“The assessment cove is on the north end. I’ll be in the water too. I do the initial assessment on every new hire.” She says it cleanly, no room for interpretation. “Depth check, visibility navigation, standard emergency protocol. Thirty minutes.”
“Understood.”
She turns back toward the shed. Then she stops.
“Look,” I say, and it comes out rougher than I intended. “I know you’re with Rex. I know that. I’m not here to—I’m just here to work. To do the job well. I’m not going to make this difficult for you.”
She doesn’t turn around. For a moment there’s nothing but the sound of the lake lapping against the dock.
Then she turns. Her expression is closed, controlled, the professional mask locked firmly in place. “We don’t need to have any conversation about the past, Muir. Not about Rex, not about anything. We work. That’s all.”
It’s not a question. It’s not open to negotiation.
“Understood,” I say.
She nods once, sharp and final. “Equipment shed is open. Rex will be here at nine for the first tour. Assessment dive is now, while the water’s clear.” She disappears inside.
I stand on the dock in the absence she leaves behind.
Then we don’t need to have any other conversation about the past.
Right. I’m here to be better. Not to excavate anything. Not to make it difficult for a woman who has built a good life with a man who actually stays. I’m here to do the job and do it well.
I go get my equipment.
The cove is a sheltered inlet on the northwest end, the bottom dropping in three ledges before leveling into sand at about nine meters. Clear and green-gold, the light coming through in shifting columns. Schools of small perch scatter when we enter.
I do the standard checks. Cora watches from a meter away, treading water with the ease of someone for whom the lake is simply home. She’s assessing me efficiently and also not quite meeting my eyes underwater, which reads less like avoidance and more like being careful.
Being careful is reasonable. I’m being careful too.
The first ledge drops cleanly. I follow it down, run the navigation check, signal clear.
Cora follows three meters behind and to my left. The right distance for an observer. I’m completely aware of exactly where she is. I’ve been completely aware since I walked onto this dock.
We reach the second ledge.
That’s when it happens.
I stop.
She stops too.
Not the professional version with the clipboard and the contained expression. The version of Cora San Pedro that the water gets. I know this version. I met it here four years ago before I knew what I was about to give up. You can’t perform underwater. You can’t manage at depth. The water takes what you bring and that’s all it accepts.
In the aquatic form, a selkie is more seal than man. The human softens and reshapes. I hadn’t shifted fully, but the water pulls it out of me by degrees. Loosens the held shoulders, the set jaw, the careful register, the four years of distance.
And Cora.
Her tail moves in that slow powerful sweep, pink to purple scales threaded with gold, reflecting the pageantry of tropical waters. Her black hair flows like ink through the deep blue. She becomes completely herself in a way the land version is still only approaching. In the water there’s no drawbridge. The sirena doesn’t manage what it gives away.
She’s looking at me.
Open. Undefended. The way she looks at me is the way she looks at the water itself—direct, without calculation, without the careful distance she maintains on the dock. She sees me. That's all. That's everything.
I float.
She floats.