black horse on its muscled neck and was practically thrown fo
rward when a smaller white one nudged him with her nose.

  “Yes, Willow,” he turned and hugged her around the neck. “I love you too.”

  Sarraf the Great was the smallest of the black horses. “We call him that so he doesn’t get a complex about being smaller,” Tammer said. “And this is Tobar.” He held his arm out to the medium black horse who snorted, covering Tammer with snot. “Yes, that’s lovely, thank you,” he exclaimed.

  I liked the way he interacted with them. They seemed to listen to his every word, watching him with their gentle, brown eyes.

  “And who’s this?” I asked, motioning to the littlest one of all – a pretty white female who stood shyly to the side.

  “That’s Ren.” Tammer patted his thigh and she walked to him. “She’s my newest baby.”

  “She’s sweet.” I couldn’t help but smile. Ren was trying to decide if she should go to Tammer or to me. She hesitated and then turned her large head toward me, practically knocking me off the fence.

  “She likes you,” he said, watching with a big grin on his face.

  I rubbed her on the forehead and she held very still as I made my way behind her ears. Her long, thick mane felt as soft as satin. I massaged her neck and she closed her eyes.

  “If you want to ride them, you just need to ask.” Tammer was leaning against Yanix, watching me give Ren loves. “They enjoy it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. He was trying, and I appreciated it. I doubted we’d be as close as Dad and I, but I was willing to give him a chance.

  Tammer’s smile faded and he clapped his hands. All the horses turned to the barn, except Ren. She didn’t move and he shook his head.

  “She’s not fully trained yet,” he said and took her head in his hands. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on the end of her nose. “Yaht!” he ordered in some foreign language. She turned and trotted after the others who waited for her. When she reached them, all five trotted together into the barn.

  “Thank you for showing them to me,” I said as I jumped down from the fence.

  “My pleasure,” he answered and we headed back to the house, which I now saw, faced the sea. The house was shaped like a giant U. The entire thing was made out of white rock Tammer had imported from Greece. Overgrown trees flanked the long driveway leading up to the house. A rainbow of flowers grew around the edges of the house. The effect was overwhelmingly beautiful. Tammer had to make bank.

  His pride was his swimming pool. It was unlike any pool I’d ever seen. It was rectangular and it was deep – twelve feet deep! He proudly pointed out the fish tanks in the long sides. A swimmer would feel as if she were literally swimming with the fishes. The sides were a beautiful mosaic of tiny, differently colored tiles. The bottom of the pool was sand. When I looked at him in amazement, he said simply, “I like the water.”

  He was quick to show me a gate in the pillars that edged the gazebo area and steps that disappeared under the ocean waves. He told me this was where they scuba dived. It wasn’t strange to think of Mom scuba diving, even though she’d never done it when we were together. Swimming was one of her passions and Florida seemed the perfect place to learn to scuba.

  The rest of the house was just as lovely inside as it was outside. The same strange floor was in every room, and each room was painted a different color. The ocean theme played throughout the house.

  The living room was completely white with distressed beach wood tables. Seashells and dried coral and seaweed adorned the tables and walls. Large tan baskets of soft blankets were stored under the coffee table. An enormous comfy white couch housed a fleet of different earthen-colored pillows. I told Tammer his house could be a model for the Pottery Barn and he laughed and said he’d have to tell Mom, as she did most of the decorating herself.

  When we went into their room, Mom was sitting on their giant bed. She smiled and waved at me. The room was light green and the color flowed into their bathroom. It was twice as big as my room and was complete with its own fireplace. Mom even had a sitting area to apply her makeup. I think I’d seen something similar when we were forced to watch Gone with the Wind in Literature Class.

  Along one of the walls was an elegant marble statue of a mermaid. She seemed suspended in the air, as if she were slowly stretching toward the surface of the sea. Beautiful long hair splayed about her, some twisting under her arms and around her back. She was naked from the waist up and yet there was nothing vulgar about the statue. The base was made to look as if she’d just taken off from the sea floor, with sand scattering about her flowing, delicate fins.

  “Do you like it?” Mom called from the bed. I nodded and touched the mermaid’s tail with my forefinger.

  “Where did you find this?” I asked, lightly tracing my finger along her tail. The artistry was so detailed I could feel every scale.

  “We had her commissioned. She was a fortune, but worth it.”

  “She looks like you,” I said.

