Asha

Shanti, my daughter, left me when she was eight. She's a fiery girl, dark skinned with sable eyes, not anything like her mother who was more delighted with her own fair complexion, whose face was built with rufous or damask make up. I get an occasional picture now and then that I put up on my refrigerator, held in place with little magnets I bought in a book shop some time ago. My wife has refused my requests to see Shanti, though she happily takes my money. She's still angry about our separation and divorce, and I suppose she has a right to be. She thought counseling would be good.

"Divorce is just running away. You're not fixing the problem," Shelley said. "We can work this out."

I was eating an apple, sitting in the sunny lawn on an Adirondack chair nestled in the fallen red maple leaves. "And that's the problem," I said between bites. "You think there's a problem when, really, there is no problem. I just want to be left alone."

"You're an asshole," she said.

I tossed the core into the woods and watched her stomp off to the house. Her hair was brilliant in the falling sun. They left that night. Shanti stared at me through the passenger window, not smiling, not frowning, but curious. I wonder what her mother said about me in the car, whether she raged or quietly cried. I keep a photo of Shanti in a simple, wooden frame next to my pillow on a bed stand. She's always smiling at me.

On one of my Saturday morning walks, soon after my divorce, I visited an antique mall downtown; and as I wandered toward the back of the store, I found a chair. Though its leather seat was rippled and cracked, and its brass buttons were discolored, its fretwork was a delicate carving of a bird of paradise. Its long tail feathers were wrapped around its body, and, where they met the mahogany frame, formed an ornate couched trellis embroidery. It was a strange buying a chair that I felt sorry for, a chair that seemed, in its wretched state, to will itself to me; but I purchased it for twenty-five dollars, took it home, and put it in my den near my desk. I discovered later that it was a terribly uncomfortable chair to sit in: the bird seemed to gnaw at my back.

I don't know how long I had the chair before I realized that it gave off an odor, not a bad smell by any means, but rather odd, especially for a chair. It was a citrus scent, almost tea-like, but there was lavender, too, and bergamot. I had never smelled anything quite like it. I stared at the seat for a bit and noticed a discoloration. No doubt some one had spilled perfume over the chair: it had soaked into the padding beneath the leather.

*

When Shelley was pregnant with Josephine, we argued about a fence. I was anti-fence, saying it made us appear aloof and well-to-do, unconcerned with our neighbors. She was pro-fence, citing all the safety reasons, which, she said, should trump all mine.

"But the slope of the lawn would be ruined with a fence," I said. "Besides, I'd hate to see the sun rise over the Blue Ridge only to have it shine on an ugly white fence."

"It's safer," Shelley said. "Shanti can't get near the road, and neither will this one." She tapped her swollen abdomen. "If you don't like the white, buy a wood one."

"But if we're out here we don't need a fence."

Shelley put her hands on her hips. "I don't know what it's like where you live, but in my world I can't be with children every second of every day. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry."

"And there's me. I'll be outside when I can."

"You work. You're never home as much as you think you are."

"We need to eat," I countered. "We need money to eat. I make the money."

"I'll feed you dog food," she said. "It's cheap."

For several blissful years I had a view from the Adirondack on our front porch. I could hear the traffic on the serpentine road, but couldn't see it because the sycamores and willows blocked my view. I guess the vista is still there now, though I don't notice it as much. It seems that whenever I want to take in the view, it's always night.

*

One rainy day, close to Thanksgiving, I walked from my office to catch a glimpse of Shanti leaving her Waldorf school. I stood outside, under my umbrella, waiting for her to come out the door. Shelley would have been upset if she had seen me, but I tipped the umbrella over my face a bit when she arrived. She turned up her collar, ducked her head, and ran into the building. Moments later she returned with Shanti, adjusted Shanti's yellow slicker, and then grabbed her hand and ran. I lifted my umbrella after they passed. Shanti's head was bare, and her hair — oh that hair! — shimmered in the rain. Shelley stashed her in the car, then ran to the driver's door. I folded up my umbrella and looked at Shanti. She caught my eye when Shelley pulled out, and I know she didn't say anything to her mother because Shelley didn't call me. I like to imagine that she waved to me then blew a kiss out the window, a kiss carried on a droplet of water that hit my cheek and ran down my neck and into my collar where I carried it until it absorbed into my orange oxford shirt.

After I got home I showered, put on sweats, and decided to build a fire. The night before I had been out to the woodshed and took stock: maybe one more cord, possibly a little more. I took an armful of oak to the porch and placed it in the iron rack I bought from the hardware store. The firebox is not too large, and it has a glass door. Its exterior is made of soapstone, so, even after the fire has gone out, the stove radiates heat long into the night. I poured myself a glass of wine, reheated some chicken, and ate in front of the fire. I didn't read; I listened, instead, to the cold rain on the tin roof.

"The chair belonged to a princess," Shanti would say. "She was very beautiful, had long dark hair..."

"Like you."

"Daddy don't interrupt. And she had bright eyes, eyes that knew a lot."

"Like what?" I would say.

"Like the prince: she knew the prince liked Earl Grey tea the best, more than any other tea. So the princess went to the witch and she made a fragrance, a magic fragrance, for the princess to get her man."

"And then what?"

"She poured it on his chair, silly."

"And how do you know this?"

"Why else would the chair smell that way?" she would say, fitting herself comfortably into the chair's stiff frame.

*

I first met Asha at a New Year's Eve party, hosted by Earl, one of my graduate students, at a cabin his parents owned in the national forest. It was an unusually warm evening, especially for that time of year, and Earl had planted several kegs of beer in the cold stream that ran close to the cabin. Students and a few other faculty from various departments trickled in slowly all evening long, culminating with the arrival of a large contingent of long-haired alternative looking kids dressed in thrift store attire, some of them my students, many bearing thermos bottles no doubt filled with hot kava kava. Asha arrived with Martin, a perspicacious student of mine.

