Annika forced herself to mentally chronicle all the good stuff in her life. Health, friendships, father, a nice place to live, a business she loved. “No,” she said, meaning it. “Things aren’t so bad. I love this phase of Make Up, when we’re collecting new data and everything feels rife with possibility.”

“Excellent,” he said, but Annika could tell he had to make an effort to sound enthusiastic.

She’d wished so many times that her father would show the same level of eagerness for Make Up as he would if she were telling him about a surgery she’d performed, or a cadaver she’d dissected. It was the one sticking point in their relationship—he simply refused to see that Make Up was her passion, her baby, something she’d created from absolutely nothing, a dream she’d concocted from thin air.

She stifled the disappointment and said lightly, “You don’t really think it’s excellent, but that’s okay.”

“No, I do. It’s just that—”

Annika frowned. “Just that what?”

“I think you could be so successful as a doctor, Ani. A real doctor.”

She set her wineglass down and hugged her knees to her chest. “Dad, you don’t know that. I could kill people. I could be one of those doctors they profile on the news with a catchy nickname like Dr. Death. I bet you wouldn’t think Dr. Make Up was so bad then.”

“But how do you know that when you haven’t even given it a chance?”

She glowered at her phone. “Well, I guess we’ll never find out.” There was a beat of silence before she added, “Good night, Dad. I’m going to bed.”

“Okay. Good night, Ani. Pluto.”

And just like that, her shoulders relaxed, the hurt and disappointment seeping out of her. “Pluto.”

“Pluto” was what they said to each other instead of “I love you.” It had become a thing because Annika’s mom apparently used to say she didn’t just love Annika’s dad “to the moon and back,” but “to Pluto and back,” because that was much, much farther. Eventually they’d honed the phrase down to just “Pluto.” And then when Annika came along, her dad said they would say it to her, too, though she had no memory of her mom. Now “Pluto” was a link connecting her and her dad, a way for them to signal, “Hey, you’re all I have in the world. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Annika set her phone down and sighed. Her dad’s “Pluto” had put everything in perspective. He might not be perfect, but when she spoke to him, she felt like she belonged somewhere. She didn’t need to look out at the city lights to remind herself she was here, that she mattered to someone in some way.