It was all Babette’s design. I’d just helped to fill in the colors, like paint-by-number. It had taken full working days, all summer long. But we had put on music and Max had brought us tacos for lunch. And I’m not exaggerating when I say it was a masterpiece. Breathtaking, colorful, and alive somehow—filled with sunshine.
And I never appreciated that more than when it was suddenly … gray.
I knew Duncan was planning to paint over the stripes and the hopscotch patterns and the accent walls. But it had never occurred to me that the mural was in danger.
I’d assumed it was too beautiful to destroy.
Wrongly. Apparently.
I was out of breath now—feeling urgent and panicked—like there was an emergency. But there was no emergency anymore. Everything was already done. I was just witnessing the aftermath.
Duncan hadn’t answered.
“Did you paint over the mural?” I asked, now just openly staring at the gray wall.
“Not me,” Duncan said, like this was any kind of a valid point. “The painters.”
“How could you?”
“In my defense, I thought they’d start with the hallways.”
“You have no defense. There is no defense.”
“You got the memo. It’s for—”
“Visibility,” I finished in a hollow voice.
“Look how much better we can see now.”
Now I turned to stare at him. “Is that a joke? Do you really think this is better?” Of all the changes he’d forced on us since he’d arrived, this one—this one—broke my heart.
“I understand,” Duncan said, sounding like a robot.
“No. You don’t.”
“The mural was beautiful, but—”
“The mural,” I interrupted, my voice shaking as I worked to hold it back, “wasn’t just beautiful. It was magic. It was irreplaceable. It left you in awe. It made you feel like you were part of something bigger than yourself. And it was Babette’s. And Max’s. And mine. And all the children in this room. And it wasn’t yours to destroy.”
I saw his shoulders sink a little at that. How dare he look disappointed? How dare he have any feelings about anything?
“Look—” he started, but my eyes snapped to his, and whatever he saw in my face stopped him cold.
I could feel the tears in my eyes as I stepped closer to him. “You. Are. Killing. This. Place.”
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m protecting it.”
“I’ve been rooting for you,” I said. “I’ve been hoping you’d come around. But all that ends now. I officially give up hope. And I’m going to fight you like crazy.”
I started to walk away.
“Hey,” Duncan called after me.
I turned back. What could he possibly have to say?
“You still have lunch duty.”
I walked right back over to him, my face shiny with tears and my eyes blazing—and I pulled him down by the shoulder so I could get my mouth right next to his ear. Then, because we were in a room full of children, I cupped my hand to constrain the sound, and then, right up next to him, I whispered, “Fuck lunch duty.”
twelve
And then it was winter break—and man, oh, man, did I need it.
This was Babette’s year of firsts—her first Thanksgiving without Max, her first Christmas. We’d decided to spend every one of those firsts that we could somewhere else. We’d driven to San Antonio for Thanksgiving, and now, for Christmas, we’d made reservations at a resort near Austin.
Babette and Max had always hosted a giant feast on Christmas for “anybody who didn’t have somewhere to be,” and Babette was worried that all those people who counted on her would feel adrift without her. But she needed to get away. And so did I.
“Is this about Duncan Carpenter?” Babette asked.
“Don’t say that name in this house,” I said.
Babette smiled. It was her house.
But this wasn’t a smiling matter.
I had told her about the butterflies, and she had shrugged, and said, “Nothing lasts forever.” But she hadn’t gone back to the cafeteria after that. She’d eaten every lunch alone in the art room.
“Fair enough,” Babette said. And then she gently, and without irony, listened to me complain for a good long while about how the last thing I wanted to think about, or focus on, or talk about—ever again—was Duncan Carpenter.
See what I did there?
And then, just when I thought I was truly done with him, just when I thought I’d finally shut it all down … the very next day, I ran into him on the beach.
It was a bright, sunny, fifty degrees out, and I’d decided to take a long, calming Duncan Carpenter–free walk by the ocean. The winter beach was mostly empty, and my