A Thousand Times Over
by Tamoha Sengupta
Once a year, the merfolks arrive.
They come from the ocean, their tails rippling silver, their bodies glistening chestnut-brown in the moonlight. For one night, the magic wears off. They reach the shores, and transform into human form. They mix among us, and roam the streets.
They are the mirage of one moonlit night. They disappear as the sun comes up, vanishing again for a whole year.
Once every year, I met my father. He was strong and silent, with green eyes that I'd inherited. He smelled like the ocean. Ma and I sat with him for that one night, and he told us tales of the places he'd visited, the worlds he'd seen.
His words gave rise to a longing in me, a longing to belong to the oceans.
"When you turn thirteen, you'll be strong enough to withstand the magic, Zafiya. I can turn you then. You can come with me, if you want." He said.
For that one night, the three of us were like a family. Almost.
Ma's eyes were always sad when he left. I wished he didn't have to leave.
But he couldn't always be there.
He couldn't be there when Ma caught fish for our livelihood, and he couldn't be there when Ma broke her leg and I had to go to work instead, so that she could rest.
It was Raghaav, another fisherman, who helped us during those times. He brought Ma a part of the money he got from selling fish, and he was the one who took Ma to a doctor. He was the one who made Ma laugh during those bleak days when the nets stayed mostly empty.
He was the one Ma married the year I turned ten.
"How could you marry him?" I said to her, my voice thick with tears.
"I love him." She said.
"You're lying. You love Papa."
"It's too painful, seeing him every year, and knowing we can never be together, Zafiya. Raghaav makes me happy." She said, and the look in her eyes made my heart ache, but I didn't want to understand it. My own heart was bleeding.
I ran away from her, ignoring her voice calling me back. I'd wanted us to be a family--me, Ma, and Papa.
I felt betrayed that Ma had chosen Raghaav.
A year later, on the night my father came, Ma gave birth to my sister, Ziya. I didn't look at her even once.
I went out to meet my father alone, angry and bitter.
"Ma's married and now I have a sister." I said to him, breaking into tears in front of him.
He held me for a moment, and kissed my hair.
"It's okay, Zafiya. She needs someone to be with her. I can't give her that." He said, his voice quiet.
I wondered how he accepted it so easily, the fact that we could never be family.
Maybe I'd never understood how they'd loved each other.
"You've grown up so fast. My little girl, almost thirteen. What do you want as your birthday gift?" Ma said to me, as she held a sleeping Ziya in her arms, gently rocking her.
I turned away. We hardly spoke nowadays. She smiled a lot more than she used to, and that made me happy. But I couldn't give Raghaav my father's place, and that was what divided us.