"Nice to see you," he said, slapping my back. I was standing by the fire. "Are you having fun?" He said sipped beer from a clay mug.

"I was just getting ready to leave," I said.

He looked at his watch. "Party's just getting started. You can't leave yet." Asha sipped something steamy from her mug.

"The older you get, the harder it is to stay up," I said.

"Now that's a worn out cliché," he said. "This is Asha," he said, throwing a stick into the fire.

"Nice to meet you," she said, holding out a hand. I shook it gently. Her dark eyes reflected the fire, and her hand was warm. She smelled good, kind of like freshly-turned Spring dirt and wood smoke. I wondered if she was Martin's girlfriend. He had never mentioned her before, but that doesn't mean anything — maybe they just hook up now and then.

"Are you a student?" I asked.

"I'm a graduate student," she said, pushing a few stray hairs behind her ear.

"In what?"

"Painting," she said.

"I've never seen you before."

She laughed. "Yeah, I'm pretty much holed up in my studio all day."

"I had to drag her out kicking and screaming," Martin said.

"I teach in the English department," I said.

"Martin talks about you all the time," she said, looking at Martin.

"Only the good stuff," he said.

Asha set her mug between her feet and warmed her hands at the fire. She had specks of blue paint on her hands. "I was painting before Martin pulled me out," she said, studying her hands.

"Do you paint every day?" I said.

"Each and every day," she said, picking up her mug. "Have you ever noticed how a brush makes little licking sounds when it's full of paint and your rubbing it against a canvas? I love that sound."

"No," I said. "Do you use oils?"

"Acrylics." She sipped her tea. "Would you like some tea? I've got plenty of it."

"Sure," I said, dumping the rest of the beer from my plastic cup. Asha walked to the picnic table to get her thermos.

"Is she your girlfriend?" I asked Martin.

"Nah," he said, "just a friend. I've known her since high school." He took a long drink from his beer, and I watched Asha return, walking nimbly, hopping over the animated shadows of the scraggly branches scattered around the fire.

"It's yerba maté," she said, filling up my plastic cup. "You're supposed to drink it from a gourd and then pass it to your neighbor. I think it's a Peruvian thing."

"Have you been to Peru?" I said, sipping the brew. The tea was hot and tasted earthy, not anything like the dainty Celestial Seasonings tea that Shelley liked to drink.

"No," she said.

"I haven't either," I said.

"Though I'd love to go."

"You seem like a traveler."

"She's no nomad," Martin said, laughing.

Asha ignored Martin. "Why do I seem like a traveler?"

I was delighted to have her attention. "I guess it's the way you carry yourself. You seem poised and self assured," I said. "Actually, you remind me of my daughter."

Asha's face lit up. "How old is she?"

"Well, she's not as world-wise as you," I said, watching Martin laugh. "She's almost nine."

"What's the matter with you, Martin?" Asha asked.

"He thinks you're world-wise," he said. "You haven't been out of Virginia in years!"

"Oh shut up," Asha said. "That's not true."

Martin simpered and wandered back to the keg.

Asha said, "Where is she now?"

"With her mother," I said.

"Here in town?"

"They live near campus."

"Well that's good," she said, pushing up her sleeves. "You get to see her then."

"Not too often," I said.

"You must miss her."

"Oh of course," I said, not wanting any sympathy. "But I've gotten used to it. No big deal, really."

"I think it'd be hard not to see your own child," Asha replied.

I glanced at Asha, who was frowning, then stared at her snug toes, cradled in Birkenstocks that jutted from the upturned cuffs of her trousers. "It's not that bad," I said.

"And sad," Asha added. "Sad not to hold what you love."

"I have pictures," I said. "To remind me."

When she was four, Shanti once told me that she was sad not to have what she loved. It had been her first day of ballet practice, a cold Saturday, and Shanti and I were in the car riding home. Shanti gasped.

"What is it?" I asked.

"My slippers!" she cried.

"What about them?"

"My poor pink slippers. They're not here!"

We were nearly home, but I pulled the car into a gas station. "We can go back for them."

"They're lost."

"I'm sure they're still there, Shanti," I said. "Don't cry." I drove ten miles back to the rec center and we found the teacher inside.

"I haven't seen them," she said. Shanti grabbed my leg and hid behind it, and I soon felt her tears soaking through my pants. "But I'll keep my eyes open," she added. "You danced really well, Shanti."

"Did you hear that? She said you did a good job dancing." I picked her up and she hid her face in my neck.

In the car, Shanti said, "I miss them."

"I know," I said.

"I loved my ballet slippers."

"I know you did, Shanti."

"I'm sad not to have them," she had said.

I chatted with Asha for a while longer, then midnight approached and Martin handed out annoying noisemakers and pressurized cans of string. I went to the bathroom and then snuck away, driving with my window down. The stars were bright, and Orion hovered above the road.

*

Shanti's five, a big sister now, and we're at Virginia Beach. It's late summer, the week before school starts, and the sun is glaring off the water. Shelley, smeared white with sunscreen, sits under an umbrella with Josephine. I can't see her eyes because she's wearing oversized sunglasses that fit over her everyday glasses. Her breasts are huge, bigger than I ever imagined Shelley's breasts could be, swollen with milk. They're tender, she says, and I haven't touched them for at least two months. She has three rolls in her stomach and her ankles are puffy.

"Make sure you put plenty of sunscreen on Shanti," she calls out.

I wave to let her know that I've heard her. Shanti runs down the beach a ways and I catch her, tickle her, and take her to my blanket. She has sand in her hair, which is plainly visible on her dark head, and this distresses me. I want her long hair untouched and virginal. I brush the sand out, lower the straps of her top, and rub her shoulders and back with sunscreen that I took from my cooler. Shanti smells like a coconut, which she loves.

"Let me put some on you," she says.