  Tammer sat on the edge of the bed, watching me admire the mermaid. I felt something warm develop in my shoulders and run down my spine. It made me shiver. This happened once in a while and it usually meant something big was going to happen. I turned and faced them both.

  “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

  A small smile traced Tammer’s lips and he looked down at the deep green quilt they sat on. “All in due time,” he said.

  Mom jumped off the bed and put an arm around my waist. “I’d like to show you Naira’s bedroom. She’s so proud of it.”

  Mom led me through a door next to the statue of the mermaid, and we entered a small, sky blue room. This had to be the smallest room of the house, by far. There was a bed sunken into the floor - very similar to the tumble pit I had often used in gymnastics. The bedroom looked like a Sea World gift shop, filled with stuffed sea creatures, snow globe mermaids, and to top it off, a large saltwater aquarium that was part of the wall at the head of Naira’s bed. They certainly spoiled her.

  “That’s probably the biggest fish tank I’ve ever seen,” I gasped as I walked up to it, “apart from like, Sea World and the zoo.” It was much taller than I was and ran nearly the entire length of the wall. “Just how rich is Tammer?” I asked and watched a seahorse bob toward me.

  “That’s the rudest question you’ve asked yet, Morgandy.” Mom was a bit put off, but I couldn’t help it. It was like looking at a train wreck – you didn’t want too, but you couldn’t help yourself. The seahorse stopped at the glass and eyed me.

  “I’m not trying to be rude, Mom.” I put my finger to the glass. “I just can’t believe how rich he is.”

  “Does that truly matter?” Mom asked.

  I stood up straight and the little seahorse got a fright and squirted away as fast as he could back to the seaweed.

  Turning to face her, I ran my hand through my hair and pulled a few strands up toward the ceiling. Mom had said I used to do that with my hair when I was little, as if to comfort myself. Remembering it made me stop.

  “Yeah, money matters! You’ve got to have it, otherwise you’re nobody.” I said.

  “Oh really?” She said. “This coming from my very wise and worldly seventeen year old?”

  I wasn’t an idiot. Money makes you powerful and if you could have all your heart desired, why wouldn’t you?

  “Money is very clearly not everything,” Mom added.

  “Only rich people say that, Mom,” I pointed out.

  “Not so much,” she said. “Poor people have been known to say that too. Some would say that having a relationship with God is everything.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “We believe in God now?”

  “We,” and she stressed the word, “have always believed in God, Morgandy. But I think that’s a conversation for another day.”

  Shrugging, I took one last look at Naira’s room. “She’s a lucky girl.”

  “So are you,” Mom said as we left the room.

  Chapter Three

  The Third Day


  I’d spent two days at the house and on the morning of the third day, Mom decided she needed to show me around Vero Beach. Tammer and Naira stayed at the house. Mom and I piled into her Beemer and headed down the long driveway through the large black steel gates and onto the public road.

  There wasn’t much to the town. It was a heck of a lot bigger than Stanley ever dreamed of being, but as far as towns went, it wasn’t anything grand. They had a Winn-Dixie, K-Mart, Dollar Store, Cracker Barrel and local Mall – the usual for the South.

  Mom explained that many of the wealthy lived in Vero on the island as they did, and that if I lived with them, I’d finish high school at the private school there. I told her I didn’t plan on moving to Florida. Ever. I think I might have hurt her feelings, but she didn’t say anything.

  We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called The Terrace that was practically engulfed in trees. I ordered the spinach and mushroom salad and Mom ordered iced tea.

  “I haven’t seen you eat anything at all, Mom,” I complained when the waitress put my plate in front of me. “It’s starting to worry me.”

  “We eat a special diet, honey. They don’t have the food in most restaurants.” She brushed her hair away from her face. “If I didn’t eat, I wouldn’t be alive, so you don’t have to worry.”

  I didn’t laugh. It was really odd that Mom never ate. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Weren’t parents supposed to worry that their teenage daughter would become anorexic or start to cut herself – drugs even? Here I was, worrying about my forty year old Mom. Forty years old. A forty year old who looked like a thirty year old. Could even pass for late twenties.

  I hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”

  She nodded over the rim of her iced tea.

  “Why do you look like you haven’t aged a day since your thirtieth birthday?”

  She looked at me a really long time before she answered. “It’s probably the diet I’m on.”

  I didn’t buy it.

  “Did you get Botox or Restylane or something?”

  She laughed and a table of businessmen looked our way.