While I wait, I draw the sidewalk and the grass. I add shadows and some patches of sunlight and am starting to draw the boy I saw out the window of my math class—the one who stood in the same spot where the magenta-haired man was arrested—when I hear Rose call my name.

“Sorry, Meri. I got held up. What are you working on?” Rose leans forward and I pull the screen up against my chest.

“Nothing all that great.”

I don’t think Rose saw the arrest this morning, and for some reason I don’t want to mention it. So I change the subject to something else. “I’m starting to think there’s no point in trying to complete my mother’s painting. It’s too late. No matter how much sleep I lose or how much I try, I know that I’m never going to understand what she was trying to create.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard to do it on your own,” Rose says, climbing up to sit next to me.

“Dad doesn’t know what she was working on, either.” He knows what I know—that in the last six months before she died, almost every night after dinner, she spent hours in her studio or taking walks alone. She told us that she had been inspired by some project she was involved in. Only none of the drawings or photographs we found on her tablet or the projects the other designers talked about her working on resembled anything like the completed abstracts or half-finished painting. “He told me there was no point in trying to figure it out.”

Better to keep your focus on what is in front of you instead of trying to see things that aren’t there, was his advice.

Rose shakes her head at her brother, who steps toward us. He makes a face at Rose before he turns away. “Sometimes,” she says, “the best way to get to know someone is to walk a mile in their shoes. If you were part of the City Art Program . . .”

“We talked about that this morning,” I say. “The deadline for portfolio submissions passed. I didn’t send anything in. It’s over. I’ve moved on.”

“I know, but I didn’t. Don’t be mad,” she says.

I blink. “I don’t understand. Why would I be mad?”

“Because I submitted something for you.”

Before I can decide if I’m mad or not, she rushes to say, “My father explained the situation to someone he knows in the City Pride Department, and they said they would take a look at your work. So my mom helped me put together a few things that you sent me when you were starting on your portfolio, and I sent them in. They haven’t made their final decision yet, and they are interested in seeing more.”

My heart jumps, then crashes back to earth. “You talked to your dad—about me?”

“Hey, I do what I have to when it’s important,” Rose says. “And this isn’t just about your mom’s painting, it’s about your entire future. That’s important, Meri.”