I give her the tube and she squirts it all over my back. It's cold, but feels good given the heat, kind of like ice cream for the back. "Now you won't get cancer," she says. That's a frightful word her mother taught her, "cancer," along with "vagina" and "penis" and the phrase, "watch out for cars, dear."

"Thank you," I say.

She comes around to my front, hands covered in sunscreen, and lays her head on my stomach. I lean back and we both fall asleep, our coconut aura surrounding us, an impenetrability that nothing can rend except Shelley's voice calling us back to consciousness. I look up. She's knee-deep in the water with the baby, waving, calling Shanti to come join her. She sits up, wipes the saliva from her mouth, and runs into the water. Later, in the shower, I look down and imagine Shanti's impression on my body, a perfect white negative of her dark body splayed across mine: her left hand at my chest, her right fading into my side, her head on my stomach. My arms and face are burnt.

I remembered this because I was looking at a history book of World War II, and the authors talked of the atomic flashes in Hiroshima and how they left shadows of vaporized people on sidewalks.

For three years Shanti was a big sister, and then she was just Shanti. How does an eight year old go to school a sister then return home an only child? The car never stopped. Josephine was curled up in the grass as if asleep. There wasn't much blood, not as much as when she cut herself with a utility knife the week before. The Band-Aid was still on her finger.

After Shelley berated me for not getting the fence installed and blamed me for being a terrible father, she drifted around the house like a specter, visiting one room then the next, ending in Josephine's room on the floor next to her bed, quietly whispering "Josie, Josie" over and over, until her vast reservoir of tears were spent.

*

A few weeks after after the New Year's Eve party I received an E-mailed invitation from Asha to an art opening she was having at a coffee shop downtown. After work I ate downtown then wandered around a used bookstore until eight.

The coffee shop was packed, and, after ordering an espresso, I sat down. I glanced around the room, looking at her paintings, trying to imagine what it would be that I would say about them. All of them were color fields. It was obvious she had been influenced by Rothko and other minimalists whose work I liked and found comprehensible, but I wondered what fueled her passion for color. They were nice, pleasant to look at, though I suppose that's something you shouldn't tell the artist. After a few minutes I found it difficult to look at the paintings because of the crowd. Martin sidled up to me and sat down. He smelled like beer and garlic.

"Great stuff, huh?"

"I've barely looked at it," I said.

"Too many people for your taste?"

"Why don't they do this sort of thing in a gallery?"

"The more the merrier," he said.

"I haven't seen Asha yet."

"She's over there," he said, pointing. She was in a cluster of people, talking animatedly, waving her arms around her head. "I think she's explaining her paintings to those undergrads."

"How do you know they're undergraduates?"

"Most of the art profs require their students to write gallery reports," he said, stirring his coffee. "So they come to these things. They'll leave soon, and we'll have the place to ourselves." And, indeed, about twenty minutes later, most of the people left. Asha came over and sat next to me.

"I'm glad you came," she said.

"Thanks for the invite," I said. "It's nice to see you again."

"Well, what do you think?" she said, surveying the room.

"I think I want you to show me your favorite piece."

She pulled us off the couch and took us to a large painting behind the counter. "This is Martin's favorite."

It was a large, rectangular piece, probably seventy by fifty inches, mostly red though the color modulated into a deep shade of orange in the lower third of the painting. "Why do you like it, Martin?" I said.

"I like the color."

"I think it's harsh."

"Harsh?"

"Yes. All that red."

"But it flows so nicely."

"It's like hot lava."

"Lava flows nicely," he said.

"But it will burn you if you touch it."

"So don't touch it," he said. "I actually find it calming."

"Maybe if it was a blue or blue-to-green modulation I would be calmed by it," I said, "but red is not a calming color in my book." I glanced at Asha who stood smiling next to Martin, poised and relaxed, unfazed with my criticisms,

"My only problem with it is having to hang it back here behind the bar," Asha said.

"Why's that?" I said.

"Well, to really look at it you need to be a certain distance from it, not too close, not too far. As it is," she said, "if you are behind the bar, you're too close; if you're on the other side of the counter, you're too far away." She leaned against the wall.

"So you should stand on the counter," said Martin.

"That would be the right distance," she said, "but then you'd be too high."

"So why hang it at all?" I said.

"I almost didn't," Asha said, "but I couldn't resist it. It wanted to be hung."

Martin laughed. "She always talks about her paintings like this, as if they were alive," he explained to me.

"They're alive all right," she said, without a trace of humor in her voice.

Martin went home to study, and I offered Asha a ride back to her studio where she planned to pull an all-nighter with her paints. She invited me in. "I love painting at night," she said, unlocking the front door of the old victorian house that housed some of the graduate students' studios. I followed her up the open staircase. She unlocked her studio and I stood in the dark doorway while she walked across the room and flipped on a table lamp. Her studio was spacious and had several large, multi-paned windows along one wall covered with broad-striped curtains. The trim in studio was chipped in spots, and the wallpapered walls had been painted over. I could see the seams through the thin paint.

"This is it."

"It's huge," I said.

"I think it used to be two bedrooms," she said, filling an electric tea kettle with bottled water. "They took out a wall to make the studio."

I walked to a large painting on the wall opposite the windows. "Another color field?" I said, reaching out to touch the paint.

"Yes," she said, switching on the track lighting. The painting jumped to life, and I stepped backward. It was bigger than the painting behind the counter at the coffee shop, and though this painting was blue instead of red, I could not determine what shade of blue — light? dark? maybe greenish? How had she accomplished this? It looked different every time I blinked. I backed up a few more feet.

"You're there," Asha said, filling a couple of mugs with boiling water and dropping a tea bag into each.

I looked down. I was standing on a line of masking tape that she had stuck to the wood floor. "I'm where?"

"You're at the distance where the painting imparts its wisdom."

