In Sight of Stars(30)

“You can’t?” I try to do the math, because four thousand times twenty is eighty thousand, and that sounds like a lot of money. But Dad adds, “And if the artist is represented, his agent or manager might take a cut. And I may have paid a bit of a premium on that one.”

He winks, like he’s joking, but his voice sounds sad. And I know that all of this means he keeps being a lawyer and doesn’t keep on painting like he wants. I try to think of something smart to say, something that would convince him we could live on that kind of money, so he can quit being a lawyer. He can go back to painting, like he went to school for. Like I bet he still wants to do.

“We don’t have to live in Manhattan,” I say suddenly, “Or, we could stay, but we don’t need such a big, fancy apartment. We could go back to the old one … Mom and me, I bet we’d both agree on that.” Dad laughs, even though I’m not trying to be funny.

“I’m not so sure about that. Besides, your mother … at a minimum … she deserves to live nicely.” He turns to me, serious now. “You need to know this, Klee, I went to law school because I wanted to. I chose my work, my life, because I wanted to. Not because anyone told me I had to.” He pauses, as if he’s carefully picking his words, like they’re harder than they should be. “I chose this life, and I’m not unhappy in it. Life is … well, sometimes life is different than you plan.”

But I shake my head. I don’t believe him. I’ve heard them fighting. I hear Mom complaining about money, about needing to fix things, about the money she says he must spend. About how late he works, and how much he travels, and how, lately, it never seems like he wants to be home.

So, he can say what he wants, but at least I know this: When I grow up, I’m going to be an artist, painting and showing in galleries, and not working in some office doing dumb things I don’t care about or understand.

“Sometimes, when you’re a grown-up, Klee, your passions need to be a hobby, and you find work—a career—that can bring you stability, and other things…”

His voice trails off and he puts his arm around my shoulder and squeezes, guiding me to keep walking toward the subway. When we reach the corner, he stops and looks at me hard, again. “When you’re a grown-up,” he says, “you see things differently. You count your blessings for all the good, amazing things you do have, not what you can’t have. And, you, son, for sure, are a good thing. The best thing. So you plow forward, and you don’t look back, regretting all the choices that you made.”

And, I want to believe that he means it, but when the light changes and we start to cross, he turns toward the gallery, like his whole body wants to go back there.

*

I wash my face, splashing water up fast and hard, trying to somehow prepare myself for my mother, and to rinse away the fury that has spread over me, not at my mom for a change, but at my dad. For acting like he was happy when he wasn’t. For pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.

For pretending he was okay.

Maybe if he hadn’t, maybe if he had trusted me—But I can’t finish the thought, can’t go there anymore, to the place where I imagine he’s still here, still alive, and everything is normal.

I turn off the faucet and stare in the mirror, and see not his face but my mother’s. Her light brown hair, and tepid brown eyes, her rounder face with softer cheekbones. His face was narrow and chiseled, his eyes, a deep, dark brown. He looked like a movie star.

“You look like your father…” my mother always says, but she’s wrong. I don’t. I can never see him in me at all.

A new wave of nausea rolls over me. I shouldn’t have called her. I shouldn’t have told her she could come. It’s already turned overcast, the clouds a foreboding gray. Soon it will rain, a downpour, and I’ll be stuck in the “family” room with her.

*

I doze off until the unmistakable jangling of my mother’s gold bangles and tennis bracelets wake me.

I hear her out at the nurses’ desk, announcing herself. “Yes, that’s right. Marielle Alden. Did you need me to sign in?”

“No, you’re good. Go ahead in, Mrs. Alden.”

There’s a quick rap on my door. I sit up. My heart pounds to the steady beat of rain pelting the window.

I feel like I’m going to puke.

“Yeah, come in. It’s not even closed,” I say, when she knocks again.

I glance at the small Dixie cup on my breakfast tray, but it’s empty. I’ve already taken my day’s full allotment of pills.

*

It’s a Saturday morning, the weekend after Sarah and I go to the Upper Bank Basin. The front doorbell rings, and by the time I register it, and my mother calls me to the living room, Sarah is standing in our foyer.

Fuck.

I was avoiding this for so many reasons. And now I’m not even sure what’s gone down.

“Oh, hey! Mom,” I say, breathless, wiping sleep crust from my eyes, “this is Sarah. Sarah, this is my mom.”

“We’ve met.”

It’s not even 10 A.M., yet my mother is dressed to the nines like she has an important business meeting to go to, except she doesn’t. Slacks, pumpkin-colored sweater set, inevitable heels.

Sarah, on the other hand, wears her now ubiquitous cutoff shorts, her Vans, and a skimpy T-shirt that shows both her lack of a bra and her bare stomach, an outfit that shows no sign of a chill in the air as would be indicated by my mother’s selection. She looks beautiful, of course, but it’s not exactly the outfit I’d pick for her very first meeting with the Ice Queen.