Another not-great day at school. His daughter buried her chin and mouth into the folds of her scarf and stared unseeingly at the road, not bothering to change the radio station. Election coverage continued unchecked in the background. Beyond the windshield, a vapor trail bisected the blue sky. Closer to the ground, block after block of residential development streamed past. As they merged onto the highway, she asked, “Do you think I cry too much?” He sat with the question for a handful of seconds and then inquired, evenly, “Who told you that?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, a little less evenly, “Who said that bullshit to you?” Also, “When did it become a crime to feel things?” She retreated deeper into her scarf. “Oh, God, Dad. Forget I asked. It doesn’t matter,” and he glanced down at the insulated cup resting in the holder between them. That fucking coffee! He’d been suckered by the promised ease of “drive-thru” and ended up arriving ten minutes late for pickup. Only ten minutes, not even a quarter of an hour, but long enough for someone to have said something awful to her. If that indeed was what had happened. Who knew what really went on in the cluster of low-slung buildings that she disappeared into and emerged from every day? He had the urge to carry her far away from them, as far as possible. The value of peer interaction was definitely overstated. He could fill the tank, surprise Dorothy at work, load the trunk with nonperishable groceries and supplies, and then it’d be just the three of them, the open road. Not like free spirits, exactly, more like refugees from the zombie apocalypse, but, still, they’d be together. Plus Bob. He’d almost forgotten the dog.
New post: a cupcake, frosted to look like the cute face of a pig.
In late October, unexpectedly, a stretch of sunshine. First off, she’d been cast as a dragon dancer in the Chinese Tea scene, and even though only the lower half of her would be visible, she was coming home from the rehearsals in high spirits. Which she attributed to teamwork, telling him, “You see, it is like playing a sport.” And then, in the space of a few days: an Evite to a disco-themed murder-mystery party; an afternoon working with her partner on a social studies project that turned into a movie night and a sleepover; a plan to go with three girls from her Girl Scout troop to the outlet mall. The dad stood on the front walkway and watched her slide into the back seat of the troop mother’s minivan; as it pulled away from the curb, he waved to the shadowy parent behind the wheel. Their neighbor Marcia happened to be dragging in her trash cans. He waved at her, too. “I can’t believe how big she’s getting!” Marcia called. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Always running off somewhere. I can’t keep up!” He knew he sounded like an ass but he couldn’t help it. He floated up the walkway and in through the front door, and finding Dorothy upstairs, shaking out the bedcovers, he hugged her from behind and made her topple over.
On Tuesday, the physical therapist greeted them as usual. “Hi, Ivy,” she said through her little smile, as if he were merely the hulking, nameless attendant who traveled alongside the patient. But today it didn’t bother him, because right away he saw that she had done her duty and voted. He pointed to the oblong sticker on the breast pocket of her gray grown-up-looking blouse, and then pointed to the same sticker attached to his own chest. Earlier, he had debated whether he should wait until after school and take his daughter with him—it’d be something that she could tell her daughter about, had been his thinking—but then he remembered that she had therapy and during his lunch hour went ahead on his own to the polling station, which was in the cavernous basement of an Armenian church. After pointing to their matching stickers, he gave the physical therapist a grin and a thumbs-up. Uncharacteristically, she returned the gesture with open enthusiasm. Oho! Maybe he’d stumbled upon the best way to communicate with her—through hand signals. He swelled suddenly with positive feelings for her. This competent young woman, who was helping his daughter; those nice Armenian congregants who volunteered for long shifts at the polls; the sensible, civic-minded men and women who patiently waited with him, giving up their lunch hours as he had—he felt good about them. He felt good about humanity in general. Basic decency would prevail, and this exhausting, insane election season would soon be over, and by tomorrow he could commit his energies fully to planning the Thanksgiving menu and making sure that his daughter did her Fire Hydrants every night and got better.
New post: a black square. Not a photo of a black square but a photo of total blackness. As if the camera had misfired, or the film had been accidentally exposed.
The whole family had a hard time getting up the next morning. The dad felt as if he had been run over by a truck, a big shiny pickup truck that had come swerving out of the darkness and mowed him down, and now had backed up and was waiting for him, its engine revving. His daughter crouched by his pillow and asked, as she often did, “Do I have to go to school today?” Her eyes had turned narrow from crying, then sleeping; her nightshirt had a silvery unicorn on it. They had let her stay up to watch the results with them, and even in the dim light she looked haggard. “No,” he said, placing the pillow over his head. “Go back to sleep.” It was what he intended to do. He had a very small window in which he could slip back into unconsciousness and then wake
