The Summer My Wife Became a Mermaid

How it begins

Anne Russell found the mermaid tail in the bath between a bottle of descaler and her wife's winter slippers.

It was silver, green, and longer than most explanations she was prepared to accept before breakfast.

Louise appeared in the doorway carrying two mugs.

"I was going to tell you."

Anne looked from the tail to the slippers.

"Before or after you required a larger bathroom?"

For twenty-three years, she had known where Louise kept everything. Spare buttons, important receipts, the good scissors nobody admitted using on packaging. At the museum, Anne cataloged objects whose owners had been dead for centuries. She preferred the living ones to remain approximately identifiable.

Now her wife had acquired fins.

"It's for work," Louise said.

"You teach swimming."

"And I've been training for something else."

She put the mugs on the landing and lifted the tail carefully. Water ran from its fabric into the tub. The movement was practiced, the material heavier than Anne expected.

On the wall behind them hung a photograph from a holiday they had postponed twice before finally taking. Louise stood at the shoreline. Anne was holding both their shoes.

She remembered thinking it a lovely picture.

"How long?" she asked.

"Since January."

It was June.

Anne sat on the edge of the bath, leaving space between herself and the impossible-looking garment.

Outside, the early bus passed their window. They usually left together, separated at the square, and met again at six with two manageable accounts of the day.

She could suddenly imagine all the hours missing from those accounts.

Louise leaned against the doorframe.

"There's an outdoor show next month. I'd like you to come."

Anne wanted to ask why she had not been told. She wanted to ask whether the tail could damage the enamel. Neither question seemed large enough for the moment.

Instead she touched the wet fabric with one finger.

"Tell me what it takes to learn," she said.