Natalie and I sat down at the farmhouse table. In lieu of flowers, a wrought-iron menorah served as the centerpiece. Itzhak crawled between her feet. I’d noticed that the dog liked being close to her. Natalie’s homework included several pages of word problems with fractions and decimals, but not beyond my ability, and not beyond Natalie’s, either. She probably wanted attention more than she wanted or needed help. She wanted someone to care about her homework, to care about her.

Amelia slipped upstairs and returned half an hour later in a cream-colored pantsuit and kitten heels. Hovering over Natalie, she stroked her hair. “All of our dinners are client dinners.” I detected self-righteousness in her tone. “We never leave Natalie for a social event.”

Perhaps Amelia thought I was judging her, and wanted to convince me she was a devoted mother.

“Of course,” I said.

Amelia kissed Natalie on her forehead. “Delta, feel free to watch TV or borrow a book after Natalie’s in bed.” Amelia headed to the door. “We’ll be home by midnight.”

When Natalie and I finished her math, we turned to a diorama she was working on for a school contest—a three-dimensional model of an ideal public park. I attended an unexceptional public school, not a fancy private school like Natalie. I don’t remember ever having had an assignment like hers—empowering and harnessing my ingenuity. She took it for granted.

Natalie wanted to start with a carousel. “I used to go to the one in Prospect Park with my dad,” she said, “and also the one near the bridge, with glass around it.”

I know a lot about carousels. More than the average person. I’d probably spent hundreds of hours on the bench in front of Cinderella’s Golden Carousel. I can still picture each horse in detail. I can still hear the music.

Natalie and I cut out each component of the carousel and each individual horse, then mounted them on cardboard. We cut out and mounted the children also. Each cardboard child had distinct features and unique clothing. Natalie must have thought about the personalities and the inner lives of each child as she was drawing him or her, and the result was a group of diverse children. I found such a holistic approach extremely unusual for a child. Many adults who considered themselves artists didn’t think that way.

“You remember in Mary Poppins,” she said, “when the children jump into the sidewalk chalk drawing of an English countryside. They land inside the drawing, and the whole world comes to life. And then they ride the carousel, and the horses jump off and just keep running, away from the merry-go-round, through the fields, anywhere they want to go?”

I nodded, not sure if I’d ever seen Mary Poppins at all.