Son of a Mermaid Read Online Free PDF

shook her head. “She wanted you to be born near the ocean. So they came back for a short stretch. But then your mum went into labor early, one afternoon when they were out on the fishing boat. Your dad got her to the medical center on Nantucket just in time.”
    Shea felt a lump forming in his throat. “Did she die?”
    Martha shook her head. There was a long pause before she finally smiled, putting a gentle hand on his knee. “Did you know your Daddy was supposed to bring you here to Cape Cod, to meet her, later this very summer? Now that you’ve turned fifteen?”
    A whole minute passed before Shea realized his jaw was hanging open. He snapped it shut, his teeth clicking together. “He never said anything about that. I didn’t know that they, you know, kept in touch.”
    “I don’t think Thomas has seen her since you were born. He hadn’t even come back to the coast to see me until…until the funerals. But he and your mum exchanged letters over the years. She’s heard all about you, and what a great help you are on the farm. She loves you, you know.”
    Shea snorted, feeling a familiar rush of anger bubbling inside of him. “No, Gramma, I don’t know. She left when I was a little baby. She. Left. Me. What about her abandonment would tell me that she loves me?”
    Martha narrowed her eyes at Shea. “No need for that tone of voice, young man. Maybe this is enough information for now. We’ll talk more later, after you’ve sorted this through.” Abruptly, she rose and left the room, leaving the silver frame on the couch.
    Shea looked up at the fireplace, at the other photographs lining the mantel. There were old black and whites of a much younger Martha in her own wedding gown, and many of his dad and twin brother when they were young. In one of the frames was a photo of Tom holding a baby in his arms. Shea thought the expression on his father’s face looked happy and sad at the same time.
    Shea reached for the silver frame lying on the cushion next to him. He stared at the photograph. His empty hand clenched into a ball, until he felt his stubby fingernails biting into his palms.
    Why hadn’t his father told him any of this? What had he been waiting for?

Chapter Six
     
    6 aluminum cans, 3 plastic coffee cup lids, a kid’s sand bucket with a crack down the side, 4 whole silver candy wrappers and 4 more pieces of wrappers, broken red plastic from some kind of reflector, 3 water bottles and a long piece of smelly rope.
    Shea catalogued the contents of the flimsy plastic bag, now bulging with the addition of that last soda can. Unable to sleep, he’d risen before the sun and slipped out of his grandmother’s house, Lucky padding silently behind him through the pre-dawn darkness.
    The sun was only now peeking out to greet the day, painting the horizon in pale shades of pink and dusky purple. Shea finished the daily two-mile trek along the shoreline, his head still spinning with the revelations of the prior morning. “If Dad really kept in touch with my mother, why didn’t he tell me?” His brain was beginning to hurt, trying to understand this new twist. “Why wait until I’m fifteen?” Having a mom would’ve been a lot more useful in, say, Kindergarten than in high school.
    After being so chatty at breakfast, his grandmother wouldn’t say anything more on the subject for the rest of the day. Shea tried to coax it out of her at lunch, but she’d refused to talk about it. Dinner had been something of a silent affair.
    He whistled for Lucky and turned toward the dunes, impatient to dump today’s collection of garbage. The waterlogged rope was pretty smelly, even stuffed at the bottom of the bag. The dog’s sharp bark stopped him in his tracks. He whipped his head back toward the ocean.
    Lucky stood at the far end of the beach barking frantically at a little girl with blonde ringlets of hair and huge eyes. She perched on top of the rock jetty with her knees pulled tight to her chest, looking down at