Picture Us In The Light(7)

I look at my grandfather’s drawings in the letters for a long time. They’re good—confident pen strokes, not a single extraneous one.

The rest of it, obviously, I understand why he’d keep—Zhu Zhu, the letters from my grandfather. But that file on the Ballards is beyond my understanding, and it makes me wonder. I guess I didn’t necessarily think I knew their whole story; I knew I didn’t. I just never thought there might be that much more to know.



My parents come back from Costco weighted down with bags, and I go out to help unload everything from the car. In the back seat there are three paper sample cups my mom saved me: a square inch of coffee cake, seven Jelly Bellys, a teriyaki meatball. That careful way they’re balanced there—I take a picture with my phone to draw sometime later before hauling the bags inside.

They brought home frozen burritos, and I microwave one while I’m waiting for Harry. My mom goes out into her garden, and through the window I can see her kneeling to check on her kabochas. She has six raised garden beds my dad and I helped her make, pomegranate and persimmon and citrus trees she planted when we first moved in, an herb garden that runs along the back fence, and in the front yard all her favorite flowers: hydrangeas and gardenias and tuberoses in the spring. Our house itself is old and run-down, and I remember what the yard looked like when we first moved in—hard, parched dirt and dead weeds, the yard of an old couple who drew the curtains and never looked outside. One of my bedroom windows looks out on the backyard and sometimes outside when she thinks no one’s watching I see my mom stand up with her hands on her hips and survey it all, satisfied and proud and amazed.

My dad sits down at the kitchen table with the laptop, typing what I can see from the short lines of text is some kind of list. He adores lists. Once, when I was a kid, I found a notepad on his desk with this one: School. Friend. Sport interest. What are your favorite celebrity. Imagination and opinion. The list was titled Question to ask Daniel for conversation. None of his lists, though, ever felt as obsessively gathered as what I found in the closet.

When the microwave beeps I say, “Hey, Ba, question—who are the Ballards?”

His head snaps toward me. “Excuse me?”

“I was just wondering. I, ah, found a box of yours in the closet with some files—”

His face lights up. Not in the way you say it when you mean someone’s happy, but more like an explosion in the night—a sudden flash of heat and noise.

He rises. “Were you looking through my belongings?”

“No. I saw it in the closet. I was looking for beef jerky.”

“Why did you go into that box? It was taped shut. You went into my personal things without permission.”

I put up my hands. “I didn’t know what it was. I thought—”

“Daniel, you know better. I don’t want to hear about it again. And I don’t want you to ever bring that name up with your mother. Is that clear? Don’t ever—”

My mom comes in through the sliding door then, holding a bunch of beets, and my dad stops. Did he say not to bring it up with her because it’s something she doesn’t know about, or something she does? I hear the familiar sound of Harry’s car pulling into the driveway, and hoist myself off the chair.

“I’m going,” I say. “Bye.”

They both start talking at the same time. “Where are you—” my mom says, and my dad says, “Did we say you could—”

“I’m going with Harry.” I edge toward the door. “I asked you already earlier in the week.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just to his house.”

“What for?”

“Just school stuff.”

They exchange that look that means they’re weighing something I’ve asked for against all the threats of the world—a cell network glitch that means they can’t reach me if they need to, a blind curve up in the hills by Harry’s house. “Well, all right.” My mom drops her beets in the sink. “Come back in an hour.”

I definitely can’t get to San Francisco and then back in an hour. “We have to work on some Journalism stuff, so it’s going to take all morning. Maybe until after lunch.”

“Aiya, Daniel, I don’t like you to be gone so much. If something happens, and we can’t call you—”

“I know.” I’ve long since stopped trying to argue or to promise that nothing will ever happen, even when I’m going to be just a few minutes away. “I’ll be careful.”

“Well—” She makes a tsking sound with her tongue. “All right. Go study with Harry. Just be careful.”

“Wait,” my dad says. He looks around, his voice infected with false cheer, like he wasn’t just mad at me. “Where’s your sweatshirt? Wear it to show Harry. Show it off.”

“Oh, ah, right.” It’s on the kitchen table (I left it there last night, and someone, probably my mom, folded it carefully with the letters facing out), and I shrug it on. “Look good?”

“Perfect.” My dad smiles, a real smile; the sweatshirt’s worked its magic. “Have a good time.”



I make it outside just as Harry’s coming up our walkway (Harry isn’t the kind of person who just pulls up and honks, even if he’s been your best friend four years), and I hustle him back into the car.