Skyscraping (14 page)

The wake.

His mouth’s been stuffed.

It looks all wrong.

Like a B actor cast

to play my father.

I dare myself to touch his face.

It feels like wood,

or colder,

like glass.

Chloe gets me some food,

I pick at it.

I think about Dylan.

About Existentialism.

All those philosophers saying there’s

nothing out there to believe in.

And how making something meaningful

was so important to my dad.

But now he’s gone.

Now, he’s the nothing.

Dylan shows up, as if he knows

I’m thinking about him.

He takes my hand.

I let myself lean into him.

To feel something warm.

The crowd swells

and he knows

I need to leave it.

He pulls me to

the coats and we huddle

under them.

We don’t kiss.

We don’t even talk.

We just play hangman.

He names the category:

Space.

So many people attend the funeral.

Our teachers, his students,

neighbors, friends.

Chloe points out Adam,

standing with his parents,

they sneak out the back

as soon as it’s over.

I greet the others person by person,

kiss cheeks,

nod, say thanks

when people say sorry.

After everyone leaves,

April, Chloe, Dylan and I

gather the programs

left behind,

scattered like this was a play—

a concert—abandoned

just after the encore.

At home,

I stack the programs neatly.

Try to iron out the creases

left

on the copies of his face.

We went to Zabar’s earlier and bought

Brie

caviar

Carr’s crackers—

what Dad would’ve bought himself.

We host a party.

As requested.

But now, “celebrating” with all these people,

my friends smoking in the stairwell,

his friends playing the piano, drinking,

the world wobbles beneath me.

All I can think to do

is lie on his side

of my parents’ bed.

That night:

I dream Dad is dancing,

like he can hear our music,

under a spinning disco ball,

and in his own way

he keeps the time.

I bathe in moon.

I find the man

carved into its face.

I can’t stop looking.

Cracked smile.

Deep well eyes.

How does he feel hovering

in this starless New York City sky?

I get lost in caverns of gray space.

From the window

of my bathroom,

looking out onto the Hudson,

wonder how it could seem so peaceful

but hold so much junk.

I light candles.

Spin circles in water.

I no longer count time,

days tick by.

A week later,

light blinking

over and over

on my answering machine.

Gloria, checking in.

Chloe, asking me to take the Jitney

to the Hamptons,

just for the night,

some big party.

James asks if April and I

want to meet for coffee.

Dylan plays me Phish.

My college roommate

asks when can we talk.

I delete everything but the songs.

Those I play on repeat.

Mom, in the kitchen crying.

I put my hand on her shoulder,

ask if she wants to cook something.

She says she doesn’t know how.

I hand her an apron.

Show her how to dice the onions, Dad’s way.

April joins us midway.

She opens cans of beans, tomatoes.

All three of us make Dad’s chili.

We get it—almost—right.

We take our time eating.

April adds extra salt.

Mom reheats hers in the microwave.

As we finish up,

the summer sun lingering

late into the night,

I ask Mom if I

can go with her

to her studio

tomorrow.

I.

Walking in

feels like entering a memory.

The last time I was here

was for one of Mom’s shows,

years ago,

before she left for Italy.

April comes too, we’re outsiders in the hot shop.

Glassblowers share the huge studio space.

A warehouse of furnaces burning molten glass.

Artists work in teams, taking turns

dipping their rods,

then blowing into them.

Mom’s the gaffer today,

she leads her team.

We follow her.

She gathers

the yellow-red glowing glass

onto her torch.

The heat so hot it stings my face,

I almost have to turn away.

Mom faces the fire.

Says hi to some guy named Larry,

another named Ron.

Everyone here seems to know her.

Respect her.

A fat man at the next station pulls

white-and-red liquid glass like taffy.

A younger guy snips it into pieces

like huge peppermint candies.

It’s like a circus,

Mom, the ringleader.

II.

Before we start

making our own art,

she tells us

about Wabi-Sabi,

the Japanese practice of

putting a thumbprint

on every piece you create

to show it is human-made,

imperfection makes it beautiful.

She says this is how she approaches her own art,

and this is how she approaches life too,

something made,

imperfect by design.

I shield Mom’s glass with the paddle

as she spins the rod,

an artist named Rose blows through it.

Mom says that every piece starts as a sphere.

No matter what you’re making.

She asks if I want a turn.

I gaze at the glowing torch.

Nod, take Rose’s place.

Mom guides me, says to blow into the rod.

Tells me my breath’s too shallow,

she says to use all my force.

I fight the impulse to give up.

The rod burns my lips as it spins

but I keep trying—blowing harder—

until the glowing blue sphere grows.

It veers sideways,

not at all like the round bubbles

Mom blew before.

Lopsided.

Asymmetrical.

I tell her I want to do it again.

I want to try to make it perfect, round.

She says

art

is not about

perfection.

Remember Wabi-Sabi.

III.

Later, we carry the bubble down the winding halls

to her workstation.

I gasp—

a whole solar system is hanging.

She tells me we are holding Neptune.

Says it’s the last planet to add.

