Moonglass

forever, but the memory took shape as I listened to Joy.
    She went on, turning the brown glass between her fingers. “They come from the ones who are unfortunate enough to fall in love with humans, and the mermaids are in for a lifetime of sadness because they can never be with their true loves. Only on the nights when a full moon shines on the water can they come to shore.” She looked from the glass to me. “And those nights are magical, but as soon as dawn comes, they have to swim back into the ocean, leaving a trail of rainbow-colored tears behind them.”
    I bit my lip, silent, as images of these beautifully lonely creatures entangled themselves with flashes of my mother.
    “You should never feel sorry for mermaids, though,” she went on. “They’ve been known to take that beauty and that sadness and pull down the object of their love in a second, if given the chance. There’s a poem by Yeats:
    A mermaid found a swimming lad,
    Picked him for her own,
    Pressed her body to his body,
    Laughed; and plunging down
    Forgot in cruel happiness
    That even lovers drown.”
    She looked out over the water, and I followed her lead. I could remember being little and thinking that mermaids were gorgeous and strong and free, because my mother had told me so. I’d gone to bed many nights wishing I would grow a tail as I slept so I could go find her, out among the waves, waiting for me.
    Joy handed me back the piece of brown glass and curled my fingers around it, then looked directly at me. “I always loved the story of the mermaid tears best, though. It’s stories like that that make the little things beautiful.”
    I blinked and swallowed a lump. “I knew that one. My mom actually told it to me a long time ago, and I kind of forgot until just now.” I looked down and traced a circle around a rock with my big toe, hoping she wouldn’t notice my watery eyes.
    Joy put her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, I told Corinne that story, many years ago, almost in this same spot.” Air rushed out of me at the mention of my mother’s name. I whipped my head up to face her. “You knew my mother?” Her face softened. “I sure did.” She stopped for a moment. “She was around here a lot in the old days, and we got to know each other, on account of us both liking to walk the beach.”
    I stared at her, a million questions surfacing in my mind. But I didn’t trust my voice to ask any of them. Joy started walking, and I went with her, pulled, like the tide to the moon. She turned to me and laughed softly. “You know, she learned all she knew about sea glass from me—from the best places to find it, to the rarest colors, to the story of the mermaids. She learned it from me, walking this same stretch of beach.” I could only nod, willing her to go on. I ceased to be aware of the wind and cold and walked as if I was underwater. Joy’s voice and the prospect of hearing more about my mother were the only things that filtered through. She looked over at me, and I saw sympathy and concern, the two hardest things in the world for me to take. “You look a lot like her, you know? Except for the brown eyes. That’s your dad in you. Hers were the truest green I have ever seen. Sea green.”
    “That’s what everyone says.” I wiped my nose with my sweatshirt sleeve. “I wish I could really remember, on my own. We have a million pictures, but I feel like I don’t have her in my mind without them. Just little bits, here and there.” Joy squatted down to pick up a frosty white piece of glass, and we kept walking.
    “You do, somewhere in there.” We took a few steps in silence, and I wished that I believed her. “You know the clearest picture I have in my mind of her?” I raised my head, interested. “It was a day when we were walking around out here. She had come back for a visit, pregnant with you.” She smiled. “She could barely bend over to pick anything up. All of a sudden she let out a scream, and I just about thought she was going into labor right here on the sand.” I felt the lump in my throat recede. “I turned around, ready to holler for help, and saw her squatting down on the sand, arm stretched out behind her, like to steady herself.”
    “What was it?”
    “Well, it wasn’t labor that she was screamin’ about. She had found herself a red piece of sea glass.” A split-second image flashed in my mind. My mom letting me hold her red piece of glass, her telling me it was the rarest color. “It wasn’t