For the last thirteen years, my dad’s always been there in my head, just beneath the surface. Onstage, when I was younger and got nervous during shows sometimes, I would think about my dad and feel instantly soothed. When I started playing piano, I would think about the days I spent sitting next to him on the piano bench in our old living room, watching him play. My memories of him were all fragments, short movie clips of our time together, but they were always on my mind, replaying in an endless loop.

I could have picked his face out of a crowd of a thousand, or even a million. I would have known him anywhere. I would have recognized him with glasses or with dyed hair. I would have recognized him if he’d put on a hundred pounds or grown a beard or had a nose job like Mom. I would have known him anywhere, because I had never stopped looking at his picture in my mind.

But today, he had looked right through me. He hadn’t known me at all.

Apparently, I had been replaced by a guitar-playing six-year-old who could strum “Stairway to Heaven.”

“You okay?” A voice cuts into my thoughts as I glide on autopilot through the dining room, ready to run another order back to the kitchen.

It takes me a moment to focus on a concerned-looking Nick sitting in his regular booth, his textbook spread out before him and a half-full glass of soda next to him.

“Couldn’t be better,” I say in my best chipper voice.

“You’re doing a good job with the trays tonight,” he says.

I force a quick smile at him. “Thanks. And thanks for your help last night.” I turn for the kitchen.

“Wait,” he says. I stop and notice that he looks a little nervous. “Listen. Do you want to go to a party with me tonight? It’s just some friends of mine from school. I just want to stop by for a few hours.”

The last thing I want to do is be around a group of college students. I’m fully aware of how lucky I am to have gotten away with this incognito thing so far.

“I don’t know . . .,” I begin. But Nick looks so cute and hopeful . . . and something inside me shifts.

“Please?” Nick says. “I mean, I know you said you just moved here. It will be a good way to meet people. And I hate showing up at parties alone.”

I think about it for a moment and shrug. After all, what else am I going to do, sit home and sulk?

“Okay,” I say, against my better judgment. “I’ll go.”