When Mama left, Papa said she returned home to the ocean. She had smelled like salt and seaweed, her skin cool to the touch, even on the hottest summer days. Why would she leave me? I wanted to ask but never did, too afraid of the answer. Instead, I waded in the shallows and searched for her among the cresting waves.

He liked to tell me how she had heard him singing one day as he stood on the beach, pulling in his nets. She took one look at his strong arms, his green eyes, and instantly fell in love. He said she gave him her sealskin willingly, unlike others whose skins were stolen, who had no choice but to stay. He always gave her a choice, he said. He never could explain why she would choose to break our hearts that way. 

The women in town clicked their tongues and shook their heads whenever we walked by. He should tell her the truth they said just loud enough for us to hear. My cheeks burned, but I stayed silent, afraid that I would break his heart if I confronted him. They said she had walked into the water with stones in her skirt pockets, that she carried a darkness that became too heavy to bear. 

I watched him from the dunes when he fished along the shore. I saw how he hunched his shoulders as he wiped his eyes and cheeks, the way he left her favorite purple wildflowers on top of the shiny black stones, the way he stood there watching the waves until the greedy tide claimed them for itself.

When Papa died, I found the key to a locked chest he kept under his bed. Inside I discovered the strangest thing: a ring made of seal whiskers wrapped in one of Mama’s time-yellowed handkerchiefs and a note that simply said, “You have my heart, but I must go. Forgive me.” 

I wear her ring now on a chain around my neck. Sometimes I wade into the ocean, lick the salt from my lips. I stand firm against the tide, my skirts wrapping around my legs like creatures from the deep threatening to take me with them.