Fiction of K. R. LaFleur.” The creatures who are cursed to shed their skins again and again, never finding their true skin, are clearly derived from the Irish selkie legend. The men cursed to live as swanlike birds are drawn from a combination of sources including The Mabinogion and Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Wild Swans.” I’ve never connected the shape-shifters in her stories, though, to the story of Tam Lin who changes shape three times before he escapes his enchantment.
I should be grateful and excited for this clue Aidan Barry has given me, but still I’m unnerved by his appearance at my apartment. Surely he’d know that his sudden appearance on my doorstep would startle me. It’s definitely inappropriate—aggressive, even. And yet, when I think of how he looked, chilled and wet, waiting for me in the rain, I can’t help but think how vulnerable he seemed. And afraid. The way he describes the perils of parole have truly touched me. It’s as if he’s afraid of his own nature, which he can’t trust not to revert to some primitive throwback. He’s like Tam Lin, asking for someone to hold on to him so he won’t turn back into a beast, or worse, an inanimate thing that burns.
But what can I do for him, what does he expect from me?
Again I have that sense of being watched even though I have turned out the light. I reach up to draw the shade over the window to the left of my desk, but first I scan the street below. From this window, I can see the sidewalk and a narrow strip of the cobblestone gutter lit up by the street lamp on the south side of Jane. A shadow stretches over the sidewalk, but whatever casts that shadow is too close to this side of the street for me to see. I can’t even tell if it’s a shadow cast by a person or by something inanimate, a pile of garbage on the north side of the street, some discarded piece of furniture perhaps. I listen for footsteps, but all I can hear is rain and traffic from the West Side Highway and, faintly in the distance, the Hudson flowing toward the sea.
Chapter Five
I send “The Selkie’s Daughter” to
Caffeine
and within a week I get a call from Phoebe Nix saying that not only does she want to publish it, but she wants to put it in her Mother’s Day issue. The few times I’ve gotten a story accepted I’ve had to wait months—sometimes years—to actually see it in print. Twice the journals that have accepted my work have gone out of business before my piece could appear. Now Phoebe is saying that my essay will be on sale by May 1, just three weeks from today.
“I think it’s very exciting that you’ve decided to explore these issues about your mother,” Phoebe says. “Perhaps you’ll want to do a
follow-up piece
?” Phoebe Nix’s voice lilts upward on the words
follow-up piece
in a way that produces a flutter in my throat, something rising inside me like joy.
Follow-up piece
just might become the next chorus in the song I’ve been singing, edging out
possibly publishable
as my favorite phrase.
“Well, I have been thinking of something else along those lines,” I lie.
“Maybe you could write more about what it was like to grow up in a hotel—that must have been interesting. After my parents died I practically grew up in hotels . . . I was trying to remember if I was ever at your parents’ hotel . . .”
“My parents didn’t own the Hotel Equinox—” I start to correct her, but she interrupts me.
“And you said your mother’s maiden name was Morrissey? That name is certainly familiar. I think my mother might have mentioned it in her journals. Maybe our mothers knew each other?”
Although I think it’s extremely unlikely that my mother knew the great poet Vera Nix I make a sort of noncommittal murmur.
“Anyway,” Phoebe says, “why don’t we have lunch when the galleys for ‘The Selkie’s Daughter’ come in? Did I tell you how much I love the title?”
I’m so happy that I break our no-calls-during-the-day
I should be grateful and excited for this clue Aidan Barry has given me, but still I’m unnerved by his appearance at my apartment. Surely he’d know that his sudden appearance on my doorstep would startle me. It’s definitely inappropriate—aggressive, even. And yet, when I think of how he looked, chilled and wet, waiting for me in the rain, I can’t help but think how vulnerable he seemed. And afraid. The way he describes the perils of parole have truly touched me. It’s as if he’s afraid of his own nature, which he can’t trust not to revert to some primitive throwback. He’s like Tam Lin, asking for someone to hold on to him so he won’t turn back into a beast, or worse, an inanimate thing that burns.
But what can I do for him, what does he expect from me?
Again I have that sense of being watched even though I have turned out the light. I reach up to draw the shade over the window to the left of my desk, but first I scan the street below. From this window, I can see the sidewalk and a narrow strip of the cobblestone gutter lit up by the street lamp on the south side of Jane. A shadow stretches over the sidewalk, but whatever casts that shadow is too close to this side of the street for me to see. I can’t even tell if it’s a shadow cast by a person or by something inanimate, a pile of garbage on the north side of the street, some discarded piece of furniture perhaps. I listen for footsteps, but all I can hear is rain and traffic from the West Side Highway and, faintly in the distance, the Hudson flowing toward the sea.
Chapter Five
I send “The Selkie’s Daughter” to
Caffeine
and within a week I get a call from Phoebe Nix saying that not only does she want to publish it, but she wants to put it in her Mother’s Day issue. The few times I’ve gotten a story accepted I’ve had to wait months—sometimes years—to actually see it in print. Twice the journals that have accepted my work have gone out of business before my piece could appear. Now Phoebe is saying that my essay will be on sale by May 1, just three weeks from today.
“I think it’s very exciting that you’ve decided to explore these issues about your mother,” Phoebe says. “Perhaps you’ll want to do a
follow-up piece
?” Phoebe Nix’s voice lilts upward on the words
follow-up piece
in a way that produces a flutter in my throat, something rising inside me like joy.
Follow-up piece
just might become the next chorus in the song I’ve been singing, edging out
possibly publishable
as my favorite phrase.
“Well, I have been thinking of something else along those lines,” I lie.
“Maybe you could write more about what it was like to grow up in a hotel—that must have been interesting. After my parents died I practically grew up in hotels . . . I was trying to remember if I was ever at your parents’ hotel . . .”
“My parents didn’t own the Hotel Equinox—” I start to correct her, but she interrupts me.
“And you said your mother’s maiden name was Morrissey? That name is certainly familiar. I think my mother might have mentioned it in her journals. Maybe our mothers knew each other?”
Although I think it’s extremely unlikely that my mother knew the great poet Vera Nix I make a sort of noncommittal murmur.
“Anyway,” Phoebe says, “why don’t we have lunch when the galleys for ‘The Selkie’s Daughter’ come in? Did I tell you how much I love the title?”
I’m so happy that I break our no-calls-during-the-day
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