Dr. Dad by Judith Arnold

she was beautiful the way mothers always were. But she wasn’t beautiful like a TV star.
    â€œHer eyes were the same shape as yours, and just as dark,” he told Lindsey. “And your nose is exactly like hers.”
    â€œShe had a big nose, huh,” Lindsey muttered. If she was going to take after her mother, at least her mother could have had a little nose.
    â€œShe had a perfect nose. So do you,” her father said. He looked as though he wanted to put his arm around her, and she hoped he would. It would be nice. He hadn’t hugged her in a while, which was probably her fault. She would have liked a hug now.
    When he got this way, his voice kind of hushed and his eyes distant, Lindsey understood how much he missed her mother. She missed her mother, too, but not the same way. She missed her when all the other kids had their mothers in class, like during the Native American festival, when the class had been broken into groups of four and each group had to research an American tribe and make a presentation. Lindsey had been in the Lakota group. They’d drawn a couple ofposters about the Lakotas, and they constructed a teepee out of sticks and this fabric that looked like cowhide, and Abbie Croce dressed one of her dolls as a Lakota maiden. The mothers of Lindsey’s classmates would stop by their table at the fair, and she and Abbie and Robbie Crofton and Christopher Chou, who were both jerks but their names started with a C like hers and Abbie’s so they’d gotten stuck working together, would explain how the Lakotas hunted and what their weapons were, and how they roamed the northern plains and what good horsemen they were. Every mother in the whole class, and quite a few fathers, too, came to the fair.
    Her father hadn’t been able to come. He couldn’t sneak out of work for even an hour during the day. But if her mother had come, Lindsey would have been so happy. It was hard being the only kid in class without a mom.
    Her father had to miss her mother even more than Lindsey did. If it was hard for her to be the only kid in class without a mom, it must be just as hard for him to be the only dad she knew without a wife. Except for the divorced ones, of course, but they still had their wives around, to talk to and argue with and stuff.
    He must be so lonely. All those years when she’d been talking to Cathy at night through their windows, who had he been talking to? His partners’ answering machines?
    Maybe he and Susannah Dawson could be friends, so he wouldn’t have to be as lonely. Not romantic friends—that would be so weird, a nobody Connecticut doctor going with a famous TV star—but just friends, so he could talk to someone real instead of voice mail.
    â€œDo you like Susannah?” she asked.
    He peered at her, curious. “She seems very nice,” he said.
    â€œDo you think Mommy would have liked her?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œMommy wasn’t glamorous, was she?”
    He shook his head. “Neither is Susannah. Look.” He gestured at the plate. “She baked brownies. That’s not glamorous.”
    â€œEspecially when they’re bad, like these. You’d think someone as famous as her could have done better. Unless maybe she’s used to having maids cook for her.”
    Her father shrugged. “It’s possible.”
    â€œCould we maybe invite her over again sometime?” Lindsey asked, noticing a crumb on her finger and licking it off. “I’d love to talk to her about Mercy Hospital. I wouldn’t press or anything, but, I mean, Lucien Roche was so cute….”
    â€œWho’s Lucien—what?”
    Lindsey checked the urge to give him a hard time for being so clueless. “Lucien Roche. The guy she fell in love with last season. That’s the name of the character, anyway—and her character had an affair with him.”
    â€œThey are just characters, you know,” her