It wasn’t a long story. Dad just liked to tell it that way.
They’d met during a fender bender, Mom and Dad.
Mom was on one corner of the sidewalk on a blue-sky spring day, wearing a butter-yellow dress and a sun hat, waiting to cross the street and catch a bus to Foothill Junior College, where she was taking a business course. Lucy had always pictured her there wearing her signature red lipstick, a breeze flapping her skirt around so that her knees were showing.
Dad was on the other corner of the sidewalk, waiting to cross to the opposite street, where he was meeting some friends to study in a nearby coffee shop. Lucy had always pictured him there smoking a pipe, even though he didn’t smoke, with an arched eyebrow and wearing a sweater with elbow patches like Mr. Rogers.
Then there was a loud bang!
Because a snow-white Chevy plowed into the back of a red Thunderbird right there in the middle of the intersection. Both Mom and Dad were startled on their respective corners, Mom’s hand flying to her mouth, Dad dropping his pipe. Then, because they were both spectacular people who cared for the welfare of others, they flung themselves off their corners toward the crash to see if they could help. Dad opened the driver’s-side door at the exact moment Mom opened the passenger door, and there, right in front of the stunned faces of the accident victims in the red Thunderbird, they fell in love.
When Dad was being silly, he’d say she was a virus he couldn’t shake. When he was being romantic, he’d say she was his Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey.
Which Lucy knew inside and out because Dad used to chase her and Mom around their Chicago apartment, shouting quotes at them from Homer. He told them those quotes made him feel powerful and brilliant and ready to take on the world:
By hook or by crook this peril too shall be something that we remember!
He’d chase them until they all fell on the sofa in fits of laughter. Lucy never understood most of the quotes Dad used to shout, but what she did understand about The Odyssey was that the hero, Odysseus, spent twelve thousand, one hundred lines of dactylic hexameter to get back home to his Penelope.
In some ways, Dad was still on a journey back home. It was just taking a little longer than they expected.
Lucy figured she could wait.
The Picnic for Peace at Happy Hollow Park over Labor Day weekend started with a bang. A literal bang. Great-Uncle Lando had bought leftover fireworks from the same guy that sold him the New Year’s Eve party favors. Great-Uncle Lando was always one party behind the rest of the world.
It was called a Jet Dragon Snake, and as it flew off into the sky, breaking about every ordinance the park had set up for their Picnic for Peace, Lucy froze in place, taking a quick sideways glance at Dad, who was also, most likely, not fond of explosions. But he didn’t seem to notice much or, if he did, kept it to himself.
The whole family was there, just like at Dad’s Welcome Home party. There were blankets in all the colors of the rainbow lying flat in the grass with various relatives sitting, standing and eating. Of course, Great-Uncle Lando had set up the bocce balls, and the Hairy Uncles played with all the kids. The smell of barbecue was in the air, and a band had set up on a portable stage, the rickety kind you see at weddings. They played the Beatles and James Taylor not very well. But they tried.
Milo was there. Without any warning, his mom had showed up about a week after Dad came home from the hospital. She’d driven all their things across the country with Lola, their German shepherd. They were starting over and living with Mrs. Bartolo for a while.
Lucy had been with Milo when his mom drove up and opened the passenger door. Lola made a beeline for Milo, knocking him flat in Mrs. Bartolo’s front yard, licking his face while Milo yelped helplessly and wrestled with her in the grass for a good long while. His mom, whose name was Mandy, held on to Milo for five solid minutes. They just rocked back and forth in each other’s arms.
Mandy, Milo and Mrs. Bartolo were right beside all the Rossis at the Picnic for Peace. Josh was there with Gia, the two of them in their own little world, whispering to each other, making plans. Josh had decided to sign up early since he’d drawn such a low number in the lottery. Plus, Italians, he’d said, got sent to the front lines, so he was hoping that by volunteering, he’d get a better placement. He was reporting for the army’s boot camp in three weeks’ time. Lucy didn’t know how she’d get through it all again, but she would be there for Gia, no matter what.
For now, Mom, Dad and Lucy weren’t going anywhere. Dad had decided he needed to heal and take the time to figure out what he really wanted to do. He had many ideas, like being a pediatrician, or maybe working in health care for veterans, and figured he could volunteer his time until he found the perfect fit.
As the sun went down and the stars came up, Dad called Milo over to their blanket.
“Here,” Dad said, and handed him his Purple Heart. He had already run the idea by Lucy. “Until your dad’s replacement comes.”
Lucy thought for certain Milo wouldn’t take it. But he did. “Thank you, sir. I’ll keep it safe.”
“I know you will.”
Many people spoke that night. About peace. About connectedness. About how we would all get through this together, and Lucy felt they were speaking directly to her, and speaking true. She took comfort in those words in a way she hadn’t been able to while Dad was gone.
Linda McCollam was there, as well as Billy Shoemaker and some of the kids whose butts Lucy had kicked in Crazy Kick Ball Tag. Lucy was able to introduce Milo to the kids she’d gone to school with last year. Kids she hoped to call friends one day soon. School was starting this week, and with Milo by her side, she was ready. She figured she would have been ready even if Milo had gone back to North Carolina, but having him there was a bonus. Like finding an extra prize in the Cracker Jack box.
After a while, Lucy ended up back on their blanket beside her father, as she knew she would. Periodic checkups, she figured, weren’t so bad, and who could blame her, really? It would take all of them a little time to sort things through.
While the ruckus of the night went on around them, Lucy and Dad lay back on the blanket and looked up at the stars.
“Look,” Lucy said, after she’d correctly named Orion’s Belt. “It’s the Joes.”
Dad pointed to the Big Dipper. “Uncle Lando’s Pink Champagne Ladle.”
“Aunt Lilliana’s Premonitions,” Lucy said, pointing to Cassiopeia.
And so they went, naming the constellations as they always had.
When she considered the moon, she didn’t think of her dad anymore, pulling the tides and keeping the earth on its axis. She thought about the fact that the moon was a giant stone in the sky, and would forever remind her of her Homeostasis Extravaganza, and the summer she met Milo Cornwallace.
Lucy still carried her stones, not yet ready to let them go. She thought about the rock cycle often, knowing she was right where she was supposed to be—with the people she loved most in the world.
While Dad had been gone, Lucy figured she’d been trapped in the metamorphic stage of things, feeling her heart harden from the pressure, transformed into something she didn’t recognize. But really she’d just been getting tougher without knowing it. While Dad had been gone, she’d been turning igneous so that, eventually, she’d rise again, like Half Dome.
Strong and true.