Page 4 of Crashing Tides

“I—Yeah, I knew that. I just… She never told me.”

Gretchen shrugs, but there’s something cautious in it. “I think she was ashamed.”

I think of the scars on Mom’s ears and am filled with sudden panic. “Wait, is that where those scars are from? Did she⁠—”

“Oh yes,” said Gretchen, straightening her back, turning to face me. Her face is open, earnest. “She never told you?”

My shoulders hunch. When I speak, my voice is dark and resentful. “She never told me anything.”

What was the point of all these secrets? To leave me wrongfooted and confused?

Gretchen jumps into the story without preamble, which, in retrospect, might have softened the blow. “Oh. Well, she did it when she was six years old. Just cut off the tops of her ears with a pair of kitchen scissors.” She shudders. “It was horrible. Blood everywhere. I held her in my lap while Sarah drove us to the hospital, and she just cried and cried and cried. We always told her that her ears were so beautiful, but she never believed us. Always said she wanted to be human, just like us.” Gretchen gave a watery-eyed smile. “We never thought she’d do anything like it.”

My stomach drops. I struggle to wrap my brain around this, that Mom would harm herself at such a young age. “What did the hospital say?”

“She got plastic surgery. They made her look more human than the rest of us, honestly. She was so relieved when you came out with rounded ears.” Gretchen shook her head. “Between you and me, I think I was most the relieved. When your mom went into labor, Sarah drove her to the hospital, and I stayed behind and hid all the knives and scissors.” Her cheeks pink. She doesn’t look at me. “Just in case.”

Holy fuck. None of this makes any sense. Mom was fae? (Mom would’ve cut my ears off?) Mom had fae lineage and never told me? I had fae lineage?

This has never even occurred to me as a possibility. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“Well, honey, we thought it was best she talked to you about it.” Gretchen sighs, wipes her eyes with a shaking hand. “I guess she never did.”

Legs numb, I plop down into a rickety chair. “No. No, I had no idea.”

“That’s why you’re so damn pretty. Just like your mom,” adds Gretchen, and I laugh weakly.

“I always thought maybe my dad was like a spy, or a movie star or something, and that was why,” I say, because Dad is another person I know nothing about. Mom always claimed I was the result of a drunken one-night stand, that she didn’t even know my father’s name, just that he was blond and handsome, like me. Over the course of my life, I’ve made up a thousand identities for him, invented a thousand reasons he’s never tried to meet me. Obviously he wanted to, but he was too important to come home, or maybe not allowed. I imagined an endless barrage of obstacles—everything from angry CIA directors to possessive publicists to superhero villains. Anything to convince myself that I wasn’t abandoned. I know better now, but I still hope maybe he’ll show up one day. That we’ll be reunited by a DNA test or something. That he’ll be excited to meet me. “I didn’t know I was fae.”

The fae are famously attractive, fine-featured and lean in a way that humans typically find very appealing, if a little uncanny. Suddenly, Mom’s perfect face and willowy figure make sense. Humans have to work hard to look as good as my mom did. Not once in my life have I ever seen her work out, let alone go on a jog. Everything she ate came out of a box, but she looked like she just got off the runaway, even wearing her ratty sweatpants.

I, on the other hand, have to work for my body. After years spent in the gym, I’m finally toned, muscular. If I take time off, I almost immediately develop belly fat. After growing up with someone like Mom, I always feel like a freak.

“Well, you are,” says Gretchen, shooing Jolene from her paperwork throne. “Whether she liked it or not.”

“And my dad?”

“Oh, honey,” says Gretchen, in a way that makes tears spring to my eyes. “For all we know, you just spawned into existence. She’s never told anyone a word about him.”

I chew my lip. Run my fingertips over Jolene’s fur as she stomps by, furious at the interruption. “He must be human.”

Gretchen nods. “Oh, I’m sure of it. You’re very human passing.”

That means blunt-features, body fat. An insult. I try not to recoil. “Thanks.”

Hours later, I’m finally alone in the house. Gretchen has taken entire trash bags of paperwork to her house, where there’s a paper shredder.

It’s barely a dent. Seven tubs of paperwork remain. Within them, I’ve found neighborhood flyers, vet records for pets long dead, my elementary school assignments (which Gretchen cooed over), gas station receipts, birthday cards. Some of this has been relegated to a smaller tub for safekeeping. I’m not sure if I need any of this, but Gretchen insists that I shouldn’t throw it away too soon, that I might want it later.

No, what I’m really looking for is anything that will tell me about Mom, or maybe, if I’m extra lucky, my dad. There’s got to be some record of his existence somewhere. Mom isn’t the kind of person who has one-night stands (and if I’m honest, I’m terrified to consider the alternative, that I’m the result of something that happened against her will).

Three days later, I find a dusty bin full of old notebooks. When I flip through them, I barely recognize the words on the pages—sigils, egregores, divination, athame—even though they’re in Mom’s neat handwriting. These must be from that university she attended. The one Gretchen can’t remember the name of.

I scour them anyway, heart pounding. On almost every page, Mom has drawn a picture of the sea—of the sun rising over the water, of moonlit horizons, water droplets, waves, seagulls, a vast cliff, a rocky beach.

My mother, who forbade me from ever setting foot in the ocean, was obsessed.

In another box, I find a jar of sand, broken pink and white seashells, a speckled conch, and a glass bottle that must contain ocean water, still sealed. Amidst the shattered shells, I find a slip of paper: For the baby.