Day Eleven
Matthew calls, interrupting my writing. I pick it up before I look at the number and think better of it. He wants to know if I will reconsider.
“Reconsider what?”
“Our financial arrangement,” he says. “Here’s a better offer.”
“Let’s leave it to the lawyers,” I say.
We muddle through a short conversation about the boys. He tries to guilt me by saying they miss me and are misbehaving. I suggest he parent them. This doesn’t go over well. One of us hangs up. Not me.
None of the boys have my webbed fingers, I think dully as I look down on my own. They do not know how to long for freedom, I think. But that is not quite it, is it? For a selkie doesn’t long for her freedom. She longs for her skin. She longs for an unheard-of autonomy. No matter what, there is loss; if she stays, s
