Pensacola Mermaids 
by Andrea Figueroa-Irizarry

Our favorite thing to do in the waves was pretend to be battered by them. Lola and I were two sisters lost at sea, sunscreen slick on our skin and sea salt clinging to our hair. Never mind that the water only lapped our stomachs when we stood. Never mind that seagulls laughed around us, fighting over crumbs of chips and bread in the sand. Never mind that the shore was nearby, anchoring us to our mother’s watchful eye from beneath a rainbow pinwheel umbrella and the promise of midday ham sandwiches. In the water, our hands were outstretched until Lola grabbed me, her skin cold even in the lukewarm water. We kept the beach at our backs, facing the endless Gulf as if it were the only thing surrounding us, turning from blue to black the further we looked.

 

In the distance, a boat teetered on the edge of the horizon. Lola pointed to it and waved with the hand not holding mine. We swam deeper, the water rising to our chests. I watched it lap against the thin scar along her right shoulder blade. She pulled me after her and called out to the boat, telling it to wait for us, don’t go, don’t leave us, her voice a whisper-yell that soared across the waves.

 

When we played, I pretended Lola’s scar was a gill. It was from surgery, three years before, to search for a tumor lodged in her ribs after she developed hollow breaths around her fifth birthday. I was too young to remember much about it, but the doctors warned our mother of the signs that would remain after they took it out. Surgeons had to cut along Lola’s right shoulder blade, a half-complete C-shape, slicing a nerve in exchange for the release of pressure on her lungs. The scar helped her breathe better, especially as we tumbled under the water, pretending to be pulled further into the three-foot depths.

 

Our tails sprouted through long-winded descriptions. Lola’s scales involved whatever animal print she liked that week, while my mind rifled through my glittery first-grade vocabulary. She could control the water with cupped hands, splashing sea foam in arches above us, while I’d talk to the killifish nibbling at our toes. With ankles and knees pressed together, we dove under the chest-high waves, combed our fingers through the sand, and squinted red-eyed in the salt water. She pretended to be taken by a deep-sea evildoer, and I rushed after her. I’d float motionlessly after a tireless battle with a pretend shark, and she’d press her left hand, the warm one, into my invisible wounds. 

 

The surgery caused her to develop Horner syndrome. Symptoms include a drooping eyelid, mismatched pupil sizes, and colder temperature on one half of one’s body. Young patients, like Lola, develop heterochromia, the shift in color between one’s eyes. Both of her eyes were brown, but you could best tell the difference when we surfaced facing the three o’clock summer sun, highlighting the lighter shade on the left side and the darker on the right.

 

I was too young to remember the hospital, the check-ups Lola went to when they were worried the tumor could come back, the wringing hands of worried family waiting for the surgery to end. I remember her later, though, breathing deep and whole, when our mom whistled from the shore. We shed our scales and gills; our tails were exchanged for legs as we raced back. Lola always took the lead, long curls dripping over the scar on her back, and I always followed close behind, her cold hand gripped tight in mine. I’d wonder, in those moments, what the beach would be like without her, if I could beat the pretend sharks back on my own or if I’d be lost at sea forever. Wondering this made me unbelievably sad.

 

So, I’d stop wondering. When we’d sit under the umbrella, sandy fingers wrapped around wheat bread sandwiches as our mom rubbed more sunscreen into our backs, I watched Lola’s shoulders rise and fall, her scar stretching up and down, and I’d thank the line under her shoulder blade for turning into a gill so she could swim with me.