I held my breath at the sight.
It was me. At fourteen. Looking straight ahead, leaning forward over a picnic table, chin resting on my hands. The whole portrait seemed to be lit from within. The dappled sunlight. The shine of the eyes. The glow of the skin. I had been so awkward at fourteen—and my mom didn’t shy away from that, or paint my braces away or try to make me something different. She just painted me exactly as I was. But glowing. As I really looked—but bathed in sunlight and warmth and a lovable mischievousness.
So lovable, this kid on the canvas.
It was like getting a glimpse of the past through her eyes.
Was this how she’d seen me? I wondered. Just like the real me—but better?
I looked at my fourteen-year-old face, so clear-eyed and bright. I remembered sitting for that portrait—how I didn’t want to stay still. How we’d gone morning after morning to the park near our house. And this was the result: she’d somehow captured all the sunlight, all the spring breezes, all my exuberance and naughtiness, and all her warm and tolerant love for me right here on this one canvas.
Looking at it, I lost all track of time. There was so much life in that portrait—so much of my mom in it—that it felt for just a minute like she must be here with me. And I heard myself talk to her, as I was lost in the sight: “You shouldn’t have waited. You shouldn’t have put things off. What were you thinking? I didn’t need a vacation. I just needed you. And I so, so, so wish I could see you again.”
There were tears all over my face long before I came to.
And just as I noticed the tears, I noticed something else.
The third crazy thing.
I’d just spent some undetermined amount of time staring at a portrait of my face.
And I could see that face.
I could see it all. The mouth, the braces, the irises of the eyes. All the pieces were there and in the right order—all snapped together, exactly where they should be.
And then, before I could talk myself out of it, I snuck to the bathroom mirror to take a peek … but I closed my eyes at the last moment and then found myself standing in front of the mirror, afraid to open them.
Dr. Nicole had warned me that when—if—the faces came back, I wouldn’t necessarily get them all back—or not all at once. On the spectrum of prosopagnosia, more familiar faces were easier to see. The theory was that the more visual impressions the brain had of a face, the more likely it was to be able to put the pieces together.
“It’s okay,” I told myself.
No future was ever certain. None of us ever knew what might happen next. I didn’t need to know how many other faces I could see—or calculate where, exactly, my fusiform face gyrus would settle on the spectrum of face-blind to super-recognizer.
It was going to be what it was.
I’d just take it one grateful step at a time.
I covered my face with my hands and then opened my eyes to peek through my fingers. Slowly I pulled my hands away.
And there I was.
My face. Straight ahead in the mirror. Not as separate pieces, but as a whole. Not as unconnected eyes and lips and nostrils, but as me. “Hello, stranger,” I said out loud.
And there I was. Me. Peering curiously at the mirror.
All put back together as if I’d never been apart.
Thirty
THE ELOPEMENT PARTY was quite a shift from the last—and only other—party I’d attended on this roof.
In the space of a single day, Mrs. Kim oversaw a total rooftop transformation. She’d brought in a band, set up a dance floor, hung a thousand bulb lights, and placed elegant dinner tables along the west side of the roof, overlooking the bayou, so we could eat dinner while watching the sunset.
When I say elegant dinner tables, I mean linen tablecloths, crystal stemware, hotel silver, candles in faded brass hurricanes, copious arrangements of magnolia flowers and eucalyptus …
Think of the most gorgeous outdoor table spread you’ve ever seen in a decor magazine—and then triple it.
Mrs. Kim had style. And Sue was her only daughter.
She took my hovel’s rooftop and turned it into the most elegant place on earth.
So … quite different from the last party I’d been to up here. Where people were doing the worm.
Also different: I knew it was happening in advance.
I did not arrive wearing someone else’s coffee-spilled clothes.
In fact, Sue had even lent me one of my favorite dresses of hers to wear. A pale blue bias cut maxi dress with layers of ruffles at the hem. Blue because that was Sue’s favorite color. Ruffles because they looked like they were just longing for a reason to go up to a rooftop and give themselves to the wind.
Miracle of miracles: It fit. Like, something about the way it hugged me around the ribs and then cupped under my butt just made me feel slinky. In the very best way.
No Pajanket tonight.
It was all for Sue, of course—to celebrate the beginning of her married life with Witt. But I decided I could also quietly celebrate a new beginning for myself as well.
I mean, it had been a hell of a spring.
I’d faced some tough truths about life and myself and my family. I’d failed miserably at the only career I’d ever wanted to succeed in. I’d fallen madly in love with two people and then lost them both. I’d lost everything, in a way.
But then found other things. In other ways.
The point is, I was ready.
Ready to face the party. And the rest of my life. And all the impossible faces.
Though I wasn’t sure exactly how many of them I’d be able to see.
* * *
AS THE GUESTS clanked their way up the spiral stairs and filled up the roof, I’d guess my facial-recognition rate was fifty percent. I can’t say for sure, but the pattern seemed to be related to familiarity—to, maybe, the number of impressions my brain had already stored.
If I knew the person joining us on the rooftop, the features snapped right into place—fast and easy, like normal. When I saw Sue and Mrs. Kim—looking positively ethereal in their traditional hanbok dresses—I saw their lovely faces right away. I could see Witt and Mr. Kim just fine in their suits as well—their faces just sensibly resting on their heads as if they’d never been gone.
If I didn’t know the person at all, though—Witt’s grandmother, for example—the faces stayed disjointed. If I knew the person a little bit—an acquaintance, say … the face might start out unreadable but then slide into place a little later, like it resisted for a minute and then finally gave in.
It was unbelievably trippy.
But it was also progress.
I confess, I’d been hoping to put on that dress, walk out on that roof, and see every face with total ease in a blaze of triumph—just exactly like old times.
But it wasn’t exactly like old times.
In some ways, it was better. Because seeing familiar faces again was a joy. And not seeing unfamiliar faces?
It was fine.
It was manageable.
The last time I’d been on this roof at a party, I was positively nauseated with fear.
But tonight? I was okay.