When a young Greek girl who wants to become captain of her father’s ship realizes that that’ll never happen, she settles for being a mermaid instead. This piece is part of my recently completed collection.

The story begins:

“I’m hanging over the starboard of The Kalymnos, my father’s ship—the one with the world’s largest Greek flag—and my hands are pruned just beneath the surface of the Gulf as I wait for the snag at the end of my hooking pole. The water’s clear enough that I can see my haul won’t be much: a few pitiful sponges for a full day’s work, not one bigger than my fist, which is precisely why no one collects this way anymore. Soon enough my father’s head pops up about one hundred feet out, his dive over, and I watch as he swims toward me, fluid and confident. After climbing aboard, he dumps a dozen large sponges onto the deck from his gathering net, and I pile them in the aft, the thick stink of their membranes the smell of our family business.”

Unavailable online, the issue this story appears in can be found here.