He nodded again, then waited for me to settle. He watched me and kept watching me even when I expected his eyes to turn to the keys of the piano. He was studying me, and even though I wanted to flinch, I didn’t.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “I know what to play.”

He began to play a song that was slow and gentle, each note thoughtful and soft and in a quiet harmony with the others. It made me think of swans floating on a quiet lake. It was happy but sad.

It was over too soon, and the last note still seemed to be echoing in the air.

“Did you like it?” Barrett asked.

I did. More than I’d ever liked or appreciated any piece of music in my life. But I didn’t feel like answering. Being there with him made me feel strangely, awfully alone.

“It was lovely,” I said, standing up. “I have to get going. I need to—put away my clean laundry.”

“Wait—” he called as I hurried down the hall. “Margot, I’m sorry—”

I held myself together all the way upstairs, until I made it into the nursery and closed the door behind me. I knew he would never knock.

Then I sank onto my bed and let tears roll down my face.

There were no hysterics. There was no bitter wailing, no heartbroken agony.

It was just me, sitting there, already missing him.

I was so good at missing people. What was one more bit of sorrow?

“MARGOT? BARRETT?”

The sound of John’s voice in the upstairs hallway was so unusual that I ran to the door and opened it, breathless. Twenty feet away, Barrett did the same.

“Dad?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” John said, looking from Barrett to me. “Everything’s okay. You both look like you’ve seen a ghost. I just came up to say that Laura and Agatha are staying overnight in Chicago. So I was thinking pizza for dinner. Does that work?”

“Oh,” Barrett said, and I felt his eyes on me. “Sure. Great.”

“Do you like pizza, Margot?” John asked. “No eggplant.”

I was touched that he remembered. “Yeah, I love it.”

“Great. I’ll order in a few minutes, it’ll probably get here in an hour.” With an awkward smile, he thumped back down the stairs.

Barrett looked at me, and I looked at him.

“See you at dinner,” I said, and closed my door.

DINNER WAS FUN. Without Laura there barely veiling her disapproval of the informal ambience, John was lighthearted and a little goofy. He told many dad jokes worthy of my own father’s considerable dad-joke repertoire (Why do they call them French fries when they’re cooked in Greece?) and acted really interested in Barrett’s stories about life at school.