Normally I would have scoffed at such a frivolous remark, but the color transfixed me and held me mute; it wasn't until I took another step backwards, allowing the peripherals of her studio to spill into the fringes of my vision and dilute the painting, that I was able to speak. I was out of its reach. I sat on the chair next to the side table and looked at the painting. "It's much more manageable from here," I said.

She sat on the floor next to me, pulled up her legs, and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head on her chin. In the lamp's dim light I noticed tints of auburn through her long hair. "It is nice from here," she said.

"Though it doesn't have the same power," I said.

"No, it doesn't."

I looked at her. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make the color so indefinite."

She shrugged and twisted a thick strand of hair.

"You don't know?"

"Sometimes it just happens," she said, "and a lot of times it doesn't."

"From back here it looks blue, or a shade of blue; but when I stare, the blue seems to be alive, something not blue, maybe not even a hue at all."

"A feeling?"

"Maybe," I said.

She leaned against my shin. I was surprised with her touch, but didn't reject it. "Having the right distance is so important to these works," she said. "When you're right on, when it's you and the painting, it's like swimming in color."

"So what do you call these?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's your category?"

"Are you trying to label me?" she said, looking up.

"No, not really," I said. "Just curious."

She jumped up and turned out the track lighting. "Abstract with minimal tendencies."

"You say that like you've said it before." I sipped my tea.

"My professors like labels," she said. "It's something they understand."

"It bothers you."

"A little." She slipped off her sandals, walked to one of the windows, and flung open the shades. "I feel like they don't get it, like they can only understand my work by assigning me to a category."

"That's kind of frustrating."

"I'm sure you understand that," she said, holding drapery fabric in her hand.

"I do, but I also see where your professors are coming from," I said. "It's impossible to independent, especially in the arts."

She sighed and dropped the fabric. "I know," she said. "I've heard it a million times. ‘Embrace your sources,' they say. ‘Hone your skills before striking out on your own.'"

"I know I've said that," I laughed. "You can check with Martin."

"But they don't take the nonobjective nature of my work seriously," she said, pulling out a stool from under a drafting table. "They want it to be about something."

"But your work is objective."

Asha became suspicious and stared at me. "How so?" she said.

"The color is your object."

"That's right!" she said. "Why does it have to be more than that, you know? To be political or a critique of culture?"

"You seem to be working with a paradox," I said. "You have to use objectives — color — to go beyond the objective and into the introspective."

She put her mug on the drafting table and found a few pens. "It's simple, really."

"You think so?"

"Yes, but everyone wants to make it into something else." She flipped out the table lamp.

"What are you doing?" I asked. I was impressed with how she moved through the shadowy room, how she found paper and taped it to the wall near the darkened blue painting. The security light outside her uncovered window cast shadows of bare tree branches onto the paper, and she began to trace them .

"When it gets dark, I like to do sketches of the shadows." She drew a little bit then tossed me a pen, saying, "Let's see what you can do."

"What about paper?"

"Just draw on the wall."

I drew for a few minutes, then said, "This is harder than it looks." I glanced at her drawing. She was so much faster than me.

"You should try it when the wind is blowing," she said.

*

I'm in the kitchen, making pasta, drinking wine. The radio is on, and though Josephine is asleep and Shelley has told me many times to turn down the music, I can't resist because it's Chicago singing "Hard Habit to Break." Shanti sashays into the room and shuffles her feet a bit before twirling around the butcher block table. I put my knife down, pick her up, and we dance. She corrects my movements, tells me where to put my feet, and I listen.

"You're a good learner," she tells me, no doubt repeating the words her dance instructor has told her.

"I only dance with the best," I say, feeling her arms squeeze me tight.

When the song ends, I pour her a glass of juice and tell her to get her mother because supper is ready. She scampers out of the room. Moments later I see her in the garden trying to drag Shelley into the house. A commercial comes on the radio, and I turn it off.

I can't decide if that memory of our dance is real or imagined. It certainly seems like something Shanti would have done, and the idea's there in my head, so something must've happened in the kitchen between Shanti and me. But when I try to recall the past event, my mind gets slippery: it's like I've given my brain the one or two details and it has created the narrative, filling in the rest. Sometimes I confuse Shanti and Asha, for Asha seems like a grown-up Shanti, the woman I want Shanti to become. I sipped a martini and tried to watch a football game.

And the stuffed dog, the white one, was that really Josephine's? This, too, is an unreliable memory. It was Sunday, the day after I had drawn with Asha in her studio, nearly six months after Josephine's death. I woke up late and decided to take a walk in an effort to wake up. The day was sunny but cold, and there were little patches of snow tucked away like white rabbits in the shadows of trees and rocks. I walked for a while, maybe a mile, then turned around and went back. When I came around the bend, the last big curve before my house, I saw a little patch of dirty snow in the shallow ditch lying near the road. It struck me as odd because that side of the road was in the sun: there shouldn't be any snow there. Of course it was the stuffed animal, and given its proximity to Josephine's accident, I thought it was hers. I stood above it, a tree giving it shelter from sun and wind. One black ear was missing, along with an eye, and it was incredibly dirty, like a clump of snow fallen from the wheel well of a tractor trailer. I nudged it with my toe. Its mouth was stitched into a smile. I picked it up, shook the dirt from it, and carried it home. I washed it in the kitchen sink, wrung it out, then set it in the dish rack to dry with my breakfast dishes. How could I have missed this animal when I found Josephine? It stared at me with its one good eye before I turned it over. Did I have to give answer to a stuffed toy? There were a few strands of thread where the old eye had been. I remember Josephine carrying a little rabbit with furry ears — she used to hold it on her chest at night and stroke its ears until she fell asleep; I know this because Shelley always drug me to her crib to show me how sweet it was — but did she have a stuffed dog? Was it something she carried all the time, or was it a toy that happened to strike her fancy that morning from the animal pile in the corner of her room? I sat down and held it, listening to the wind blow through the row of white pines behind the house.

"I've never seen that dog," Shanti would say. "It's not Josie's."

