He believed in mermaids. My grandfather, William Edgar Austin, believed. He used to look for them as the sun was going down, standing out there for hours with his hands on his forehead, shielding his eyes from the last bit of sunlight. He would stand that way until my mother was finally able to coax him into the house. She would use some of his favorite things to bribe him. Sometimes a piece of coconut pie, a cup of hot chocolate or a story. He loved stories, and he loved it when we would read to him. His eyes had gotten so bad that he had trouble reading small print, he couldn’t keep up with reading glasses; plus it was hard for him to concentrate once he got older.

Oh, how my grandfather loved a good story. He was the best storyteller I have ever met. I swear I honestly thought that he owned a circus and that he met my grandmother on a night when the monkeys got loose. He said she was the only person who could help him catch them. That they fell in love in the monkey house. So real were his stories that I truly thought that my mother was born under the Big Top and that she was the world’s youngest trapeze artist. I could see her; her pink sequined leotard covering her diaper as she performed death defying stunts 20 feet in the air. I never doubted it—why would I? My mother was fearless.

Whew, when my mother overheard me telling one of my friends the story! She was mad at first—told me to apologize to my friend for telling such an outrageous lie and accused me of being as bad as her father. She threatened to make me lick the bar of soap for lying, but when I burst into tears she realized that I wasn’t crying because I hated the taste of Dial, but because my grandfather had lied to me. Understand, I knew—knew—that my grandfather owned a circus. I could describe it to you in detail. I was honestly confused.

She called my grandfather up and told him to come over right away, that he had some explaining to do. She gave him an earful—she chewed him up one side and down the other. He pulled into our driveway within the hour.

I will never forget the look on his face. Or the way he sucked me in. With my mother standing watch he told me that he had never really owned a circus. That he and my grandmother had never caught monkeys together and my mother hadn’t worn a pink sequined leotard while she was still in diapers. He finished with a wink and my mother threw up her hands and walked away.

“For the love of Pete…..“ she mumbled as she walked off. I was convinced that he had, in fact, once owned a circus but for some reason my mother didn’t want me to know about it.

There were other stories. He told me how he and my grandmother once were called in to take care of a potential problem; in Africa, no less. Their job was to tame wild lions. Apparently, the lions were causing all sorts of havoc and the only thing short of killing them all was to tame them. He said my grandmother could wear them down with nothing but her razor sharp tongue. He said she learned that from her mother, his mother-in-law. He said it was a sight to see, in less than an hour she would have even the mightiest lion begging for mercy. He said it was the easiest job he’d ever had—all he had to do was watch and tell her when the lions had had enough. He said she never seemed to know when to stop once she got started. She never backed down; she stood her ground—all 4-foot

Then there was the one where he was a fighter pilot in World War II. He even had some scars that he told me he got when his plane crashed in enemy territory. I never did hear how he got out of that one. Funny—I never even questioned it, never thought about it, because there was always something else just as interesting waiting to be told.   But then my grandfather started getting old and forgetful. I mean, he had always been old, but he was changing. I heard words like dementia, eccentric. Words like Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know what these words meant, but I knew they weren’t good. I understood they had something to do with the way his stories had changed. He didn’t tell really tell them anymore. Except for same story about the mermaids. He obsessed over them—like I said before he would look for them for hours. He told me over and over how they were out there and that he was supposed to meet them. He would forget he had told me, sometimes telling me the same thing twice in 10 minutes. I would always listen to him; just like it was the first I‘d ever heard of them. I never let on that I knew the story by heart.

One night not long before he disappeared, he said that a mermaid had come to him in a dream. It was a great story, just like in the old days; you could see her red hair and taste the salt in the air. There was a beautiful kingdom made of coral he said, he had seen it. My grandmother was there, but instead the legs that had turned stiff and useless, she had a tail! She could swim like a fish! His eyes lit up and he looked like his old self. The red-haired mermaid told him that she was going to come for him, for him to be ready.

I never doubted him for a minute. It’s been awhile since I last heard him tell that story, but I can still remember every word. I will never forget the way his eyes lit up as he told me the story of the beautiful red-haired mermaid.

My mother said that it’s not healthy for me to deny that my grandfather has died. She reminds me over and over that I saw him that morning, the morning when he didn’t come down for breakfast. She reminds me that I am the one who went to see why he wasn’t sitting at the table. That I was the one who called for her and my father, told them to come quick, that grandfather was gone. And I tell her he was gone—that the empty husk left behind in my grandfather’s bed was not my grandfather. That the thing that we buried two days later; the strange, pale look-alike grandfather, was not him.

I honestly believe that she did come for him; that the beautiful, red-haired mermaid came for him and he is with my grandmother down below the waves. It is easy for me to accept that. My grandfather was such a good storyteller that he could make you believe anything.

Plus it would explain the sand I wake to find on my bedroom floor each morning. When just the night before my floor was swept clean. Or the piles of shells I find on my desk and in my dresser drawers. Once I even woke to find a sand dollar tucked under my pillow. But I can never tell anyone, I know that they won’t believe me. No one wants to hear these kinds of stories. Maybe one day, I will have a grandson of my own that I can tell this story to.

A grandson who believes.