Page 70 of Smoke and Glitter

"That's true."

"You can drive to the zoo."

I look at Marisol. "I don't think I can recover from this."

"She's been preparing."

Lucia climbs into my lap, satisfied, and retrieves the blue crayon she'd abandoned on the table. For a while it feels normal. Marisol tells me about a costume shipment that arrived with six left gloves and no right ones. Lucia colors hard enough to emboss the table beneath the placemat. I steal a piece of toast off Marisol's plate and get my hand slapped.

Then Lucia asks, without looking up, "Will you come to my birthday?"

My hand stops against her back.

Her birthday is far enough away that I could lie to both of us. Maybe the tour schedule will work. Maybe I'll be back in Chicago. Maybe I'll be close enough to make it happen.

"I really want to."

Her crayon stops. "You can come?"

"I don't know yet."

She turns in my lap. "No. You come."

"I'm going to try."

Her face crumples.

"My birthday."

My brain is already ahead of me, building alternatives. I can video call. I can send something from London. Once I know the tour schedule, maybe I can move things around.

I almost start offering all of it before I realize none of it is what she asked for. Lucia wants me there, and I can't promise her that. So I stop trying to make it better and hold her. Marisol lets us sit there until the worst of it passes. Eventually the pancakes arrive, and whipped cream does what neither of us can.

Lucia wipes her face and looks down at the placemat, then at me.

"Dog-cat."

I blink. "What?"

"You owe me."

Marisol slides a clean placemat across the table.

"This feels opportunistic."

"It probably is."

Lucia hands me the blue crayon. I draw something that looks less like a dog-cat and more like a problem for local authorities.

She studies it with wet eyelashes. "Oh, that is very bad."

"I just held you through an emotional crisis."

She takes the crayon from me. "Still bad."

Marisol laughs while Lucia adds ears the size of the animal's head.

"He already had ears."