"Then whose do you suppose it is?"

"I don't know."

I would ask her to use her imagination.

"You always tell me that."

I would smile, for it's true. "Well?"

"It was a family traveling home from Christmas," she would say, "and they had two girls, two sisters who loved each other very much. One got a dress from her grandma, the other a stuffed dog, for she was too little to like getting dresses for Christmas."

"And then what?"

"And then, coming home the day after Christmas, the little sister rolls down her window because her dog was hot and she wanted to see its ears flap in the wind."

"And she drops it," I would say.

"In front of our house."

"Why don't they stop?"

She would think for a bit, squeezing out the tip of her tongue between her clenched lips so that it looked like a worm crawling from the dark earth of her face, and say, "Because there was a big truck behind them."

I would ask if the little sister cried.

"How should I know," she'd say.

I stood up and took the dog to Josephine's room, which wasn't really Josephine's room because there was nothing in it any more: Shelley had emptied it out, even taking down the quaint wallpaper border she had breathlessly hung two weeks before Josephine was born. There was a twin bed with a bare mattress. I put the dog on the window sill, making sure its good eye was looking out the window, and sat on the bed, staring at the shadow the stuffed toy cast on the floor. I wish I could say that I felt love or even fear, but I didn't feel anything except a vague desire to know who the toy belonged to. If I knew, maybe then I could feel something: if it was Josephine's, then it could represent sadness for me, a symbol of something lost, an object of dead love. But as it was, given my faulty memory, it meant nothing. I stood up and went to Shanti's old room. It was cold because I had closed off the vent. I left her bed made. Maybe Shelley would let Shanti come one day and spend the night. I brushed out a few wrinkles from the quilt before leaving then shut the door behind me.

*

The heart pine casket was smooth and so finely crafted that I could barely tell where the boards had been joined together. The funeral director stood sullenly in the corner next to a tochère lamp, staring at Shelley, twisting his mustache. Shelley had given him a few things for the casket — a teddy bear, a blanket, and the plastic spoon Josephine always used to feed her bear — and he had arranged them around her head, the blanket neatly folded, the spoon next to the bear above her head. Her hands were face down on her stomach. I didn't point out her chipped nails to Shelley, the only visible clue of the violence of death.

Shelley stood next to the casket, a Kleenex wadded in her hand, and I busied myself with Shanti, who seemed unconcerned with the ordeal. She tugged at her tights, then let them snap back into place.

"Do you need to pee?" I whispered.

"Yes," she said. "You have bad breath."

"How bad?"

"Real bad," she said, fluttering her hand in front of her face. "Smells like something died in your mouth. You need a drink of water."

"Let's go."

"Okay."

I grabbed her hand, left Shelley by the casket, and waited outside the women's restroom. I could hear her stream hit the water in the toilet, the running water in the sink, the zip of the paper towel machine, and the squeaky hinges of the solemn wood door. She tossed her black tights into my hands.

"I don't want those on," she said.

"But your mother thinks you should wear them."

"You hold them."

"Shanti."

"I hate them."

"It's cold," I said.

"They get in my butt crack," she whispered.

"You'll be cold."

"It's hot in here."

"Not that hot."

She twirled around, her red dress opening and rising like a blooming flower. Her calves were dark and strong. "I like the air on my legs," she said.

"You really should put them back on."

"No."

She stopped spinning and I looked at her. If I hadn't seen her emerge into this world, the shock of wet black hair slowly distinguish itself from Shelley, I would never believe that she was mine. I shoved the tights into my pocket and they made a funny bulge, but I didn't care. She ran down the hall to the double metal doors. I got a drink and followed her.

Her face was pressed against the glass and her breath fogged a half-circle around her chin. "I don't think Mom likes you," she said.

I put my arm around her, but she didn't move. "Oh Shanti," I said, "that's not true."

"It is."

"How do you know?"

"I can just tell."

"She's just upset," I said. "It's natural for her to be upset."

"It's hate."

"When someone you loves goes away, you get sad," I said.

"It's hate," she said again.

"She'll get over it."

"I think she'll always remember it."

"Remember what?" I said.

"And Grandma reminds her."

"Of what, Shanti?" I tried to get her to look at me, but she resisted, staring instead at the sidewalk outside.

"The fence."

I took my arm from her shoulder. "What did Grandma Miller say?"

"That it's your fault," she quivered.

"That what's my fault?" I asked, wanting to hear her say it.

"That it's your fault that Josie's dead."

"You don't believe that, do you?" I touched her velvety sleeve.

"Is it Mama's fault?" She looked at me.

"It's nobody's fault."

The wind shook the trees. "It has to be somebody's fault," she said.

"Why?"

"Things just don't happen."

"They do," I said. "Bad things happen sometimes, no matter how hard you try. I know you miss Josephine, but. . ."

"I don't miss her."

"Don't say that," I said.

She stared out the window again. "It's true."

"Of course you miss her."

"Don't either."

"You'll miss her eventually," I said.

"She was just a baby anyway."

"She was three," I said. "That's hardly a baby. You two played so nicely together."

"Yes, but I always would rather be alone," she said, leaning against the steel rod of the door, opening it slightly. The wind rushed in and scattered hair across her face.

"Do you want to go outside?" I asked.

She nodded then opened the door wider.

I stepped outside. "Are you coming?" I said, turning.

"I changed my mind," she said, letting the door click shut. I banged on the locked door and pressed my face against the glass, but Shanti ran away.

*

Martin came into my office and said, "So here's the plan." He could barely contain his excitement.

"What plan?"

"Dinner plans," he said. "My house, next Friday."

I shoved a stack of papers out of the way and put my computer to sleep. "Your house? You live in a house?"

"Are you surprised?"

"I don't know–I guess I took you for the apartment type."

"Apartment?"

"Yes," I said, taking off my glasses. "A small apartment with lots of dirty clothes stacked in every corner."

