Free My Life in Dioramas by Tara Altebrando

was talking about my dad.
    Was divorce still a possibility?
    â€œDon’t take this the wrong way, Liv,” Stella’s mom said. “But it sounds like you may be depressed.”
    â€œOf course I’m depressed.” My mom laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “I’m losing my house.”
    â€œI mean, clinically .” Stella’s mom lowered her voice but she was typically pretty loud so I could still hear her. “It might be good to talk to someone.”
    â€œHe said the same thing, but I’m talking to you .” My mother laughed stiffly. “Isn’t that enough?
    â€œI don’t know, Liv. I honestly don’t.”
    I flushed and walked out into the hall.

    When we got home, the stereo was blasting another one of Dad’s band’s songs. A ballad called “Super Powers” that always cracked me up because it’s about a guy who has powers like having fun when he’s alone and knowing how to get off the phone. Now it seemed a little sad to me, my dad having written a song about a lame superhero.
    The whole house seemed to shake as my dad sang, “Look at me. I’ve got super powers.”
    He had the windows open and we could see him, down by the patio near the tennis court, dancing slowly while he swept up debris that had fallen from the trees. Angus was lying near an Adirondack chair.
    Years ago, my parents had a party where they’d strung all these lanterns from the weeping willow. I was running around all weekend with my cousins, and friends were coming and going, and we were launching these glowing rocket things into the air at dark.
    I was about to ask my mother if she remembered that weekend, that party, but then she turned down the music. “I’m going to go lie down. Can you go tell Dad we’re home and to get dinner started?”
    â€œSure,” I said.
    She left the room and I watched out the window as my dad just kept on dancing for a few minutes, finishing the song exactly in time with the music playing softly in the house. Then he turned and saw me standing there. I waved and he waved for me to come down. So I did.
    When I got down to the yard, he was sitting in a patio chair, smoking a cigarette. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said.
    â€œThat you’re the world’s worst dancer?” I snorted. The cigarette made my dad look like an entirely different person. “Pretty sure she already knows.”
    â€œIt’s just one. I’m not going to start smoking or anything.”
    â€œOkay, Dad.” I knew he had smoked a bit when they were in the band, and I sometimes smelled cigarettes on nights when my parents were hanging out past my bedtime outside with friends, but I’d never actually seen him do it myself. It made him look younger somehow. But also shaky? Stressed?
    â€œHow was school?” he asked, exhaling, laying his head back on the chair and looking up at the weeping willow.
    â€œIt was school.” We just sat there quietly for a while. A thick white cloud drifted out from behind the willow like a slow-moving cruise ship, and I realized I’d just missed a great opportunity to grab some food for the rotting project.
    â€œDo you remember that party?” I said, after a while. “With the movie projected on the sheet? And all those lanterns in the tree?”
    â€œBarely,” he said, and he laughed. “I mean, of course I do. Why?”
    I shrugged. “Are things going to be like that again, do you think?”
    Pants and two kittens appeared across the yard by the pear tree. Angus lifted his head and put it down again.
    â€œDepends on what you mean by ‘like that’?”
    â€œI don’t know.” My throat tightened. “Happy?”
    â€œOf course they are, Kate.” He shook his head and looked up toward Big Red. “It’s just a house.”
    But he didn’t sound convinced.
    I sat back in my chair and