I was hoping his office would be in the same place—back in the corner suite, with windows that looked out onto Fifty-Third. As I got closer, I could practically see it in my mind—what it had always looked like when he worked late on something. And even though it had been a while, I knew what to expect, because it never changed—all the lights in his office blazing, the opera he always played when he needed to keep his energy up. The scattered Coke cans spread out over his desk, the candy bars he would pretend that someone else had left there for some reason he couldn’t explain. I felt myself smile as I got closer. He was going to be so surprised to see me. And it had gotten almost impossible to surprise him, now that we didn’t live in the same house together, and everything always had to be so scheduled.

As I rounded the corner, I saw his assistant, Carla, looking frazzled, sitting behind her desk, the one just outside my dad’s office. She had three stacks of paper in front of her, and she was pulling pages from each of them and sorting them together. “Hello,” I said quietly, trying not to disturb her and make her lose track of whatever it was she was doing. But even so, she jumped and looked up at me, her annoyed expression turning confused for just a moment before she smiled.

“Stevie?” she asked, standing up. She shook her head. “Look at you! All grown up.”

“Oh,” I said, giving her a smile back. I never knew what to say to that. Thank you? “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Likewise. It’s been too long,” she said, giving my hand a pat.

“I was just going to say hello to my dad,” I said as I started to head around her desk.

“Oh, I’m sorry hon,” Carla said, sitting back down and glaring at the piles of paper. “He’s gone already, I’m afraid.”

I paused, blinking at her for a moment. “Gone?” I took a step around the corner and there, sure enough, was my dad’s office. But it was dark and quiet, the desk clean—no piles of paper, no soda cans, no Turandot. But maybe he was working at home, back in his apartment—

“Yeah, he took off around seven. Said he was going to have dinner with Joy.”

I staggered back a step. It felt like someone had just slapped me. “He did?” I finally managed.

“He’ll be sorry to have missed you.” Carla was back to sorting the papers, not looking up at me. “So are you in the city with friends? Seeing a show or something?”