"No no," he said laughing. "I live in a house my dad owns, and my roommate's in Germany."

"What's he doing there?"

"He's a German major. Of course he's in Germany," he said. "But anyway, all this is to say that the house is free and you're invited to a party."

"I don't like parties," I said.

"Just bring a salad."

"I'm an introvert."

"A green salad, if you wish."

"Parties make me nervous," I said.

"It's a Greek-themed dinner," Martin said.

"I don't do well with big crowds."

"Make sure you put lots of olives and feta on it."

"I like small parties," I added.

"Asha will be there," he said. "She wanted me to invite you."

I put my glasses back on and stared at Martin who was smiling like a cretin. "It'll be a small party," he said. "Seven o'clock next Friday. I'll E-mail you the directions to my place."

Martin's house wasn't too far from the university, maybe eight blocks from my office, a small but lovely bungalow with two windowed dormers and taupe gingerbread siding. He had a fire lit in the fireplace. Asha was on the couch.

"Hey, stranger," she said.

"Hey there," Martin said, taking my jacket and hanging it in a tiny closet in the entryway.

"It's red," I said, looking around the red painted living room walls.

"I told you I like red," Martin said, grinning. "Actually, it's called chili pepper."

"And look at the trim," Asha commented. "Black."

"It's risqué," I said. "A lover's den."

"I wouldn't have the nerve to paint it in my house," Asha said, tightening the drawstring of her pants.

"You've probably painted over oak trim," I said to Martin. "A shame."

"It used to be green," Martin said. "That's more of a shame." He took my salad and trotted off to the kitchen.

"And I see he has one of your pieces," I said to Asha, nodding at a yellowish rectangle of canvas that hung above the mantel. "It looks nice in here." I sat down next to her on the futon.

"It's a small piece," she said.

"Just the right size for the room."

"You think?"

"I don't know," I said, "but given your aesthetic sensibilities, I'm sure you wouldn't let something like canvas size slip by you."

Asha sipped her martini. She had her hair pulled back in a silver clip revealing crescent moon-shaped earrings that swayed from her lobes every time she spoke; and when she moved her head, they stroked the taut skin of her neck. "Martin wouldn't let me put tape on the floor."

"It seems to me the coffee table is where one needs to stand in order to appreciate the work," I said.

"You're getting good," Asha said, smiling.

Martin gave me a martini. "Gin. Hope you don't mind."

"I like juniper berries," I said.

"Oh, you can taste them?" Martin said.

"Is it Bombay?" I said.

"Bombay Sapphire," Martin said.

"I think it's the best," Asha said.

"You probably like the light blue bottle," Martin joked. "Gives you that calming sensation, I imagine?"

"They make great vases for daffodils," I said. I'd never put flowers in a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle: that was Shelley's job. One blue bottle was nice on the kitchen sill, but more than that annoyed me when the tepid light shone through the glass and made the enamel sink look stained. I sipped my drink, which Martin had garnished with a twist of lime.

"Here's to us," Martin said, holding up his glass.

We sipped our cocktails, then I put my drink on the coffee table. Martin slipped into the kitchen. Asha turned her body toward me, touching my leg with her knee which was visible through a tiny hole in her pants. I pulled away slightly, but her knee followed. How could so much heat escape from such a tiny hole? "Martin made a great dinner," she said. "Spanakopita, lemon soup, and grape leaves stuffed with herbed rice and lamb. He's an excellent cook."

We lingered over the soup and salad and drank a bottle of wine, after which Martin served the main course, poured more wine, and then brewed a pot of coffee afterward to serve with cookies. In the center of the table, Martin had filled a glass bowl with water and colored marbles, mostly reds and greens, and placed a floating candle on the glassy surface. Asha nudged the candle, creating ripples in the water while Martin served the coffee. I was grateful for the coffee: I had drunk too much wine. I stared at the flame.

"What's the matter?" Asha said, scraping wax from her nails.

I sipped my coffee. "I'm just tired."

Martin sat down in his Windsor chair. "You're usually pretty talkative."

I affected a smile. "Just tired."

Martin glanced at Asha. "What's the word?"

"I'd say lonely," Asha said. She smiled at me.

"She's got a way with naming emotion," Martin said to me.

"I'm not lonely."

"It's obvious," Asha said, wiping crumbs onto her dessert plate.

"Women are good at that, you know," Martin said, leaning in confidentially.

"It's not a female trait, it's a human trait," Asha said. "To be able to feel."

"Being tired is a physical response," I said. "Nothing more."

"But it's linked with emotion," Asha said.

"Spoken by the artist," Martin said.

"Shut up, Martin," Asha said.

"So I can't just be tired?"

"You can be tired if you're honest with yourself," Asha said. "And if you're honest with yourself, I think you'll find that you're lonely.

"So what?"

"It's okay to miss your family," Asha said, pushing her plate toward Martin who had begun to clear the table.

"Why does it matter to you?" I said.

"Because I like you," she said. "That's why."

"It's late," I said.

"That's all I get? Just a statement?" she said, staring at me. She suddenly smiled.

I returned the smile.

"Is there more than that?" she said.

"More?" I said. "What more can I give?" The candle burned through to the water and sizzled out. We both watched the black wick sink.

Martin came into the room holding the coffee carafe. "Anyone want more?"

"I'm through," Asha said.

I covered my mug with my hand. "Same here. In fact, I should go." I stood up.

"It's early," Martin said. "I was hoping for some games and a nightcap. Trivial Pursuit?"

"Maybe some other time," I said.

Martin looked at Asha.

"I'll pass," she said. "Thanks for dinner." She hugged Martin and kissed him lightly on the cheek, a familial peck like the show of affection between a parent and a child.

At the car, Asha opened my door. "Are you sure you want to walk?"

"I am," she said. "I think it's going to rain."

The air was damp, and I looked up at the sky. "I think you're right."

"April showers, right?"