Says it’s for me, for my dorm room.

We hang my imperfect Neptune

where it belongs,

the solar system rattles,

and settles into something beautiful.

I wander the apartment

in Dad’s Texas T-shirt.

Flick on the TV.

Off.

Microwave water for ramen.

On/off.

Keep expecting to see Dad.

It’s been almost a month now

but still

I hear him say:

Mira, ramen is not real food. It’s dorm food.

Speaking of which, we need to buy you

new sheets for college. Shower shoes.

Some days I hear him pour oil into the pan.

It sizzles.

Smell onions, carrots, peppers.

I hear him cough,

hear his footsteps,

hear him cry at Hallmark commercials.

Other days, I hear him make dinner conversation.

He asks what I’ll be for Halloween this year.

I tell him I don’t know yet.

He laughs.

Says:

This year, for Halloween, Miranda?

I’m going as myself.

I tell him April and I saw
Forrest Gump

four times in one week.

That he would have loved it,

how Forrest runs and runs

across America.

How Jenny dies at home

with her family.

He says:

Sounds like our kind of movie.

I tell him I’ve been teaching Mom to cook,

about my college roommate assignment.

I tell him that April has taken up running in the park.

That Mom took us to the studio, made me a

mobile, told us about Wabi-Sabi:

And that maybe,

just like art,

we
are something made, not perfect.

I tell him that I miss him.

That I will learn to play chess, take a road trip someday.

Then, one day, the house is quiet.

I hear the front door open and

I hear him say
goodbye.

The doorbell rings,

James is there.

For the first time I notice

his eyes—

the same bright blue

as Dad’s—circles cut from sky.

He tells me Mom asked him to help her

sort some of Dad’s teaching files.

I ask him—

because Mom hardly knows how—

if, after we’re done, he could take me

out in the family car.

Give me a lesson.

He arches his eyebrows,

a new piercing hangs from one.

He says to wait

just a minute—

he’ll get the keys—

we’ll do that first.

Driving sounds a lot more fun than filing.

James pulls the car around the corner.

My stomach lurches.

He switches to the passenger side—

Me, the driver.

James shares the secret to driving well:

not just having awareness of other people

but believing you, yourself,

are in control.

I nod.

He turns on the radio.

“Alex Chilton” by the Replacements starts playing.

I drive down West End,

windows down, we both hum along.

Twenty minutes later,

up and around the neighborhood,

he tells me I’m ready for the highway.

I say
but there are so many people
—

he says
they want to live too.

I can’t help but laugh.

Turn left on 79th.

Back to the Henry Hudson, 9A.

When I merge onto the highway,

a red car honks at me loudly,

then swerves into another lane.

James tells me it’s okay,

that was my blind spot.

I make it four more exits,

staying in the right lane,

without another person honking at me.

A smile breaks from my lips.

For the first time in weeks, I feel something—possibility.

I tell him
Dad always said you were a good teacher.

He says he heard I was a good student.

I ask if we can do it again,

if he thinks I could pass my test

before I leave for school.

He says

he knows I can

if we practice

every day.

We park and take the elevator up,

me with a smile.

James in my peripheral vision,

still humming “Alex Chilton,”

and I realize that blind spots

aren’t just

about driving.

I.

That night, Chloe and Dylan kidnap me,

take me to the ocean.

They have a surprise, they say.

In Chloe’s Volvo,

I stretch my dad’s T-shirt

over my knees.

Chloe tells me I need to change clothes,

there’s no excuse for bad hygiene.

I can’t see the ocean

but, with the window down,

I can smell, almost taste,

the salt.

II.

They bought me a telescope.

We watch stars firework across the night.

Up close, like Mr. Lamb’s slides.

I stargaze,

Dylan hugs me from behind.

He kisses me once,

Chloe turns cartwheels

in the sand.

Pieces of shell glint

all around us,

like thousands of stars

rained to Earth.

I gather one for each of them.

A deep blue mussel for Chloe.

For Dylan, a heart-shaped cockle.

For James, two shiny jingles.

Mom, a soft white slipper shell.

Rainbow-striped scallop for April.

Angel’s wings

for Dad.

And for me,

a

Venus clam.

Two more weeks of daily lessons,

on busy streets, the highway,

one week left before school starts,

James says it’s time.

His eyes gloss over.

I wonder

if missing someone feels the same

inside every person.

Ride the subway uptown,

enter a tan box of a building.

For the first time,

I say a prayer—

for Dad to keep me

safe.

During the test,

I brake with caution,

keep my hands at 10 and 2.

Park as best I can,

tricky, imperfect.

Relax a little and

let the road lead me.

After the test, the instructor pauses for a minute,

scratches his head, sighs, says

I need to work on

my parallel parking.

He also says
congratulations.

I emerge, excited, relieved,

look for Dad.

And then I remember.

Again.

For the first time, I notice James’s face thinning,

his muscles weakening.

I let him,

with his sleeves of tattoos,

new eyebrow piercing,

put his arm around me.

He says

Your dad would be so proud.

And I know he’s right.