The thing about mermaids is, well, that they aren't.

You're thinking seashell bikinis and fish tails, but that isn't it. Not at all.

My cousin Marjorie, this is back in '30, mind you, and the turn for the worse had been taken by all of us. She kept her things, her jewels and her dresses. They became her scales, her fins.

She decided to become a mermaid in the same way that some of us choose to marry. It was deliberate, it took forethought. She knew that she would dive beneath the waves to never return. Perhaps she would give sirening a try... she always had a pleasant voice in living rooms, dear Marjorie, she could see luring sailors to their doom.

The process, however, took less time than the decision. After the market, she dressed in her finest. Told her husband that she was out to the market. Found the Brooklyn Bridge. Closed her eyes. Jumped.

And she never again breathed the air that had so robbed her. Not ever. Not again.