"Tulips." I set my bowl on the roof of the car.

"What?" she said.

"You should put tulips in the blue jar. Red ones."

"That would look nice," Asha said, putting her hands under her sweat shirt and rubbing her stomach briskly. "It's chilly."

"You see Martin a lot?" I said.

"Too often," she said, smiling. Her eyes were hidden in a shadow cast by a branch from a maple, though the light from the street lamp illuminated her mouth and teeth. "We're not dating. He's a friend."

"He said as much."

"So why did you ask me if you already knew the answer?"

"I didn't ask," I said.

"You're asking now." She laughed. "You're so obvious."

"Obvious? About what?"

"Oh come on."

I kicked a stone. "No I'm serious."

"You like me." She was quiet for a moment. "You love me. A lot."

"And how do you know that?" I asked.

"I can tell," she said, pulling her hands from her pockets and adjusting her sweater. "It's in your eyes. I'm calling your bluff."

"It's late," I said, looking away.

"Of course, and you're tired," she said flatly, turning from me.

"I am." I watched her take a few steps. "Wait."

She stopped. The streetlight was caught her eyes. "What is it?"

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight then," she said. She walked briskly into Martin's house.

At home, I sat in the drive with the wipers madly slinging water and the headlights shining into the empty kitchen. The house looked cold. Goodnight, goodnight.

*

From her bedroom I can hear Shanti instructing her little sister how to dance. "It's like this," she says, and then I hear foot stomps above me. I move under the heating grate in Shanti's floor and look up. Josephine, nearly two, is sitting on the grate, her diaper bulging at the sides. Shelley and I are in a protracted battle to see who's going to change the diaper. I'm in the kitchen, cooking, so I don't want diaper crud on my hands. Shelley's in the flower garden.

"Let me help you up, Josie," Shanti says, lifting her by the arms, but Josephine slips from Shanti's hands and flops onto her butt.

"You take the music box. Crank it, like this." Shanti cranks it a bit, and, for a moment, a tinny but magical Il Padrino fills the air. She gives it to Josephine. "Good girl," she says. "That's right. Now crank it the other way." Shanti sits next to Josephine and shows her how to crank the music box. Her rhythm is irregular and blotchy, but Shanti is pleased. Josephine laughs.

"Now do it again," Shanti says, jumping up to her feet. She moves away from the grate, but I can tell she's dancing: I hear her soft footfalls and the pots and pans on the rack above the island are shuddering slightly. Josephine stops abruptly and claps. "More," she says, and Shanti complies when the music starts again. Such wonderful toys music boxes are.

Shelley bangs on the window. Her hands are muddy and she motions for me to crank open the window.

"Can you rinse these?" she says, handing her tools to me. I rinse them while Shelley waits, then I shower the sides of the sink with water to wash away the stray mud. "What are the girls doing?"

"Playing."

"I'm glad you're home now. They've been at each other all day," she says. "You're lucky they're getting along for you."

"They're fine."

For a moment, Shelley looks angry and seems ready to fulminate, but she composes herself, takes the tools, and walks to the shed. "How's the dirt?" I call out.

"It's fine," she replies.

I crank the window shut and set the table. Shanti is still dancing. I drink a martini and wait for Shelley who is lingering in the garden shed.

*

Il Padrino is a beautiful song, and I waited through the end credits of The Godfather before shutting off the television. My screen turned blue and it relaxed me. I wondered if Asha had ever seen the movie or if she enjoyed the theme song as much as Shanti did. It was the last day of April, and I had watched the movie in celebration of Shanti's favorite song: Shelley was finally allowing me to see her.

The next day I drove into town to pick up Shanti. I tooted the horn and waited in the car. It was chilly for the first of May, but sunny. Shelley opened the door and Shanti walked timorously down the sidewalk. I got out of the car and stood by the door. She wore flared jeans with a tightly-knit top under a red cardigan, and two flowered barrettes sprouted from her fertile, springy hair. She carried a little purse, not much bigger than my wallet. When had that started, a purse?

"Are you ready to skate?" I asked.

"I suppose," she said.

I looked up to wave to Shelley, but she had closed the door. "Well, hop in," I said, opening the door for Shanti who slid into the passenger seat.

"How's school?" I asked once we left the apartment lot.

"Fine," she said, looking out the window. The road was littered with lavender blossoms from the redbud trees.

"Are you learning a lot?"

"Yes."

"Do you have lots of friends?"

"The same ones I've always had," she said. "You remember, don't you?"

"Oh, sure," I lied.

She unzipped her purse and dug until she found lip balm. It was minty. "So you're taking me skating," she said, looking at me.

I felt my face turn red. "Yes. Ice skating."

"I've never gone," she said, "though lots of my friends do."

"Maybe you'll see them there."

"Maybe."

We were quiet for a bit.

"It's been a while since I've skated," I said.

"You're probably a klutz," she said.

"Now what makes you say that?"

"You don't do any sports," she said. "Boys who are klutzy don't do sports."

"What do they do, then?"

"Teach English."

I laughed and glanced at her. She was looking out her window. I hoped she was smiling. "Has your mother taken you swimming at all?"

"No."

"Do you remember taking lessons?"

"Yes."

"Has she offered?" I said.

"No."

"Would you like me to take you sometime?" I suggested.

"Maybe," she said. "I'd have to think about it."

"I miss watching you swim."

"I kind of miss it too," she said as we pulled into the parking garage.

The ice rink was crowded and smelled like French fries. A group of middle school boys cruised the rink in a group, laughing, and I wondered if my idea had been such a good one, but Shanti became excited when she put on her skates and lumbered onto the ice with me in tow. It had been years since I had skated, but I soon fell into my former abilities, which were never good, only adequate. I held Shanti's cold hand.

"You're pretty good," she said.

