When We Believed in Mermaids: A Novel

Mari Edwards is blindfolded as her husband, Simon, drives her away from their home outside Auckland, New Zealand. As they drive, they discuss aspects of their personalities, causing Mari to reflect on the two children she and Simon share, Sarah and Leo. When they arrive at their destination, Mari is excited to see it is Sapphire House, a well-known home built in the 1930s by a famous actress, Veronica Parker. The house has been a fascination for Mari since she moved to New Zealand 15 years prior, and Simon announces that he has purchased it for her. The house had been owned by Veronica’s recently deceased sister, Helen.

Mari walks through the house, falling instantly in love with the 1930s era décor in all but three rooms. The kitchen, the sitting room, and Helen’s bedroom have been updated—rooms Helen used—but the rest of the home remains as it was when Veronica was alive. Mari knows that Veronica was born in New Zealand but became famous as an actress in Hollywood. In 1932, she met George Brown, an Olympic swimmer, when she was part of the welcoming committee for New Zealand’s Olympic athletes in Los Angeles. She and George fell in love, and this inspired Veronica to move back to New Zealand and build the house. However, George was married, and his wife refused to divorce. On April 9, 1938, Veronica was found stabbed to death in the primary bedroom, and George was accused of the murder, but no suspects were ever arrested. George isolated himself and died three years later.

Kit falls asleep on the plane bound for New Zealand and has a dream she’s had countless times before. She is sitting on the beach with her childhood dog, Cinder, watching her foster brother, Dylan, surf. When the wave begins to break up, she knows she should warn him, but also knows how happy he is and chooses not to. Dylan falls from his board and goes under. Cinder begins to bark, but Dylan doesn’t come up. Kit wakes.

Kit reflects on her childhood, memories mostly of her, Josie, and Dylan playing on the beach. She remembers being close to Josie as a small child, but that Josie became distant as an adolescent, often acting out, becoming promiscuous, and developing an addiction to drugs and alcohol. She also recalls a time when their mother woke them early while they were sleeping in a tent on the beach and showed them a treasure chest that she claimed came from mermaids. This is one of a few good memories Kit has of her mother. Kit struggles to accept her mother as both loving and neglectful.

Kit arrives in Auckland and goes to the high-rise building where she has rented an apartment through Airbnb. She stumbles to the elevator, overwrought with jet lag, having a brief interaction with a good-looking man who speaks Spanish. In her apartment, she falls into bed and sleeps until morning. The following day, she goes to the shops to buy a charging cord for both her phone and laptop. As she walks through the Central Business District (CBD) of Auckland, she considers showing Josie’s picture to the employees of the shops in hopes of locating her. She visits the site of the nightclub fire and realizes most of the victims were young Asian women, causing her to wonder why her sister was there. As she views the impromptu memorial laid out for the victims, she thinks about her role as an emergency room doctor and acknowledges that she has become disillusioned by some of the darkness she sees in humanity in her role. She is also reminded of the phone call she received the morning her mother informed her of Josie’s death.

Mari is up early to get her children ready for school. She has a brief conversation with her daughter, Sarah, on the way to school, noticing again Sarah’s new apathy regarding school and irritation at her teachers. This has inspired Mari and Simon to make an appointment to speak with Sarah’s teacher that morning. During the meeting with the teacher, Simon and Mari learn that another student has been bullying Sarah. Simon is angry that the teacher failed to reprimand the bullies and that it appears the teacher lied to him. Simon does not like lies. Mari steps in and promises to call the parent of the bullies’ ringleader to settle things.

Mari goes up to Sapphire House after the meeting and collects feijoa fruit from a tree that grows over the driveway—a fruit she loves but Simon dislikes. Mari walks around the house making notes of the things that need to be done before she and her family can move in. She finds a landline telephone and it brings back memories of her childhood, making her think of her father, a brilliant chef who ran their family restaurant, Eden.

