Page 99 of When We Believed in Mermaids

She smiles at me proudly, and I’m pierced by the earnestness with which she displays the meal.“Vermicelli alla siracusana.”

“With preserved lemons.” I bend down to inhale the mingled scents, and they’re so heady, I’m practically dizzy. “Beautiful. Like...my father’s.”

She touches my arm, the one with the tattoo. “I covered mine tonight,” she says quietly, “but they will notice. Little sister.”

I touch it, green and blue mermaid scales with a scrolly script that looks as if it were written with a fountain pen that says, LITTLESISTER. “Friends,” I say with a shrug.

She nods. “Of course. But you’re obviously thebigsister.”

“Ha. That’s the joke, right?”

“Yes.” Again that accent, making her someone else. She touches my arm. “That was the first time I tried to get sober for real. After I saw you and we ate at the diner. When we got the tattoos.”

“Really? I didn’t know that. Why?”

She shakes her head, looks toward the purpling sky through the window. “You were so focused on your career. It was inspiring. You weren’t letting”—she takes a breath, blows it out—“everything that happened hold you back.”

I think of how sad I felt this afternoon that I’ve never told my mother how proud I am of her. “You did it, though,” I say. “I’m proud of you.”

She swallows and turns to the stove. “Thanks.”

Sarah comes into the kitchen. “Do you want to see my experiments?”

“Sure. Do we have time before dinner?”

“Only a couple of minutes, honey,” Mari says. “Don’t be long.”

“Sweet!” Sarah takes my hand and leads me to the back door. “Do you want to see?”

I’m so happy to have her little hand in mine. “I used to do experiments all the time.”

“I have some plant experiments going,” she says, pointing to the greenhouse. “My papa helps me set them up. We’re growing three different seeds to see which ones grow best, and we’re also growing avocado seeds in three different environments. And celery.”

I’m startled by the sophistication she displays, her articulate descriptions. “Have you learned anything yet?”

“We had to throw away the fourth avocado seed because it died. They don’t like salty water.”

I nod and let her lead me through her barometric center and her measurements, piercingly recorded in her childish handwriting. We visit the rock crystal center and the mini greenhouse for avocado seed number three. Overhead, rain begins to patter onto the glass roof, and I hear Mari call, “Come on, you two, before you get soaked.”

We both laugh and then dash for the house, our legs getting wet. At the door, she says, “You’ll have to take off your shoes. Otherwise my mum will get mad.”

I bend down to unbuckle my sandal, and she touches my hair. “We have hair just the same.”

I grin at her. “We do. Do you like it?”

“No,” she says sadly. “A girl at school makes fun of me.”

“She’s just jealous of your amazing brain.”

“Papa says just the same thing!”

“Papa is Simon’s father,” Mari says, holding the door for us. “Do you want some socks?”

“No, thanks.”

She touches my bare arm again, as if I am her child. It disarms me. “I’m so glad you’re here, Kit. You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“I think I do,” I say, and slide away from her touch.