“See you tomorrow,” says Grandpa Julien, as his fake daughter drops us at the door for our usual weekend visit.

He waves as she skitters down the steps. The stinkers. I sling my backpack hard into Julien’s messy living room and stomp into the house. He looks the same as always with his rumpled velveteen jacket and a wild geranium in his snow-white hair. Mom and Julien pretend he’s our grandfather. He is really our father. Mom was really just a model for his paintings. They’re not related.

Yesterday I found out about the big lie. How doesn’t matter.

“Gampa!” Sprout jumps into his arms, reaches to jiggle the flower in his hair, and slides down his body to the ground.

Slinky, Julien’s ancient Siamese cat, rubs the side of her body against my bare leg, then disappears before Sprout can grab her tail. I give Julien my one eyebrow scrutinization. I want to do something different now that I know, but I’m not sure what.

Julien mimics me, one eyebrow raised. “Those sixth-grade exams coming up, kid?” he asks.

“Yep. Brought my books. If Sprout’ll leave me alone, at least.” He always calls me kid for some reason.

“Welp, after dinner Gampa and Sprout can work on our lego castle, and you can use my work room.” He rustles my hair with his rough painter’s hand. The strong but shaky hand of a grandfather. I don’t know what to do with everything seeming normal.

At dinner, Sprout’s perched on a stack of Julien’s thick art books. She’s funny and cute, sitting there with her two tiny ponytails poking straight up. She doesn’t know.

Sprout and Julien have a similar look; rumbly puffy faces, like they’re rolling marbles around inside their cheeks. I look more like Mom, with smooth high cheeks and soft brown eyes.

My plan is to call him Dad. Casually let it slip out. “Hey Dad, can I have more sauce on my noodles?” or “Pass the salt please, Dad.” I stare at him during dinner, trying to say it, but I can’t. 

“I got food in my mustache or something?” he says.

“Mustache. Mousetache.” Sprout giggles, and I smile carefully. 

After dinner I tramp into Julien’s workroom to study.

There is this one painting of Julien’s on his workroom wall. A seated figure wearing a large straw hat dominates the foreground. He faces a garden, paintbrush in one hand, palette in the other. In the garden are two children, one larger, one smaller. I have always imagined the seated figure is Julien watching over me and Sprout, like a god.

I crank open a paper clip I find on the desk and press an end between my thumb and index finger until the tips of my fingers turn white. I scratch an X into the thick paint right on top of where the painter’s heart would be. It feels good to do something, but it’s not anything, really. 

When I’m done studying, Julien washes the dishes, and I’m in charge of Sprout. She bounces against me on the creaky old sofa in the living room. 

“Stop jumping on the sofa and listen, Sprout. I’m going to tell you a story.”

“Bear and Elf?”

“No, not that one. A true one. Sit down, okay?”

“Okay.” Sprout plumps down and Slinky jumps up next to her. 

“Stop pulling on Slinky’s paw,” I say.

“Okay.”

“You know what a Daddy is?”

“Yeah. Like a mommy.”

“Yes, but a boy. A grown-up. A man.”

“I know it. Angie gots a Daddy.”

“So, we have a Daddy too.” I put my hand on top of her head between her little ponytails.

“No, we don’t have one. Just a Mommy.”

“Well, we do. We have a Grandpa and a Daddy and it’s all the same person. Grandpa Julien.”

“A Gampa-Daddy?”

“Yeah! A Grandpa-Daddy. Don’t let Slinky put her paw in your mouth.”

“Bleah. Icky paw.”

“From now on you call Grandpa, ‘Grandpa-Daddy’. Okay? Say it to practice.” 

“Gampa-Daddy. Gampa-Daddy.” Sprout chants as she jumps up and down on the sofa again.

“Here he comes. Don’t forget.”

“Piggy-back to bed Sprout?” Julien holds out his arms.

“Gampa-Daddy. You are a Gampa-Daddy,” says Sprout.

Julien darts his eyes at my face, and I can’t help a smirk, though I try to cover it with a cough. 

After Sprout is tucked in, we’re in our tv-watching places, me on the couch and Julien leaning back in his worn leather recliner. “Time for Planet Earth,” he says and clicks the remote.

The camera flies over our planet along with the soothing voice of David Attenborough.

We watch a pride of lions, the tumbling curious cubs, mothers sharing their care, a couple of male lions in the distance.

He touches the geranium in his hair. “Nature is beautiful. Life.” he says.

“Okay…,” I say, not understanding a thing, and then settle back into that old comfy sofa to watch and think.

– Joan Slatoff