We sat. He didn’t ask for my forgiveness. I didn’t have the heart to bring up the Center. I knew by then that no amount of shared experience would allow me access to my father. No amount of listening, no amount of trying, no amount of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, no amount of knowing. Facts do not work. Loving what someone else loves does not work. Closeness cannot be manufactured. It knits itself from unseen fibers, and we can crochet the ends with approximations of our favorite flowers, but we can’t choose the color, or the kind of wool. It knits itself, or it doesn’t. In the end, I didn’t have to choose between my parents, because I couldn’t have either of them, not really. I could only be this cobbled-together thing, this Garuda girl, this monster. I could only be my mother’s daughter and my father’s daughter both. I could let Serena levitate. I could let her jump. I could let her live. I could let her die. It didn’t matter what I chose. It wasn’t that I believed in everything, or that I believed in nothing. It was that I had realized the limits. I think my father was a good person. I think he was trying. I don’t think it matters. When I left, I forgot to give him my telephone number. He didn’t ask for it, I mean. I shook Clarissa’s hand. She had long fingernails, but I don’t mean to imply she was trashy. I hugged my father a second time. He kissed his hand. He held it out to me. It stayed there, hovering in the air between us, its meaning still uncertain, as I climbed into my car and drove away.