“Oh, just stop it, you big baby.” Her mother stretched her neck to squint at Fred’s exasperated features. “Why you can’t understand how beautiful and natural sex can be and why you have so many Puritan hang-ups about it—how a child of mine can be so—”

“Mom, now’s not the time for the ‘Peace and Lurrrv’ lecture.”

“He had legs like you do, of course,” she said, completely ignoring Fred’s emphatic backpedaling five seconds earlier. “I imagine he can grow a tail or not, as he likes. As you like.” Moon frowned. “I guess any mer-person can. I thought you could do it or not because you were half human. But unless he was also half human—”

“That’d be super duper for him. So he jumps your drunken bones, you have sand-pillow talk, then he leaps into the sea and disappears? So you’re telling me… what? My real father’s an asshole? And you’re a slut? Because he owes you for years of child support payments, that’s one. And two—”

“Must you always label people?”

“Must you shovel truth down my throat?”

“As I was saying,” Moon went on with admirable dignity, considering recent events and what she was hardly wearing, “ten months later and there you were.”

“Ten months?” How had she never done the math before? Easy. Her mom had never talked about her father—her real father—before. Just “oh and we met and got married because society will insist on that silly piece of paper and we’ve been a family ever since.”

And Fred, knowing her mother would answer anything—anything—was the only kid on the block who never went through the “where did I come from?” phase. Moon not only would have answered the question in disgusting and embarrassing detail, she would have surfed pornography websites with her daughter to investigate different methods.

“It takes longer for mer-people to gestate.” Sam was looking at Fred thoughtfully. He taught Natural Science at 4C (Cape Cod Community College). “Or hybrids. Or—”

“So why’d you marry her, Sam? It was all “Free Love” and all the maryjane you could smoke and don’t trust anyone over eighty back then.”

“Thirty,” her mother gurgled. “And marijuana? Wasn’t on it. Poisons the body. Wine is bad enough.” She winked at her daughter. “Look at the trouble three glasses of bad Chardonnay got me in!” Moon wouldn’t take a Tylenol for a broken leg. Sadly, Fred knew this for a fact.

“Anyway—”

“No, no, that’s enough,” Fred broke in hastily. “I get it now. The gaping void inside me is complete, and filled with truth. No need to—”

“—your mother and I knew each other in high school, and went our separate ways after graduation. When I ran into her, she was just as radiant and glowing as I remembered her.”

“Probably all the puking,” Fred suggested.

“And we fell in love and Sam loved you long before you were born. We both did. We loved… the idea of you.” Her morn closed her eyes and took on a dreamy expression Fred knew well. “And the first time I gave you a bath and your legs grew together and your scales came down and you splashed me and broke the baby tub I was so amazed—and so thrilled—”