Good Dirt

Mermaids

Mermaids

S nake-ladies. Mermaids. Seal-women.

Avery is standing in a small chapel looking at mermaid motifs on the wall. She looks down at her ebook, then up again. She reads about the family that lived in the chateau where this chapel is located. The mermaid is linked to a legend surrounding the House of Lusignan, from which the family here is descended.

“Melusine was a two-tailed freshwater mermaid,” Avery says, “or part sea serpent, depending on what you read. Anyway, according to legend, she married the founder of the House of Lusignan, Raymond, and used her magic to build their castle. She forbade her husband to approach her while she took her weekly bath, during which she would revert to her original form. But after years together and several children, her husband defied her rule….”

“Naturally,” she and Ebby say simultaneously.

“So hubby spied on her, and all hell broke loose.”

After reading various tellings of this legend in her tourist pamphlet and on the Internet, Avery has downloaded the translation of a fourteenth-century book by Jean d’Arras, who wrote about the family. Avery stands there, swaying from one beige platform sneaker to the other, reading bits of the book aloud to Ebby.

Avery is glad she came here, but she should have been here with Henry. Henry would have been wandering outside with his camera, most likely, but they would have been together all the same. In this way, Avery and Henry are perfectly compatible. They’re both curious. They both like to wander, Henry with his camera and Avery with her reading. Though, lately, Henry seems to have lost track of how well they go together.

“Don’t you ever put down that phone?” Henry said the other day at lunch. Henry wasn’t given to being short with her, though he had, more than once in their four months of dating, rested his hand on her wrist and pushed it down until her phone was out of reading range. Usually, he would follow up with a kiss on her cheek or neck. But this time, there was no kiss. This time, Henry simply turned and walked away.

Avery chalked it up to The Ebony Effect .

Avery has read that couples who don’t ever disagree can be as problematic as couples who argue a lot. But Henry came to Avery after the mess with Ebony, and the ease of their relationship should have felt like a gift to him. Avery’s mission was to be agreeable until Henry grew attached enough to want to take the situation to another level. She was willing to tolerate any differences that might crop up as they got to know each other better. And until they came to France, Avery had thought it was smooth sailing.

Everyone knows Henry left Ebony, not the other way around. And there had been significant issues in their relationship, he told Avery, things that wouldn’t come up with someone else.

“You mean related to her brother’s death?”

“Let’s just say it would have been a lot for anyone to handle,” Henry said. “I think Ebby did better than most people would have.”

Avery appreciated that Henry didn’t totally slam his ex. Didn’t offer too many details. This was a good sign for the future. The man had some discretion. But he couldn’t mask the sound in his voice when he said the name Ebby .

Well, of course. It was normal. They’d been engaged. But then Avery saw the way Henry’s whole posture changed, the other day, when they first saw Ebony outside the cottage. Henry may have been the one to leave the relationship, but his body language told Avery that, maybe, he hadn’t really wanted to do so. They’d never discussed it in depth. He’d just told Avery that things hadn’t worked out and he was sorry he hadn’t handled it in a better way. But what if there was more to Henry’s regret? Sometimes, you’re convinced you’re making the right decision, and later, you’re sorry you went with it.

After laughing off their surprise encounter with Ebony, Henry said it was no big deal to remain in the cottage until the next place could take them.

“We’re going to be out all the time anyway,” he said. “It’s not like she’s going to want to see us.” Then he laughed again. A hollow, toothpaste-commercial kind of hah-hah .

And now he’s had this stupid accident with the camera. Well, Avery refuses to have her entire trip to France ruined by this. Even if it does mean being here, in this romantic corner of the world, with Ebony Freeman.

Avery clicks on a couple of additional Internet sites. No matter which version of the legend you read, the mermaid’s fate is essentially the same. Raymond the Count spies on his mysterious wife, after which things begin to go wrong. He blames Melusine and she ultimately leaves the kingdom forever. Her story vaguely repeats the fate of her own mother, who had also married a human, only to end up fleeing with her three daughters after her true identity was revealed. After she was accused of being some kind of monster , Avery thinks.

Avery looks up at the chapel wall. The composers Dvo?ák and Mendelssohn, the authors Proust and A. S. Byatt, and various painters all were inspired in their work by the mermaid myth. In each version of that myth, Avery thinks, the woman-creature who does not conform to the other person’s view of her ends up having to leave the relationship. Ends up being rejected for not living up to her lover’s view of her.

Is this what happened with Ebony and Henry? Was Ebony, with her past, too complicated for Henry? Did Henry, like the count in the legend, continue to love the woman he had driven away? And now that Avery has seen her boyfriend with his ex, felt the change in him, despite his best efforts, does Avery still have the courage to be with Henry? Because Avery deserves to be wanted. Not settled for. Not second-best. Only, she wants to be with Henry. Which is one reason why, probably, she shouldn’t be here sightseeing with Ebony.

What was she thinking?