How We Met

There’s a mermaid tattooed on my husband’s arm.

And years ago, he told the boys it was because he caught me in the ocean and decided to marry me.

Which, according to him, is how you get a wife.

My middle believes this with the kind of wholehearted conviction only little kids and conspiracy theorists are capable of. He wants details every time. What kind of bait did he use? Was I dangerous? Did I live near sharks? Could I still breathe underwater if I tried hard enough?

And my husband, naturally, answers every question with increasing confidence and absolutely no concern for continuity.

My first, meanwhile, is horrified by all of it.

He’s honest to a fault. The kind of kid who wants the truth cleanly labeled. No tricks. No wool over the eyes. No being made the butt of the joke. Even as a little kid, he’s had the soul of a very tired accountant.

So naturally, we make it worse.

Not cruelly.

Just enough to needle him.

We’ll nod seriously and add even taller tales.

That I used to collect forks off the ocean floor.

That sailors occasionally spotted me near Catalina.

That I lost my tail once I came onto land, but could regain it if I ever went back into the ocean again.

Which is why, obviously, I never do.

And they’re constantly trying to catch us in the details.

Holding up old childhood photos like evidence.

Questioning timelines.

Asking my sister if she used to be a mermaid too.

And without missing a beat, she’ll immediately answer in complete seriousness, slipping into whatever strange mermaid lore we’ve apparently all agreed upon.

At this point, the story has become bigger than any of us.

My first will stare at us like he somehow ended up raising us.

Which, honestly, might be fair.

But I think part of parenting is trying to leave a small doorway open between reality and imagination for as long as possible. Not because they’re gullible. Not because we want them confused.

Just because adulthood comes for them eventually.

And my first, especially, already seems halfway there sometimes.

So we keep winking at him from the other side of the story.

Trying to convince him that a little nonsense might not be the worst thing in the world.