“But what if I do?” asked Jasper. “What if it’s the best thing ever, and I don’t try it, and I die, years from now, old and miserable, wondering . . .”

“It seems unlikely you’ll be thinking about ice cream when you die,” I said.

“You never know,” said Jasper, licking her cone thoughtfully. “There are definitely worse things to be thinking about when you die. It might be my last gasp. Earl. Grey. Tea!” We both laughed.

One day, Jasper was over at my house, running a load of laundry, and she happened to notice the art supply cabinet in the office. She swung the door open and peered inside.

“Hey, what’s all this for?” she asked as she picked up a little box of purple seed beads and shook it at me, like a maraca. She reached for a bottle of poster paint.

“Nothing really,” I replied. “Dad used to do art projects with Sam and me. You know—tie-dyeing and stuff like that. But he doesn’t anymore. He says he doesn’t have time these days, for art.”

Staring at the paint in Jasper’s hand, I thought briefly about the cornfield in the garage. I’d been out to see it a few more times during the day, when I wasn’t with Jasper and I knew nobody would come home. I couldn’t quite tell if it had changed or not, if he was still working on it. But I liked to stand and look at it in the dusty garage light. It made me want to cry, every time, but in a way that felt right. Like stretching, almost, or yawning. I hadn’t told Jasper about it, and somehow, I still didn’t want to. I didn’t want to share it.

“No time for art?” Jasper said. “What’s he so busy with?”

I shrugged. “Working. Checking his email. Being a dad. Who knows.” I turned to the wall above the desk and pointed at a still life, a painting of a fruit bowl, only there were other things in the bowl too. Keys, a broken Barbie doll head, random junk along with the apples and pears. “My dad painted that. He painted most of the pictures around the house. Once upon a time, before I was born, he wanted to be a professional artist. He even went to college for it. And when I was a kid he took me to the art museum all the time. But he doesn’t talk about painting much anymore.”

Jasper looked at the painting for a minute. “I like it,” she said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“What does he do for a living?” asked Jasper. “You never talk about your parents, really. I’m not even sure what their names are.”

“You never talk about yours either,” I said.