The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

take her; if they had gone left they would have been pulverized. So now she thinks it’s destiny.’
    Ben was lighthearted in his delivery, but he was furious with his sister, who was becoming, he felt, dangerously, arrogantly brave. Herb and Pippa just sat there, taking in the story. Pippa felt sweat coming up on her brow, a wave of nausea.
    Grace looked at Ben, her face set. ‘Can’t you ever just not say something?’
    â€˜Well, it seemed kind of important,’ said Ben.
    â€˜Just use your common sense,’ said Herb quietly. ‘That’s all I ask.’ Then, turning to Ben: ‘So when are you going to let me read this famous paper?’ Ben began to talk about his course work. Grace listened to their conversation in a distanced way, her chin resting on her fist, and Pippa observed her daughter. In spite of the camaraderie Grace seemed to have with her colleagues in the field, Pippa sensed a growing remoteness in her that she found alarming. It seemed to be harder and harder for Grace to return from her photographic odysseys. She was entering other, mirror worlds so violent and intense that the West must seem cold, trivial, and meaningless in comparison. Grace was sealed inside her own experiences, unable to relay what she had seen and felt; the photographs bore mute witness to stories Pippa would have loved to hear every detail of, but she didn’t dare ask for fear of the silent rebuff she knew she’d get from her daughter in return for meddling. And to think – such a short time ago, Grace had been a little girl! Within this severe young woman, Pippa could discern, flashing in and out like an image in a hologram, Grace’s former, child selves. It was so lonely, knowing things about her children that they no longer remembered. Layers of experience eroded from their minds but petrified in her own. As often happened when she saw Grace, Pippa remembered a day which, she had come to believe, had changed her daughter’s life.
    The twins were eight. She had decided to take them to the Dairy Queen on Sixth Avenue, after their piano lessons. It was the first spring day after a frigid winter, and the warm air felt liquid against Pippa’s skin. People on the street moved languorously, as if drugged with relief. Pippa looked down at the twins, their messy, light blond hair shining in the sun, and swelled with gratitude for her good fortune. When they drifted into the ice cream store, a lady of about sixty in a blue skirt and loafers, white sockspulled up past her ankles, gray hair held back in a ponytail, stood at the counter beside a dark-haired girl of about the twins’ age. The lady was saying, in broken English, ‘How much is a milk-shake?’ The bored man behind the counter told her. The little girl beside the woman had a tight, embarrassed smile on her face as the older woman counted out her change. When the lady saw that Pippa and the twins were waiting, she moved aside to let them order, scraping her coins a few inches to the left with her cupped palm. Pippa asked for two vanilla cones and gave the man a twenty. As he made change, Pippa noticed Grace gaping at the lady as she sifted through her little pile of coins, squinting up at the board with the prices on it anxiously, the little girl by her side stiff with shame. Pippa poked Grace, but she wouldn’t look away.
    â€˜And how much is a soda?’ asked the lady, smiling. Her dark eyes were shining with kindness and a hint of apology for the fuss she was making. The man gave her a price, and she went back to counting her change. Pippa could feel tears coming to her eyes. This poor woman had taken her granddaughter out for a treat, and now she couldn’t afford it. The clerk gave Pippa her change, and she crammed the bills into her wallet furtively, wondering if it would humiliate the lady if she offered to pay for the little girl’s dessert. She decided against it; it would be