Lucy closed her eyes and then slowly opened them again. As she did, the noises of the gallery found their way into her ears, and her eyes widened to the people, lights and artwork around her. She smiled one last time at her grandfather who was still grinning proudly at her, and then she began to focus on the things next to her. She had been talking to a man who stopped to admire her photographs. She couldn’t remember if he had said his name. He was staring at her, and she wondered if he had said something she had failed to hear.
Across the room she heard her name, and she turned to see Lily standing there next to Patty. They both looked like they had seen a ghost, an expression of disbelief spreading across their faces. Lucy saw something else in their faces, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Worry, maybe. Concern, possibly. Uneasiness, definitely. Lucy waited for Lily to walk toward her to say what it was she wanted, but Lily didn’t move from Patty’s side.
The man was still standing next to her and Lucy finally looked up at him. She couldn’t get over how tall he was. She felt herself try to straighten up to match his height, but it seemed to her he was still a head taller, and she thought he looked familiar. She tried to recall, but there had been too many people in her life to find this particular one in her mind. She thought he had asked her something about her photographs hanging on the gallery wall. Lucy still found it unbelievable she had been chosen to show her work at this gallery in Fairbanks. It was the gallery’s annual event that showcased new artists in Alaska, and she was the youngest participant, at age fourteen, in the history of the event.
“I’m sorry?” she said raising her voice at the end so it sounded more like a question than a statement.
He was still staring at her, and she was beginning to feel uncomfortable.
“I knew a Wright,” he said. “Some years back at the University.”
It took Lucy a minute to understand what he had said, but finally it came to her that this man was asking about someone with her last name. She tried to figure out how old this man was because he didn’t look like her mother’s age and he wasn’t quite as old as her grandfather. In her mind, no matter how hard she tried to find the right pieces of the puzzle, she couldn’t assemble the thought in her head.
“Did you know my mother or my grandfather?” she asked.
“I knew a Marilyn Wright,” he said. “Who’s your mother?”
“Marilyn Wright,” she said.
“Marilyn is your mother?” he asked.
“She was,” Lucy said dropping her eyes. “She died.”
There was a silence that hung between them. Lucy raised her eyes and glanced over at Lily and Patty, but they were still standing there watching her. She looked for her grandfather, but he had moved on and was talking to another artist across the room.
“I’m sorry,” he said, finally bringing Lucy back from her visual trip around the room. After a pause he said, “I didn’t know she had a daughter. How old are you, eighteen?”
“Fourteen,” she said quietly.
Lucy was still trying to remember what this man had said to her. She thought she remembered him saying he was an artist. Maybe he had said he was once a featured artist at this gallery. She tried to bring up the images of their conversation, but they only came to her like the crumbs of a cookie. She watched him. He looked like he was doing some complicated math in his head or trying to diagram a sentence -- adjective, noun, verb.
“You said you knew my mother?” she asked. “At the University?”
He must have still been working on his calculation because he said, “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“How did you know my mom?”
He began telling her his story, but it was in fragmented sentences, short bits and pieces. “Fifteen years ago. I knew her at the University. But she left school, and I didn’t know where she went or how to reach her. I went back home to Anchorage.”
Lucy looked back over at Lily and watched Lily’s lips move like she was trying to tell Lucy something. But Lucy wasn’t very good at reading lips. She thought Lily should just come over and tell her whatever it was that was on her mind. Lucy motioned to Lily, a gesture that said, get your butt over here and explain to me why you’re acting weirder than usual. And Patty just stood there staring at her as if she was an unusual animal in a zoo.
Finally, Lily broke free from her invisible link to Patty and walked toward Lucy. The man was just standing there now with a look even Lucy with her keen sense of seeing things couldn’t decipher. While Lily made her way to her, the information in Lucy’s head started to form connections. The puzzle pieces began sliding into place, one after the other, until a picture formed, and Lucy could finally tell what she was looking at. She remembered the man in the photograph sitting on the bench on the grounds at the University, the photograph she and Lily had found among her mom’s possessions, the photograph that had no indication of its meaning identified on the back.
Lucy’s eyes widened and she gasped just as Lily reached her side.
Lily held out her hand to the man. “I’m Lily and you are?”
The man looked down at her. “Jack, Jack Davis.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jack Davis,” Lily said. “We’ve been looking for you.”