Lucy’s father didn’t reply. Methodically he finished his pizza, took his empty plate to the sink, and went in search of the phone.
* * *
“My teacher said to give this to you,” Lucy said, extending a piece of paper to her mother.
“Not now, Lucy. I’m cooking.” Cherise Marinn chopped celery on the cutting board, the knife neatly dividing stalks into little U shapes. As Lucy waited patiently, her mother glanced at her and sighed. “Tell me what it is, sweetheart.”
“Instructions for the second-grade science fair. We have three weeks to do it.”
Reaching the end of the celery stalk, Lucy’s mother set the knife down and reached for the paper. Her fine brows knit together as she read it. “This looks like a time-consuming project. Are all the students required to participate?”
Lucy nodded.
Her mother shook her head. “I wish these teachers knew how much time they’re asking parents to spend on these activities.”
“You don’t have to do anything, Mommy. I’m supposed to do the work.”
“Someone’s going to have to take you to the crafts store to get the trifold board and the other supplies. Not to mention supervising your experiments and helping you practice for the oral presentation.”
Lucy’s father entered the kitchen, looking weary, as usual, after a long day. Phillip Marinn was so busy teaching astronomy at the University of Washington and working as a NASA consultant on the side, that he often seemed to be visiting their home rather than actually living in it. On the evenings when he made it back in time for dinner, he ended up talking with colleagues on the phone while his wife and two daughters ate without him. The names of the girls’ friends and teachers and soccer coaches, the minutiae of their schedules, were foreign to him. Which was why Lucy was so surprised by her mother’s next words.
“Lucy needs you to help with her science project. I just volunteered to be a room mother for Alice’s kindergarten class. I have too much to do.” She handed him the piece of paper, and went to scrape the chopped celery into a pot of soup on the stove.
“Good God.” He scanned the information with a distracted frown. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You’ll have to make time,” her mother said.
“What if I ask one of my students to help her?” he suggested. “I could set it up as an extra-credit activity.”
A frown pleated her mother’s face, her soft mouth tightening at the corners. “Phillip. The idea of pawning off your child on a college student—”
“It was a joke,” he said hastily, although Lucy wasn’t entirely sure of that.
“Then you’ll agree to do this with Lucy?”
“I don’t appear to have a choice.”
“It’ll be a bonding experience for you two.”
He gave Lucy a resigned glance. “Do we need a bonding experience?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Very well. Have you decided what kind of experiment you want to do?”
“It’s going to be a report,” Lucy said. “About glass.”
“What about doing a space-themed project? We could make a model of the solar system, or describe how stars are formed—”
“No, Daddy. It has to be about glass.”
“Why?”
“It just does.” Lucy had become fascinated by glass. Every morning at breakfast she marveled at the light-gifted material that formed her juice cup. How perfectly it contained bright fluids, how easily it transmitted heat, coldness, vibration.
Her father took her to the library and checked out grown-up books about glass and glasswork, because he said the children’s books on the subject weren’t detailed enough. Lucy learned that when a substance was made of molecules that were organized like bricks stacked together, you couldn’t see through it. But when a substance was made out of random disorganized molecules, like water or boiled sugar or glass, light found its way through the spaces between them.
“Tell me, Lucy,” her father asked as they glued a diagram to the trifold board, “is glass a liquid or a solid?”
“It’s a liquid that behaves like a solid.”
“You’re a very smart girl. Do you think you’ll be a scientist like me when you grow up?”
She shook her head.
“What do you want to be?”
“A glass artist.” Lately Lucy had started to dream about making things out of glass. In her sleep she watched light glimmer and refract through candy-colored windows … glass swirling and curving like exotic undersea creatures, birds, flowers.
Her father looked perturbed. “Very few people can actually earn a living as an artist. Only the famous ones make any money.”