"I used to skate all the time when I was little," I said. "New England had cold winters." The group of boys bullied their way past us. Shanti clung to the bar below the Plexiglas. The ringleader of the group, a redheaded kid with braces, sensed Shanti's fear, and the next time they passed us, he skated up to Shanti and dodged her at the last second. She clung to the wall again.

The boys laughed and tried it again, but I stuck out my skate and tripped the ringleader.

"Oh pardon me, I didn't see you coming," I said. "You might want to give my daughter some distance: she's just learning." He wiped his nose, got up, and skated to join his pack. "They won't bother you anymore," I said.

At the grill, Asha ordered a plate of fries and a soda. I snitched one.

"Get your own," she said.

"You can't eat a whole plate of fries."

"Can too," she said, shoving a handful into her mouth. "See?" She opened her mouth.

"So what are you going to do this summer?"

"I'll continue with my riding lessons," she said, swallowing.

"Oh, you're riding?" I said, trying not to sound too surprised.

"Mom started me a few months ago. The stables are near Afton," she said.

"Do you like it?"

"I love it," she said, "better than swimming."

"Horses can be dangerous, you know. They can kick you."

Shanti laughed. "You have to stay away from that end," she said. "Besides, you don't have to worry: the trainers are very good. They only use nice horses."

"Well that's good," I said. "Does your mother watch you ride?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes she just drops me off and goes to the store or something."

"Maybe I could come watch you."

"Maybe," she said.

"Do you still dance a lot?" I said.

She frowned. "Dance?"

"Yes. You used to dance all the time."

"I did?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"With me. And Josephine."

"Really?"

I was incredulous. "How can you not remember? I used to twirl you in the kitchen."

"I don't remember that," she said.

"And you tried to teach your sister how to dance using your music box."

"I definitely don't remember that," she said, pushing her plate toward me. "You can have the rest."

"Are you full?"

"And tired. You can take me home now."

*

During the day, the Spring forest releases greens and lavenders into the air, soldering colors into the canopy like leaded panes of a stained glass window; but at dusk, the leaves and branches snag darkness and prepare to darken the forest floor. It was late May, and Asha and I were at an overlook on the Blue Ridge. The sun was dropping into the Alleghenies across the valley.

"Look at the sunset," she said.

"It's a color field," I replied. "Blue fading into orange."

"Cerulean into fulvous."

"You know color like Eskimos know ice," I said, readying my camera.

"You can't replicate that," she said.

"But I want a memento."

She put her hand over the lens. "I won't let you take a picture."

"Oh, come on. It's just a photograph, my photograph."

"It'll just collect gigabyte dust in your hard drive."

"I can use it as wallpaper," I said, "or maybe as a screen saver."

"You won't remember this if you take a picture," she said, zipping her jacket.

I was annoyed. "What makes you think that?" I said. "You don't know what I remember or what I don't."

Asha turned toward me. "You know you don't really see when you take a photo," she said. "It's just you grasping at immortality."

"That's not true."

"It is. And you're upset because you know I'm right."

"I'd like you to explain to me just how you think I'm trying to be immortal," I said.

"Those photos," she said, "are your attempt at trying to hold onto something that's dying. ‘If I can just capture this,' you think."

"Bullshit."

"But you know what? Some things aren't made to be captured and held on to. You can't hold this scene," she said, swinging her arm over the railing. "If you take its picture, you've already lost it."

"Isn't painting the same thing?" I retorted. "You're doing the same thing when you paint or sketch."

"No. You're always thinking about the end product," she said, "but I'm talking about process."

"Process. That's all you talk about."

"That's all I know."

"How can you live like that?" I said. "How can stand not knowing anything for sure?"

"I don't think you can know anything for sure."

"I knew you'd say that."

"You know me well," Asha said.

"And it's only been five months," I said. "I wonder if there's more."

Asha glared at me. "You think I'm shallow."

"Is that a statement or are you asking?"

"A statement," she said.

"You're the one who said it."

"You know what? Fuck you."

I smiled. "Let me guess: you hung out with me because you felt sorry for me, wanted to be my friend and heal my wounds, bring me a little joy and happiness."

"I liked you."

"And now?"

"I see why you're divorced."

"So you're rejecting me too," I said.

Asha pushed her butt against the railing, broadening her hips. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "I think it's you who's rejecting me."

"Always the strong girl."

"And you're a sucker for us," she said sarcastically. "You'd be better off with a kitten, someone to brush up against your leg, someone to make you feel needed."

"I hate pets."

"They'd probably run away from you anyway," she said, looking past my shoulder.

I glanced at the sky. The sun had disappeared, and the thin sliver of moon, suddenly bright, hung above the distant mountains. The stars, suffocatingly close, began their gaudy, clichéd ritual.

"I need to pee," Asha said.

"There are trees everywhere," I said.

She hoped over the railing and I watched her go down the slope a bit before she disappeared into some scraggly bushes. I turned and walked to the car. It started flawlessly, quietly; only it was privy to my escape. I looked in my rearview mirror, but all I saw were the silhouettes of trees against the darkening sky.

*

I move my chair to the window and stare out across the sloping lawn into the trees that line the road. The bird claws my back, so I stand up. The men are here cutting the grass and cleaning up the yard, trimming the hedges and mulching the small branches lying throughout the property, but the glass window is a barrier to the smell of trimmed grass and pine resin. It's June. I can't get Asha from my mind, and I wonder if she was surprised when she clambered up the rocks and saw that I had left her.

"That wasn't nice, Daddy," Shanti would say.

"I know," I'd reply.

"Why did you do that?" She'd contort her face into a frown.

"I don't know."

"But you wouldn't do that to me."

"No, of course not," I'd say.

"Could I meet her?"

"Why?"

"She seems like fun."

"She was," I'd reply, wanting to grasp Shanti into my arms.

"I can smell your chair," she'd say.

I'd kiss her head then let her sit in it, watch her slide into its feathered embrace; and she'd not be bothered with it, she'd sit contentedly with the bird melding its tail into her back.