Dan watched as Celia stood and walked solemnly to the mirror on the pillar at the edge of the department floor. She stared at her feet. She turned around and examined the profile. She seemed to enjoy the slide of the leather soles on the carpet. Watching her, Dan was reminded of some Freudian theory about the genesis of the foot fetish. The sublimation at the moment of the castration complex. Someday, Celia would discover Freud, and God knew what she would do with that.

“You like those?” he said.

“I think so,” she said.

“More than the other ones, you think?”

“I need to see.”

She returned to the stool and the salesman asked if the shoes pinched at all and she said no, they were fine. She offered her foot, and the salesman slid off the flats and unwrapped the penny loafers from the tissue paper and placed them on her feet.

Celia again stood and again presented her feet to the mirror. She stood in front of the glass, watching her feet turn, seeing the light catch on the different planes.

“Well?” Dan said.

“I like these, too.”

“What do you like about them?”

“I like these knobs.” She brushed her hand against the burls of leather running along the seam. “But I like the color of the other ones.”

“It’s a tough choice,” he said.

“It is,” she said. She watched the shoes with penetrating attention. Dan wondered what thoughts were going through her mind, but she was already too old, too complex, to decipher. He would never fully comprehend her thoughts again, if ever he had. Her most simple actions had retracted into well-guarded mystery.

New shoes. Dan did not believe, as many of his colleagues in advertising did, that the choice of shoe was tantamount to a choice of identity itself. He did not believe the shoe made the person. But watching Celia grapple with her decision, he did see the glimmer of consciousness at work. He saw her taste forming, her distinction refining, her judgment strengthening. He saw the lotus of his daughter’s mind opening to awareness, the petals of perception unfolding, seeking light. From there, it was but a small step to the world of imagination, that drawing forth of color and sound from the darkness. Imagination, the imitation of Godhead. The opposite of war. The holy vocation he had tried so hard and failed to attain.

Celia angled herself in order to see the backs of the shoes. She lifted one heel, pivoted. She turned again.

Let her always live inside the miracle of imagination, Dan thought. Let her come to worship this thing God had endowed. This was his prayer for his daughter, his benediction. He blessed her.

“So which ones?” Dan said.

“The other ones,” she said, watching her feet.

“Very good choice,” the salesman said. “They’re very popular.”

“You want to wear them out of the store?” Dan said.

Celia, watching her shoes, said, “Yes.”