GENEVIEVE

GENEVIEVE

After Aoife was gone, it was hard to know what to do about Genevieve. Before, they had had A Plan, but things had taken a turn, and gone downhill quickly, and in the end Aoife had fled in the middle of the night, leaving only a half-scrawled note reading "I'm s-". Of course, Scott knew that the note was supposed to say "I'm sorry", but even had she finished the word it would have been useless to him. He didn't need to know that she was sorry; he needed to know what to do about Genevieve.

"Story, Daddy?" Genevieve asked, holding out a book to him in her little hands.

He turned away from the window through which he had been watching the choppy grey sea and took the book from her. "Sure honey."

He wondered if he'd know. The Plan had been to wait, and watch. But that was because Aoife would have known. Would things happen with Genevieve as they had with Aoife? If they did, then maybe he would know, but what then? Would Aoife be there to take care of her? He watched the sea day in and day out, looking for any sign of her, but there had been none. What if she hadn't made it?

"Story Daddy!" Genevieve insisted, and he realised that he had stopped reading, and was instead staring ahead at the wall while she squirmed impatiently in his lap.

He placed a hand on her silky, jet black hair. "Sorry, honey." He found his place and kept reading.

Aoife should never have stayed with him, he knew that. Just as he knew that he should never have known his little girl, or even that he had one, really. But he had asked Aoife to stay, and for reasons that were never entirely clear to either of them, she had said yes. Genevieve had been born on land, and neither of them had known what that would mean.

Aoife had returned daily to the water, and that had worked right up until it hadn't. So they had thought they could go on that way forever; that they had had time. And time was important, because they hadn't known about Genevieve.

The first time Aoife had taken their daughter into the water, nothing had happened. At least, nothing had happened with Genevieve. Aoife had changed as usual, and was unable to keep hold of the little girl, who would have drowned had Scott not been there as well. His heart had been beating so fast and hard that he thought it would explode right from his chest as he'd raced into the freezing waves to retrieve the small body that was sinking straight to the sandy bottom.

After that, they had thought they had their answer, and Aoife hadn't dared take her again. Genevieve was two before Scott took her back into the water to teach her to swim, and that had complicated matters. She hadn't changed, but she had swum. She was out of his arms before he had a chance to tighten his hold and she had cut through the water with ease, seal-like.

"Will she change later, then?" Scott had asked, but Aoife had only stared back at him with her coal-black eyes and raised one shoulder in a helpless shrug. "She'll still be able to live on land though?" he'd pressed. "Like you can?"

Aoife hadn't responded. Her gaze was fixed now on the water that stretched to the horizon, and he understood for the first time that even though she returned every day, she still missed the sea in some fundamental way that she would never recover from.

"Daddy!" Genevieve said, patting his face with her small hand. He looked down at her and realised he had stopped reading again. He lifted her gently from his knee and put her on her feet.

"Would you like to go swimming?" he asked.

The little girl beamed, as she always did at the idea of going into the sea. "Will we see mummy?" she asked.

Scott shook his head. "I don't know, sweetie," he told her, though he hoped - just as he did every day - that they would.

She raced to the door, while he followed behind at a more sedate pace; torn, as usual, between hope and fear of disappointment. He opened the door and the freezing wind instantly bit at his uncovered face and hands, but Genevieve was not deterred. She ran outside and straight towards the water. "Wait for me," he called, and she stopped, dancing around in place as she waited impatiently for him to catch up.

They walked down to the water together and he took her clothes as she stripped them off, unfazed by the bitter cold. She stood there, naked, and looked up at him enquiringly. He nodded and she ran into the waves, diving in and disappearing below the water.

He walked forward until the waves almost lapped at his winter boots and peered into the distance. He could just make out her tiny form and he squinted in the hope that it would help him to see more clearly, because he couldn't be sure whether what he thought he was seeing was real. He looked away from her into the distance, looking for any sign of Aoife and wondering again if she was even out there. Frowning, he looked back at his daughter, waiting for her to come back so he could see for sure whether her black hair now covered her upper body like skin, and if her two legs really had become as one.