As she watched a conflux of school children gather in factions on the concrete steps of the museum, Aria remembered her real mother bringing her here during one of her manic episodes all those years ago. She could almost see herself, like a hallucination overlaying the current scene, walking up those steps, small enough at that age that she had to focus on climbing them. She remembered knowing that her mother’s drug-induced enthusiasm and her desire to both connect and be a mother would be short-lived. But Aria didn’t care. She had decided to soak up those up-days for as long as they lasted so they could carry her through the desolation of all the other days.

She recalled them almost running from exhibit to exhibit. On that day, even though she asked for nothing more than to be with her mother, there was nothing Lucy wouldn’t give her. Lucy bought the tickets to the museum and ice-cream cones and toys from the gift shop as if there was no limit to abundance in their world. She thrust them into Aria’s little arms as if to say that the world could be her oyster. Aria had laughed because it was an experience she had always wanted to have.

She’d wondered for a second if her mother knew something that she didn’t. Maybe something wonderful had happened and they didn’t have to struggle anymore. But she knew deep inside that underneath that laughter and that hope, they couldn’t afford any of it. That feeling reminded her that her mother was not fully there. Lucy was interacting with the world as if through the veil of some alternate reality that was better than this one. Still, Aria tried to keep up with that unattuned alternate reality, and, for the day, she had managed to feel closer to her mother than she had in years.

It was one of those times in her life where she came closest to the vision in her head of what it might be like to really have a mother who loved her and who showed her the wonders of the world. Aria felt nostalgic about that day, as tainted as it may have been. It was a good day.

But then, standing there, staring at the museum, Aria thought to herself, I had two mothers – one who took me to the museum and bought me everything I could ever want. And another who woke up the next day and panicked about the new toys she saw in my room and then returned them. It just so happened that these two mothers Aria remembered were both Lucy.