Picture Us in the Light: Chapters 3–6

I wished they believed my sister was in heaven, somewhere they’d see her again and I’d meet her someday, instead of just dissipated into atoms circling back into the universe; I wished my dad had something to hope for and I wished my mom had less to fear.

They had (I would learn all this through social osmosis) rented out one of the private banquet rooms at Dynasty that people usually booked for weddings or red egg and ginger parties...

He was (I had to admit it) objectively good-looking, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones and a quick, easy smile that he knew how to aim for maximum effect...

He was forever laughing and joking around with people, always changing the tenor of every circle he walked into.

Whenever there’s some kind of prize of any kind up for contention, I don’t care who you are: you always imagine yourself winning it.

Harry Wong wanted literally everything for himself, including, apparently, the credit for being friendly and inclusive and magnanimous, which—screw that.

Harry Wong wanted literally everything for himself, including, apparently, the credit for being friendly and inclusive and magnanimous, which—screw that.

The dusty path leads up bare grassy hills until you get to Hunter’s Point and you can see the whole Bay Area sprawled out below, all gray-green and red-roofed, from so high up blurred in a way that always makes me think of an artist I like named Dashiell Manley, who makes these explosive, haunting oil-on-linen paintings, textured dabs of color that make your eyes feel thirsty and inadequate.

Then he walked away, taking the drawing with him: tangible proof he could fold up and keep of what a petty, vindictive person I was, something that would leave me always on the hook.

My heart was still thudding as Harry rounded the corner out of sight. I had to stop walking to let it slink back into its normal patter.

I stayed in a cabin with Maurice Wong and Aaron Ishido and Ahmed Kazemi, other denizens of the group of us who hung out in the middle of the pavilion at lunch—loud, visible, sending ripples into all the peripheral groups gathered around the outskirts.

I stayed in a cabin with Maurice Wong and Aaron Ishido and Ahmed Kazemi, other denizens of the group of us who hung out in the middle of the pavilion at lunch—loud, visible, sending ripples into all the peripheral groups gathered around the outskirts.

There were small patches of snow under the eaves and on the ground where even during the day it was mostly shadow, and it was bracingly quiet—no wind rustling trees, no cars.

There were small patches of snow under the eaves and on the ground where even during the day it was mostly shadow, and it was bracingly quiet—no wind rustling trees, no cars.

I spent the next few seconds of his silence regretting it, picturing a way to extricate myself from this conversation.

This was that same condescension, wasn’t it?

“It’ll get better,” he said. Harry is an unrepentant optimist, and so I might’ve been willing to write off what he was saying as a cheap platitude, except for the hand on my knee and also for what came next.

“It’ll get better,” he said. Harry is an unrepentant optimist, and so I might’ve been willing to write off what he was saying as a cheap platitude, except for the hand on my knee and also for what came next.

It was hot in there and everyone was sweaty and you could feel a thousand middle schoolers’ worth of hormones everywhere, and everyone had braces and all the girls were teetering around in their heels and the teachers were skulking around in the corners trying to make sure no one was grinding on each other or otherwise getting too gross.

My mom greets most news like it’s a monster at the threshold, and I don’t think her reaction on its own would be enough to unnerve me. It’s my dad’s expression that does it—that part twines itself around my lungs like weeds.

My lab group’s standing Monday morning tradition is a potluck breakfast during class (Mrs. Johar doesn’t care if we eat on non-lab days), and Noga’s setting out her four red Dixie cups for the bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and pint of milk she always brings.

All day, and then all week, it follows me around—my dad at home when I get back from school, avoiding me; my mom darting her eyes around the house like she’s expecting some other harbinger of bad news to emerge from the cabinets.

Every time his name was listed on a publication he’d leave it conspicuously around the house, hoping we’d read it.

Whenever there’s any tension between my parents and I worry I won’t be able to stanch it, I feel that hole blown through our lives more keenly.

Whenever there’s any tension between my parents and I worry I won’t be able to stanch it, I feel that hole blown through our lives more keenly.

I feel a surge of guilt for interrogating him, for breaching the fragile peace we’d brokered over dinner.

“I think it matters when people follow their dreams,” I say impulsively.

Harry’s got SAT worksheets he’s ostensibly going through, but he seems distracted, too.

The drama crowd is forever doing auditions or rehearsals or performances, always siphoned from the outside world into the black paint and velour of the theater.

“It just all seems so stupid and arbitrary. I’ve worked my ass off the past four years but who knows, maybe the admissions officer I get hates my essay or something. Bam. Done. Just like that.”

Without fanfare, we get onto a lower data plan and end the Netflix subscription with all the nature shows my dad loves.

All those files printed out and collected—they have to all point backward to some locus that my dad’s private obsession spans out from.

You don’t run into someone a few times on campus and then build a dossier on everything they’ve ever done.

“Daniel,” she said, peeling the lid off a packet of honey sauce for my chicken nuggets, “do you know something about goodbyes? It’s worse if they’re long. Otherwise you’ll be sad forever and you poison all you have with your sadness, too. It’s better not to wallow in them. It’s better for you to move on and forget.”

On Thursday at lunch, Mina Lee and Grace Leung arrive as emissaries from their corner of the academic court to talk to Regina.

“You should run for vice president,” he said earnestly.

Then she said, apropos of not very much, “You know, I really think you and Sandra could be pretty tight again if you got over your feuding,” and I got up and cleared our empty cups.

I wished we were outside so I could squint, hide my eyes under the guise of it being too bright.

But even at the time, I think, I knew that what was masquerading inside me as pure resentment was more complicated than that, something maybe closer to a form of guilt.

I told myself not to look at Sandra, but then I did, and I saw her eyes fill with tears, and I saw how long it took her to wrest her expression into something presentable in public.