I feel like our visit the other night was a good one, and I hope you do, too.
Proud of you, sweetheart.
Love,
Dad
Well, that was intriguing.
It took me a minute to pull the contents—a rolled-up canvas—out of the tube. But once I spread it out on a table, I saw he was right.
This canvas needed no introduction.
It was the portrait my mother had been painting—of me—when she died. The portrait she’d been planning to submit to her own art show.
I’d never seen it before.
I held my breath at the sight.
It was me. At fourteen. Looking straight ahead, leaning forward over a picnic table, chin resting on my hands. The whole portrait seemed to be lit from within. The dappled sunlight. The shine of the eyes. The glow of the skin. I had been so awkward at fourteen—and my mom didn’t shy away from that, or paint my braces away or try to make me something different. She just painted me exactly as I was. But glowing. As I really looked—but bathed in sunlight and warmth and a lovable mischievousness.
So lovable, this kid on the canvas.
It was like getting a glimpse of the past through her eyes.
Was this how she’d seen me? I wondered. Just like the real me—but better?
I looked at my fourteen-year-old face, so clear-eyed and bright. I remembered sitting for that portrait—how I didn’t want to stay still. How we’d gone morning after morning to the park near our house. And this was the result: she’d somehow captured all the sunlight, all the spring breezes, all my exuberance and naughtiness, and all her warm and tolerant love for me right here on this one canvas.
Looking at it, I lost all track of time. There was so much life in that portrait—so much of my mom in it—that it felt for just a minute like she must be here with me. And I heard myself talk to her, as I was lost in the sight: “You shouldn’t have waited. You shouldn’t have put things off. What were you thinking? I didn’t need a vacation. I just needed you. And I so, so, so wish I could see you again.”
There were tears all over my face long before I came to.
And just as I noticed the tears, I noticed something else.
The third crazy thing.
I’d just spent some undetermined amount of time staring at a portrait of my face.
And I could see that face.
I could see it all. The mouth, the braces, the irises of the eyes. All the pieces were there and in the right order—all snapped together, exactly where they should be.
And then, before I could talk myself out of it, I snuck to the bathroom mirror to take a peek … but I closed my eyes at the last moment and then found myself standing in front of the mirror, afraid to open them.
Dr. Nicole had warned me that when—if—the faces came back, I wouldn’t necessarily get them all back—or not all at once. On the spectrum of prosopagnosia, more familiar faces were easier to see. The theory was that the more visual impressions the brain had of a face, the more likely it was to be able to put the pieces together.
“It’s okay,” I told myself.
No future was ever certain. None of us ever knew what might happen next. I didn’t need to know how many other faces I could see—or calculate where, exactly, my fusiform face gyrus would settle on the spectrum of face-blind to super-recognizer.
It was going to be what it was.
I’d just take it one grateful step at a time.
I covered my face with my hands and then opened my eyes to peek through my fingers. Slowly I pulled my hands away.
And there I was.
My face. Straight ahead in the mirror. Not as separate pieces, but as a whole. Not as unconnected eyes and lips and nostrils, but as me. “Hello, stranger,” I said out loud.
And there I was. Me. Peering curiously at the mirror.
All put back together as if I’d never been apart.
Thirty
THE ELOPEMENT PARTY was quite a shift from the last—and only other—party I’d attended on this roof.
In the space of a single day, Mrs. Kim oversaw a total rooftop transformation. She’d brought in a band, set up a dance floor, hung a thousand bulb lights, and placed elegant dinner tables along the west side of the roof, overlooking the bayou, so we could eat dinner while watching the sunset.
When I say elegant dinner tables, I mean linen tablecloths, crystal stemware, hotel silver, candles in faded brass hurricanes, copious arrangements of magnolia flowers and eucalyptus …
Think of the most gorgeous outdoor table spread you’ve ever seen in a decor magazine—and then triple it.
Mrs. Kim had style. And Sue was her only daughter.