Mari continues her inventory, thinking about Veronica’s murder, and she wonders who might have been her killer. She explores an office and looks closely at the books and finds both a collection of elegant books clearly meant as décor and other books that suggest an interest in fiction and local history. She also finds a collection of books on mermaids that again conjures memories of Mari’s childhood. This makes her think of tattoos she and her sister, Kit, share of mermaid scales with the words Big Sister for Josie/Mari and Little Sister for Kit. Mari acknowledges how much she misses her sister, Kit, but tries to push the memories down as she has grown accustomed to doing.

Kit walks around the shops, noting that most of them are tourist oriented, therefore not likely places a resident might shop. However, she notices a stationery store and decides to stop, considering asking the clerk about Josie. She, Josie, and Dylan learned calligraphy as children and love inks of all colors. Kit buys several bottles of ink, but she doesn’t ask about Josie.

Kit goes to a small Italian restaurant for dinner and orders food she believes her father would appreciate. Beside her is a handsome Latin man who introduces himself as Javier. They share a bottle of wine and discuss the food. Javier tells Kit he was the man who held the elevator open for her the previous morning, and she’s slightly embarrassed she doesn’t remember him. He tells her he’s in Auckland to visit a friend, Miguel, who is a musician playing at another restaurant nearby. They share brief anecdotes about their childhoods, with Javier revealing that his father was a bureaucrat, and this led to his older sister being kidnapped as a child.

Javier asks Kit to go with him to see Miguel perform. They order drinks and Javier becomes affectionate with Kit, making it clear he is interested in an intimate relationship. Kit is not interested in commitments, so she typically avoids men she might catch feelings for. Javier seems to be interested in her romantically, and this causes her to hesitate to respond to his touch. When Javier gets on stage and begins to sing, Kit knows he has the power to make her fall in love, and she leaves so that this cannot happen.

Mari is doing the dishes with Sarah when she notices just how much like Kit Sarah is. She has the same wild, curly hair and an interest in science. Sarah isn’t excited about moving to Sapphire House until she learns it has a greenhouse for her many experiments. When Sarah goes up for a bath, Mari takes the dogs outside. Watching the dogs play reminds Mari of her childhood dog, Cinder. Mari recalls a night when it was storming, and Cinder began to bark a warning seconds before there was a knock on the door. When Mari’s mother opened the door, a boy was there, wet from the storm and covered in bruises. Mari’s mother took him in, moving five-year-old Kit into seven-year-old Mari’s bedroom to make space for him. This boy was Dylan. She wonders why her mother didn’t call the authorities and instead lied to everyone, saying that Dylan was her nephew.

Mari joins Simon as he watches a movie. She uses her computer to look up information on Veronica Parker, including one of Veronica’s early movies. She reflects on how Veronica began her career prior to the Hays Code, a guideline in Hollywood that governed the morality of the industry. Her early movies reflect this, placing Veronica in the role of a “victorious vixen,” but her later work, after the Hays Code, reduced her roles and made it difficult for her to get roles. When Veronica returned to New Zealand, a local director promised to make her the star of his new movie, but the movie was never made.

Kit wakes up early in the morning and calls her mother. She is pleased to learn her mother is staying at her house with Hobo, as promised. They discuss Josie and some methods by which Kit might be able to locate her.

After the call, Kit recalls one of the last times she saw Josie. Kit was in medical school in San Francisco and overwhelmed with studies and rotations. She had resisted seeing Josie for a while because she was busy, and Josie was lost in addiction. Josie traveled often due to her obsession with surfing, so Kit decided that since she might not see her again soon, she would finally make time to see her. They had lunch, talked about their childhood neglect and their grief over Dylan, as well as Josie’s vagabond lifestyle. After lunch, they spontaneously went to a tattoo artist to get their mermaid scale tattoos. Kit mentions that their dog, Cinder, died before the earthquake happened.

Kit uses her laptop to pull up the footage from the news story on the nightclub fire and prints a picture of Josie from the video. She views a map and locates a set of stores in the CBD where a resident might shop, deciding to show Josie’s picture there in hopes of finding her.