Of Poseidon 02: Of Triton

Mom’s pancakes in front of her, and lowering a tower of beef and cheese and bread in front of me. “You all set, then?” Agnes says.
    Mom and I nod. “Let me know if you need anything else,” Agnes continues. “Lester just pulled a strawberry pie out of the oven, and it’d be downright sinful if you didn’t try it.” With an awkward wink, she leaves.
    “I want strawberry pie,” I tell Mom, shaking the ketchup bottle for my fries. “It’s the least you could do.”
    Mom smiles and steals a fry from my plate. “Agreed. Maybe I’ll have a piece, too.”
    I eye her pancakes doubtfully. “So anyway. What do you mean he saw you breathing underwater?”
    “Well, you know we draw water into our lungs, and get oxygen from it, right?” She lowers her voice to an almost-whisper.
    I nod. Dr. Milligan had told us that, after studying Galen. I wonder if Dad discovered this feature of Syrena lung function while studying Mom.
    “I tried to be discreet about doing it, you know, taking small breaths, or going to the opposite side of the tank. But somehow he noticed.” She drizzles the pancakes with syrup for what seems like a decade. Then she sets to cutting them up. “Well, that officially ended our date, to say the least. But more than that, it meant I had to leave the boardwalk. I couldn’t risk him blowing my cover—though, when I think about it, I’m not sure how he would have proved it—but I didn’t have the resources to leave on my own. So I pulled a gun on him and demanded his wallet.”
    The soda in my mouth becomes the soda in my nose. “You had a gun?” I cough and sputter into my napkin.
    Mom’s eyes go round and she presses her finger to her lips, mouthing, “Shhh!”
    “Where did you get a gun?” I hiss.
    “Oliver lent it to me. He was always looking out for me. Told me to shoot first and run. He said the asking-questions-later part was for the police.” She grins at my expression. “Does that earn me cool points?”
    I swirl a fry in the mound of ketchup on my plate. “You want cool points for pulling a gun on my father?” I say it with all the appropriate disdain and condescension it deserves, but deep down, we both know she gets mega cool points for it.
    “Psh.” She waves her hand. “I didn’t even know whether or not it would fire. And anyway, he didn’t hand me his wallet. He propositioned me instead.”
    “Okay. Ew.”
    “Not like that, you brat. He said he’d seen my kind once before. In Alaska, swimming under the ice. He never told anyone, because he was sure they wouldn’t believe him. He asked if I’d let him study me. He said he was going to school to be a human doctor. He said he’d give me a place to stay, and he’d pay me.”
    “An exchange. Kind of like Dr. Milligan and Galen.”
    “Who?”
    “Oh,” I say. “Dr. Milligan is a marine biologist who works at the Gulfarium in Florida.”
    Mom raises her brow. “That trip you took to visit Galen’s dying grandmother? That was to see Dr. Milligan?”
    I nod, not bothering to hide my cringe.
    Mom sets her fork down. “Exactly how much does that man know about us?”
    “Everything. But you don’t need to worry about it. He’s known Galen for years.”
    “Oh?”
    I roll my eyes, unwilling to let go of this juicy story in favor of fighting over Galen’s trustworthiness. Besides, she’s being a hypocrite. She trusted a human—my dad—so why can’t Galen trust Dr. Milligan? “So … it wasn’t love at first sight then? With Dad? You fell in love later?” I don’t know why I feel disappointed. I don’t even believe in love at first sight. Except where it applies to my parents being perfect for each other. And anyways, isn’t that a kind of child-myth that all kids want to believe?
    “Sweetie … It was never love.”
    Screw disappointment. Now I feel gut-kicked. “What do you mean? But you had to … Then how did I…?”
    Mom sighs. “You were … the result of a moment of … weakness on my part.” But she takes too long to choose her words. I wonder what she thought of first, instead of “weakness.” Pity? Stupidity? She dabs her napkin at some imaginary syrup at the corner of her mouth. “The only weak moment we ever had, which is kind of extraordinary. Not that I regret it at all,” she says quickly. “I wouldn’t trade you for anything. You know that, right?”
    I wonder if “I wouldn’t trade you for anything” is also a child-myth. “So I was an accident. Not even the