“Well, Kathleen is hungry, and chili dogs aren’t on her menu,” Georgia replied, putting Kathleen’s seat on the counter and digging in the overflowing bag she lugged everywhere, looking for something to feed her. Kathleen let out a yowl of impatience.
Henry shut the freezer on the ice cream temptation and pulled a stack of bowls from the cupboard. We were clearly invited for dinner. He took crackers and sour cream and cheese from the fridge, setting things out, stealing looks at Kathleen as her complaining gained momentum.
“Kathleen doesn’t look like you,” Henry said suddenly, staring at me.
“Uh, no. She doesn’t. Not really,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say. Without another word, Henry turned and left the kitchen. I heard him run up the stairs and looked at Georgia who met my gaze with bafflement.
“Did you hear that, woman?” I asked Georgia. “Henry doesn’t think Kathleen looks like me. You got something to tell me?”
Kathleen shrieked again. Georgia wasn’t moving fast enough with the jar of bananas she’d produced.
Georgia smirked and stuck out her tongue at me, and Kathleen bellowed. Georgia hastily dipped the tiny spoon into the yellow goo and proceeded to feed our little beast, who wailed as she inhaled.
“She may not look like you, Moses. But she definitely has your sunny disposition,” Georgia sassed, but she leaned into me when I dropped a kiss on her lips. It didn’t hurt my feelings at all that my dimpled baby girl looked more like her mother.
I heard Henry thundering back down the stairs and pulled back from my wife’s soft mouth as he strode through the kitchen seconds later. He stopped beside me.
“See?” He clutched a picture in his hand, and he waved it in front of my face. “I don’t look like my dad either.”
I took the photo from his hand and studied it. It was worn on the edges and it had lost its sheen, like Henry had held it often. The man in the picture was familiar to me in the way sports figures are familiar to many. Andre Anderson was fairly well-known and admired. He stood smiling at the camera with a very small Henry, maybe three years old, clutched in his arms. He looked happy and relaxed, and he and Henry wore matching Giants jerseys and ball caps.
“You’re right. You and Millie look more like your mom,” I said, handing the picture back. I didn’t like pictures. Pictures rarely told the truth. They were like gold lacquer over Styrofoam, making things seem shiny and bright, disguising the fragility beneath. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it still wasn’t worth a whole hell of a lot.
“That’s because we spent more time with her,” Henry said seriously, as if it were common knowledge, as if resemblances were based on nurture instead of nature. It was true, to a point. Mannerisms, quirks, style. All those things could be learned and copied.
“So if I spend a lot of time with Kathleen, do you think she’ll start to look like me?” I asked him, steering the focus away from his father.
Henry looked doubtfully from me to my grunting, banana-bearded child and back again.
“I hope so,” he said.
Georgia snickered, and I hooted and held my hand in the air so Henry could give me five.
“You hear that, Georgia? Henry hopes so,” I crowed. “I guess that means your baby daddy is a beautiful man.”
Henry obviously didn’t mean to be funny, and he totally left me hanging. Georgia reached up and slapped my hand and winked at me.
“If she looks like you, everyone will know you’re her dad,” Henry said, his voice perfectly level, his eyes solemn. “And that will make her happy.”
I nodded, no longer smiling.
“That’s why I go to the gym. I want to look like Tag,” he added to no one in particular. He set down the picture and proceeded to dish up four bowls of chili, handing one to me and placing Georgia’s beyond Kathleen’s reach. Before he ate, he took the fourth bowl into the family room, and we heard the tape pause and Millie thank her brother. Henry came back into the kitchen sans chili, and without a word, dug into his dinner. We were all silent as we heard Tag’s voice resume his tale.
PEOPLE WHO CAN see constantly move their heads. It wasn’t anything I had noticed before, not until I spent time with Millie. But movement was directly tied to sight, and where everyone else tossed and turned their heads, their bodies following where their eyes went, Millie moved cautiously, her spine straight, her chin level, her shoulders back, ready to soak in every available clue. She didn’t tip her head toward her feet when she tied her shoes or tilt her head up when the bell of a shop rang overhead. Moving her head didn’t give her any more information, and as a result, she was perfectly contained, and strangely impenetrable. It made her appear regal, like a Japanese Geisha. But it was intimidating too.
I was restless, always had been, and her stillness beckoned me while her concentration on the smallest things made me more aware of myself, of my size and my tendency to break things. I had always been physical, more inclined to hug than hold back, as inclined to touch as talk, although I did both. I wondered if Millie would have been as controlled if she could see, or if her poise and patience were a byproduct of the loss of her sight. The only time she moved with abandon was when she was dancing, hands glued to the pole, head moving with the music, body pulsing with the rhythm.
I watched her dance every chance I could get. It wasn’t her skimpy outfit or her graceful limbs, taut stomach, and shiny hair, though I was a man and I’d taken note of all those things immediately. But all the girls had beautiful, strong, slim bodies. All the girls danced well. But I watched Millie. I watched Millie because she fascinated me. She was a brand new species, an intoxicating mix of girl and enigma, familiar yet completely foreign. I’d never met anyone like her, yet I felt like I’d known her forever. And since the moment I’d looked down into her face and felt that jolt of ode-to-joy-and-holy-shit, I’d been falling, falling, falling, unable to stop myself, unable to look away, helpless to do the smart thing. And the smart thing, the kind thing would be to stay away. But no one had ever accused me of being particularly smart.