I saw Jessica and Madison standing in the open door of the studio. Jessica pointed at her watch
and I cut Ms. Daniels off, explaining that I had to run.
My worrying about why I was worrying about why Sam was absent didn't last very long. By the
time we were halfway down the hall and I'd heard Jessica's new-and-improved unofficial polling
data indicating that Connor and I were definitely going to be prom king and queen, I barely
remembered I'd been talking to Ms. Daniels, much less what we'd been talking about.
Meanwhile, having my dad at home was almost the sugar-coated fantasy I'd spun in my
imagination. Almost.
As I'd hoped, we watched a game together and we went for ice cream (well, gelato). And it
wasn't Mara interrupting the game so my dad could look at fabric samples for the chair in their
bedroom or Emma and Amy coming with us on our dessert run that made his
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being home less than perfect. It was the big red X's I kept drawing on my mental calendar.
Thirteen. Eleven. Ten.
Because even while I wanted to celebrate the fact that I'd gotten my father back, I couldn't help
measuring how happy I was now against how bad I was going to feel when he left again for San
Francisco.
The morning of the prom I woke up to my cell ringing. I could tell from the light managing to
fight its way through the tiny basement windows that it was going to be a beautiful sunny day.
"We're meeting at Madison's at four, right?" It was Jessica.
"Yeah, right," I said, yawning. "Four o'clock."
"I told Kathryn she should come over, too," said Jessica. "To get ready and everything."
Only half awake, I wondered if I'd heard Jessica right. "Kathryn? I thought she wasn't coming."
"Oh, yeah, well, she and her boyfriend had this mondo fight last night. She's coming stag."
Jessica laughed. "I said she could come in our limo. Isn't that cool?"
"Ah, yeah, it's pretty cool."
Is it still called going stag if your plan is to arrive alone but leave with someone else's date?
"So you'll be here at four, right?" Jessica asked.
"Right," I said. "I'll be there at four."
My dad and Mara were gone when I got upstairs.
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There was a note, gone antiquing. Of course. Of course. Hadn't I known it was only a matter of
time before we went back to business as usual? Probably they'd forgotten about the prom, too,
forgotten I needed to be at Madison's at four. Good thing I had the Glen Lake cab company on
speed dial.
At three o'clock, just as I was getting out of the shower, I heard my dad's car pull up in the
driveway. A few minutes later there was a knock on my door.
"Yeah?" I had an open bag on my bed full of stuff for the prom and the Hamptons.
"Lucy? Can we come down?"
"Fine."
The door opened and my dad and Mara came down. Or started coming down. It seemed to be
taking them forever. I looked over to the stairs and saw they were each carrying a heavy bundle
wrapped in brown paper. They must have been heading to the basement storage area to put away
whatever precious treasures they'd discovered along the Hudson River.
"Hey," said my dad when he got to the bottom step. He was panting slightly. Mara was standing
behind him, but thanks to her daily gym sessions, she wasn't out of breath.
"Hey," I said.
We stood there for another minute. "We were up in Lomax today," said my dad.
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"Oh." Just how many breakfronts does one household need?
My dad was smiling at me. "I remembered you'd admired this, so we wanted to get it for you."
I wasn't sure what he was talking about. "This?" I asked.
He pointed at the package Mara held balanced against her hip. "Open it."
I went over to Mara and took the package from her. Kneeling down in front of it, I pulled at the
brown paper, ripping off one layer after another. I wondered if it was going to turn out to be one
of those tiny little boxes that's inside a dozen bigger containers. God, she'd probably gotten me
some terrible piece of jewelry to wear for the prom. Lucy, the bad news is I haven't been able to
furnish your room. The good news is I've been able to furnish you! With this lovely rhinestone pendant featuring a Pilates instructor and her pupil.
Finally I hit something that wasn't brown paper, and all at once I knew what was underneath the
wrapping I'd been wrestling with.
"Oh my god," I said. I tore off a section of paper to reveal a leg of the wooden easel I'd seen so long ago. "Wow." I studied the claw-feet and traced my hand along the intricate woodwork. It
was even more beautiful than I'd remembered, or maybe it had just been polished. Even in the
dim light, the wood gleamed. "Thanks," I said, standing up.
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"We thought ... well, I thought." My dad cleared his throat, still struggling to find the right
pronoun. "It seemed possible you might like to put this on it." He walked toward me, awkwardly
balancing the large, square package he was holding. "I was supposed to save it for your
eighteenth birthday," he said, "but I thought you could use it now." He lay it at my feet and took a step back.
"Oh," I said. "What is it?"
My dad paused and swallowed. "It's a painting your mother did. She wanted you to have it."
The three of us stood there, not moving or saying anything, as if the brown rectangle at my feet
was ticking. After a minute my dad put his hand on Mara's shoulder. "Excuse me a second," she
said. Then she turned and went upstairs.
My dad gave a little cough. "Do you mind if I stay while you open it?"
My throat was tight, and I just shook my head to indicate I didn't mind. Then I untied the cord
and peeled back the wrapping.
I hadn't seen one of my mother's paintings in a long time--since we'd packed them up and put
them in storage when we moved--and I'd never seen this one before. The painting was of a city
wall covered in graffiti and posters, some of which were peeling off, some of which were partly
covered over by other posters. Each of the posters was a self-portrait of my mom, the same one
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repeated over and over in slightly different colors-- greens and blues, browns and yellows, and
here and there the faint purple of shadow. Her eyes were wide, her hair wild and curly around her
small face, her smile mysterious as the Mona Lisa's. As my eyes studied the posters, I realized
they were grouped together in order to form a composite image. Once I figured that out, it only
took me a minute to see that it was of a woman holding a baby in her arms.
"She started this when she got sick," said my dad, his voice thick. "She made it for you." He lifted his hand to his face, and I realized he was crying. "She would have been so happy to know
you're becoming an artist."
I'd never seen my dad cry before, and it made me start to cry, too.
"I wish I had known her," I said. "I wish she had known me." And then I added, "I wish we could have been a family."
My dad put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. "I wish that, too," he said, taking a
deep breath and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "You know, Lucy goose, I can't make