“She was sitting at a café, annotating music. I fell in love with her before I even said a word to her.”

I shut my eyes, breathing.

“She wasn’t impressed with me. Not at first. Not even after I told her my name—she wasn’t such a fan of the New City Symphony.” Dad laughed, delighted, like it had just happened, like they weren’t divorced, like he’d seen her at all in the past year. “But I won her over. And I wrote in a fever. I burned . . .” There was a sound, he was thumping something—his heart? “And so I set fire to the orchestra. That’s how that piece came about.”

“Ruby too.”

Dad didn’t respond.

“How Ruby came about,” Oscar went on. “And . . . Alice, Leo, Winston . . .”

“Oh!” Dad let out a booming laugh. “Right, sure. Is she here, Ruby, you around?”

He was shouting up the stairs.

“Yep!” I walked out of the kitchen, eyes locked on my phone. “Anything you want from the store?”

I peeked up to see Oscar stare at his shoes, at me, away again.

“Coffee!” Dad dug in his tweed jacket. “I’ve got a coupon for Fairway. French . . . roast, Oscar, what do you need?”

“Me?” Oscar startled alert, glancing between us. “No, I can handle getting my own groceries. Probably. If you show me where the supermarket is.”

I grinned. “Supermarket. Ha. Suburbanite.”

“You don’t have supermarkets?”

“We say grocery store.”

“It’s like another planet.” Oscar clutched his forehead. “How will I ever adapt?”

Dad passed me a silky envelope. “Nearly forgot. Nora sends her apologies, etcetera, can’t make it to the museum tonight, says you should go in her place.”

I turned the envelope over, panic rising. “Did she say why—?”

But Dad was talking over me, one hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “You go.”

Oscar’s face went slack. “Um. What are . . . ?”

“I’m out of pocket tonight. Erich Fuller’s in town, I’ve got to ferry him to Jean Georges, and . . . what is it, an exhibit preview?”

I frowned. “I think so. It’s at six . . .”

Dad turned to Oscar, decision made. “You’ll enjoy that. And Ruby won’t mind having a plus one, will you, Rooster?”

“I am very good at being a plus one,” Oscar put in, catching up to the conversation. “Always one person. Never two. Rarely a fraction.”

“I’m wholly impressed.”

“Wooooow.” And yet he was laughing.

Dad stared at us in faint confusion.

“Okay.” My pulse jumped again as soon as I said it.

“Okay,” Oscar echoed. “It’s a plan.”

His voice had stalled before the word plan—a teensy caesura. He’d meant to say date.

We both watched my dad tromp past. We looked at each other. Then Oscar followed him upstairs, a smile blooming on his face.

•   •   •

“Do you hear that?” Oscar stared at an oak branch.