had let him sleep. But the next night he would be back. It had gone on for months until finally he made a decision to stand up and live, for his remaining daughter, and went back to work. Still, on days when he was tired and let down his guard, the lure of slipping into the pale blue light forever would come over him.
“Mr. Nick?” Elsa said and the words snapped him back. When he looked over at her, she was eyeing him and propping up the corners of her mouth with her thumb and ring finger, making a smile. It was her job to warn him when the “grouper” face appeared. The child psychologist had warned him that his own sadness could overtake and eventually empower his daughter’s grief. It was something he needed to stay conscious of. When Carly came back into the room with a sheaf of papers and an unframed canvas, he had regained his smile.
“Ta-daaa!” his daughter announced, holding out the canvas, upon which a brightly colored and finely textured painting had been produced. Nick studied the work while Carly posed and held it with the corners balanced in her palms. He felt her watching his eyes. But this time he did not have to pretend. The colors were pastels of pink and orange, the lines soft and flowing.
“It’s beautiful, C!” he said, using his pet name for her. “Are these wings?”
“Yes. And here in the corner.”
“How did you get that texture in there? That’s really cool.”
“It’s that resin stuff you got me. They showed me how to use it at school, and see, you can peak it just so or really raise it up if you want,” she said, pointing out sections of the painting that rose delicately off the canvas.
They propped the painting up against a napkin holder on the table and while Nick ate, Carly showed him homework, her graded papers, and explained in detail how Meagan Marts had been such a pain correcting her and the other girls on the bus that morning when they were discussing what lip gloss was made of. Nick listened. He had set up this nightly ritual on the advice of a divorced friend whose wife had left him. It was invaluable, the friend said, to keep in touch, to keep a semblance of normality, to stay sane.
Elsa had made him one of her famous Bolivian chicken salad sandwiches. Nick couldn’t tell the difference between the chopped celery or spring onions, but he truly loved the battle of tastes between the seedless grapes and the rainbow chiles. While father and daughter talked, Elsa stayed busy washing and wiping and straightening a kitchen that Nick knew was already spotless.
“OK, Carlita,” Elsa finally said. “It is very late, yes, Mr. Nick?”
Elsa had that wonderful trait of being the boss while using the right phrases to make the man think he was still in charge.
“Elsa’s right, babe. Time to get ready for bed,” Nick said. “You go, and I’ll come in and read.”
With a limited amount of preadolescent huffing, his daughter left the room.
Nick spun his chair back to a view of the pool. A random breeze fluttered across the surface, causing the refracted light to dance on the far wall.
“How was she today?” he asked without looking over at Elsa.
“Yo creo que es mejor, Mr. Nick,” Elsa said. She too was looking outside through the window over the sink. “She is very smart, though. It is too much to see inside her head.”
Nick just nodded, but Elsa went quiet and he turned after a moment to look at her. She was again folding and refolding a dishtowel in her hands, her eyes on the floor now. Nick knew something was bothering her, but let Elsa decide when to tell it.
“She call me Lindsay today,” Elsa finally said. “While she is looking for something in the office room she say, ‘Lindsay, do you know where the, the thing for the paper staples is?’ and I just say, ‘No,’ like I no hear Lindisita’s name.”
Elsa was clearly distressed, but Nick was caught between smiling at her attempt to relate the Freudian slip or crying at Carly’s use of her sister’s name.
“It’s OK, Elsa,” he said. “I will tell the counselor when she goes for her session.”
The housekeeper turned the towel in her hand. Nick looked back out into the light.
“Dad? I’m ready,” his daughter called from her room.
“Can you make me some coffee, please, Elsa?” Nick said as he walked