I wrapped my father’s gift in tinfoil, put on a dress, and walked over. Knocked on their door. He opened right away alive alert and hugged me. He was now 51, the most un magical number of all. Happy birthday, I said. So nice to see you, he said. Everything seemed exactly the same as always, which made my heart hurt. I handed over the big square, which he received, smiling, then went to the living room, sat on the couch, and unpeeled it meticulously. How wonderful! he said when the cover was revealed. I nodded.
Quiet. Will you look at these pictures, he cooed. He pored carefully over each page. He liked the active pictures the best-the one of five people jumping hurdles at the same second.
The one of the woman arching through the air to break the tape and win. When he was done, he leaned over and kissed my forehead.
Smart daughter, he muttered, proud.
My mother, looking beautiful in a slow burgundy dress, walked in, put a hand on the back of my neck, and said: 5 1! She kept laughing about it. I can’t believe you’re 51, she said to my father. You look like you’re about 75 She kissed his cheek, long. My mother melted on birthdays. We were going to dinner soon, at the fancier restaurant in town, and my father opened his other gifts and tried on various sweaters, most of which he found itchy. While my mother finished getting ready, he took me outside to the backyard and showed me the new Shape of Health he’d made early that morning while my mother was still sleeping; this one, he explained, had a slightly larger radius. I think the first was too small, he said, so I thought I’d try a bigger range. What do you think? he asked, eyes open and eager. You’re the math teacher.
I looked at the two burned circles in the grass, each with the open mouth at one end.
You’re good at circles, I said. Look how even they are. Did you make these freehand?
He nodded.
They’re very even, I said.
He stepped inside first one, then the other. He smiled at me, welcoming. It seemed like he wouldn’t mind now if I came closer, now that there were two, but I stayed on the un circled grass, the grass that was just blades. He did a few stretches inside the larger circle, and then stepped out.
When it was time to go, we went out front to get in the car, and MY mother muttered something about candles and ran back inside.
Daywas becoming night, and some new kid I didn’t know was on his bicycle, out on the street, pedaling, back and forth, back and forth, tires rattling. The breeze was chilly, tree trunks cool to the touch.
I sat on the curb to wait, and my father walked over and sat down next to me. The kid biked by, focused the way kids on bikes are.
We sat side by side, my father and I. We sat alike, legs pushed out in front, feet crossed. He looked like he always looked. I was watching our legs, watching that kid on his bike, when, in the middle of this, of all people, the art teacher popped into my head. How whenever she
laughed, she clamped a hand over her mouth. 8’I laugh just like my mother, is what she usually said, in horror. Oh God, she said, I’m so terrified I’m going to be exactly like my mother.
I nodded when she said it, but I never really understood her. I didn’t understand the big deal. Everyone said what she said, but it was the opposite that broke my heart.
This.
My father sat, feet out, on the curb, a walking half-century. A faded photograph. The pewter moons of his fingernails, the old black stems of his eyelashes, the distant circles around his pupils, the distant circles burned into the grass of the backyard. The gray, carefully creased pant-leg bulb of his knee.
I sat, feet out, on the curb, a walking fifth-of- a-century.
But my dress had purple flowers all over it. I’d put it in the washing machine once on hot even though they said not to do that.
I’d stuck a week’s worth of newspaper in the dryer with it to see what the print might do. I drew all over it with pencil until it shimmered with lead but still. Still. The cloth was stubborn with lilacs and violets, held together by vines of rich greens and browns.
The kid went by on his bike again. He had a lot of freckles on his bare arms. I thought he might glance over, and notice; laugh and point out the difference between the two people sitting on the curb. But he just rode on by. I looked back and forth, from the purple to the gray, and waited for my father to tighten up.
To accuse me of something. Treason. But he just said: You look lovely Mona. He sat on the curb and complimented my necklace. I told him happy fifty-first, and his cheeks darkened, a soft blush.
I’m sorry, I said, quietly, but I don’t think I can keep you company anymore.
He just smiled. He just said: Mona. My wonderful child. My beautiful daughter. It’s fine with me if you’d rather wait in the car.
urned out Ann DiLanno’s parents didn’t die yet either. In fact, what happened was they won the state lottery. Ann’s mother had a thing about 4’s 80 she used 4, 14, 16, 24, 32, 44, and nailed the sterling combination. Ann got out of the hospital with those spider stitches climbing up her thigh, and on the second day she was back in her own bed, one day before her father turned 43, the family cashed in that winning lottery ticket for an even million dollars. They got their stuff together and moved out of town.
Ann returned to school for five minutes, the same day I was there, cleaning up the stuff I had left. The new math teacher had taken down my gallery of numbers, which were probably now poking out of garbage bins, fading 5’s and 2’s among banana peels and cartons of milk, and she was droning on by the chalkboard about the tens place. Two of the kids at the table were asleep.
I hadn’t seen Ann since the accident. We ran into each other in the front room, among all the coats and lunch boxes. Kids milled about, waiting for recess to begin.
I stood over her, holding a box full of workbooks. Ann, I said. I am so, so sorry.
S of She tossed her hair, loose from her ponytail, straight brown and practical. She was wearing a little purple mink coat, and holding up a 3 made of gold that she wore on a gold chain around her neck.
I have a real one now, she said. It’s gold. 3 + 3 = 6. 3 — 3 = o.
Hey, said John Beeze. Can I see the stitches?
Ann twirled the 3 around her index finger.
This is what I wanted to show you all, she said. I’m going to take it with me, my gold 3. I liked your class Ms. Gray, she said to me. She looked at everyone milling around. I was glad to knowy’all, she said.
They were moving to Texas. She’d already morphed into a Texan, before she’d ever even left town.
Grab a brochure on your way out, I said.
She leaned against the table. She didn’t seem to be limping much.
She looked around the room, forehead sweating from the mink coat, and a couple of the younger kids were standing near her arm, Petting it. She was a celebrity at school now for multiple reasons: wounded Ann, wealthy Ann. On impulse, she lifted her skirt and showed the little kids her spidery stitches, so black and so many they made my heart drop, the straight-line thick scar that lovers would touch later to identify their Ann in the darkness. The smaller kids shrieked and shivered and stared.
Her thigh the longest memory of Numbers and Materials, ready to announce rainy weather. to outlive both me and the school.
Lisa walked over from another room to look at the stitches. She had her own in a row on her forehead. There was some mutual admiration and then Ann nudged Lisa and fumbled in her pocket, handing over a box of crayons, all beige-every shade, from ivory to tan.
I hope your mom gets better, Ann said.
Lisa took the crayons and nodded. Have fun in Texas, she said.
She paused for a minute, and then ripped out a few ratty hairs from her head.
Here, she said. Here’s some hair to remember me by. Ann folded it into her mink pocket, pleased.