False Mermaid

A hand suddenly clamped across her mouth from behind. She could hear rustling deeper in the woods, and heard strange voices arguing in the woods above her.

“Skeeter, what the fuck, man—”

“I just went for a piss. I had to go.”

“I told you to stay there and not touch anything. Now she’s gone. Grab the stuff, and let’s get out of here.”

The person who held her was not large, but strong and wiry. At last the voices receded and the hand slid from her mouth. She turned to face the Cambodian fisherman. He spoke in a whisper. “You okay? Need doctor?” He pointed to her head.

“I have to find my love knot. I can’t lose it.” Feeling as though she was going to pass out again, Nora reached for the fisherman’s sleeve. “Please help me.”

3

At the Emergency Room, Nora opened her eyes to find an unfamiliar figure sitting in the chair beside her. She must be dreaming—this couldn’t be real. Hanging above her, she saw an IV dripping clear liquid. All right, so maybe it wasn’t a dream.

Fragments of the previous night started coming back to her. Talking to Miranda at the river, the crash. After that, everything was a little hazy. They must have given her something. She struggled to prop herself up.

The figure in the chair sat forward. The fisherman held a small plastic tackle box on his lap. “You okay?”

“Why did you want me to meet you at the river? You were going to tell me about my sister—I’m sorry, I don’t have her picture anymore.”

He pushed his tackle box toward her. “You look.”

Nora took the box and opened the lid. Inside were all the same sorts of useless treasures she had saved as a child: an orange plastic keychain in the shape of a crab, a rusty ball-bearing, a brass key gone to green, assorted marbles and coins. Collected like this, they seemed not like useless junk, but amulets or jujus, objects that carried a powerful spiritual charge. What was it he wanted her to look for? She pulled out a weathered scrap of paper with block letters in blue ballpoint: I know what you did. Hidden Falls 11 pm tonite. A smudge of something that looked like blood marked the corner of the paper. She set the note aside and kept searching. At the bottom of the box, her fingers crossed a rubbery surface. She parted the jumble to find a Nokia cell phone, the same model as Tríona’s missing mobile. No wonder they hadn’t found it in the crime scene evidence. All at once, she saw Tríona running for her life through the underbrush, trying to call for help, dropping the phone as she fled. She imagined herself in the hotel lobby that night, calling and calling, while this phone lay useless amid dead leaves.

She reached out for the fisherman, seizing his shirtsleeve. “Where did you get this? I mean, where exactly did it come from—do you remember?”

He backed away, alarmed. “At river. All from river.”

Nora let go of his sleeve. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Her gaze caught on a faded color photo taped inside the tackle box lid. A father, mother, children. “Is this your family?”

He nodded. “In Cambodia—before.”

Nora struggled to focus on their faces: the bespectacled father, mother in a white blouse and dark skirt, and four boys, lined up eldest to youngest, mugging for the camera. All apparently unaware of the terrible wave that was about to catch them. “Which is you?”

He pointed to the youngest boy, with the biggest ears and the widest grin. She peered closer and noticed the stethoscope slung around the father’s neck. “Your father was a doctor?”

She looked up, recognizing the guarded, hollow look in his eyes. He must have been only a child when the Khmer Rouge came to power. When the killing started. “I’m sorry—” She struggled to think what else to say. “You’ve been so kind, and I don’t even know your name.”

“Sotharith.”

Nora threw off her blanket and sat up at the edge of the gurney. Sotharith looked alarmed. “I can’t stay here,” she said. “I’ve got to go. Do you know what happened to my cell phone?”

He handed over a bag evidently containing her personal items. Nora dug for her phone and quickly checked for messages. Still nothing from Frank.

A nurse pulled back the curtain and strode over to the bed, checking the IV and monitor in a single glance. “So—how are we doing here?” When Nora didn’t respond, she spoke sotto voce to Sotharith. “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to go back to the waiting area now.” She pointed to the large double doors outside in the hall. “We’ll let you know when your friend is ready to be discharged.”

Sotharith backed out of the room with the tackle box pressed to his chest. When the nurse’s back was turned, Nora managed to tuck the note and the two phones under her pillow. She spoke to Sotharith over the nurse’s shoulder. “Don’t leave, please. I’ll come out to you as soon as I can—” The door swung open, and he was gone.

The nurse spoke again, nodding toward someone standing outside the curtain. “The police are here to take your statement, Dr. Gavin.”