People wander through the nursery

drinking champagne.

Lisa is there.

She’s holding a paintbrush

and standing next to an oil painting

on an easel.

She sees me.

I imagine for a split second

that I’m the lost adventurer

scruffy and worn from the trail.

I am tough, distant and hard to reach

even for her.

In the next second,

I imagine I am as wide as

the truck-window me.

Awkward and waddling in.

Before I decide who I actually am,

she smiles, runs over,

throws her arms around me.

I feel every

single

part of her

against my body.

Well? she says. How was it?

And in this moment,

I remember just how much

I miss her, and I explode

about the whole trip.

We step back in time.

Brother and sister,

best friends, as the confusing parts of me

shut off long enough to remember

that I don’t have to be mad at her,

that with her I can just be me.

The Painting

What is this? I ask,

and I walk to where

the new painting rests

on the easel.

Oil and acrylic

in earthy tones,

a woman

with claws

sitting beneath

a full moon,

crouched,

her legs

alive in fiery muscle,

barefoot,

her dark eyes

animal,

deep brown,

fierce but thoughtful.

Beneath her feet

the words

Deer Woman, eyes open.

It’s called a mara, Lisa says,

a Deer Woman, kind of.

I read these lines in a poem.

A mara’s like a werewolf

in Sweden.

Lisa’s painting is so different

from anything else here,

like a part of Lisa

I knew was there all along,

but didn’t quite

recognize until now.

Your mom and me, well,

she’s been showing me how

to work in texture, and …

I’ve learned so—I cut her off.

It’s you! I say.

I mean if you were

a Swedish werewolf creature.

Sorry

The Artist comes outside,

a glass of champagne in one hand,

a long cigarette in the other.

I’m not sure if she’ll be mad

at me for not calling,

or if she’s been worrying about us.

If I tell her about almost

getting hypothermia,

or dropping The Diet Book

in the water or any of the other stuff,

she may never let me do anything again.

I take a deep breath, smile nervously,

Hi, Mom, I say through the crowd.

She stops suddenly,

walks over

looks me straight in the eyes

like she’s reading my mind,

then hugs me extralong.

Ari, she says,

tell me everything.

I’m tired, I say,

and she agrees and says that

later she’ll make some Level 3 food,

even some bread tonight.

She walks off to greet guests.

Lisa pinches my arm.

Do you want to walk down to the beach?

Okay, I say. Even though I am so tired.

This is what we do.

We go to the beach.

On the way there,

she takes my hand,