Our daughter noticed first. The bee that came in a wavering, looping path through the front door and up the stairs, into the stifling room, and then at last, to the lilacs. She had pointed it out to me when it came into the gallery and kept her finger on it until it reached the painting, the lilacs. Then she laughed as the bee bumbled around the deep purple. The fat thing would back up to take another run at the uncooperative flowers, hit the canvas, and bounce back, then hum around again for a bit, before trying a different angle. This went on long enough so that our daughter managed to drag a few adults away to come and see. She dragged them from their wine and conversations, their hands mysteriously flapping and floating, arcing and diving. When Rob came to see, we both looked at each other and said Zeuxis! as if it were a secret password. Zeuxis, as every student of art history learns, was the revered realist painter of antiquity. Birds flew down to eat the grapes from his painted vine. My heart was caught high and folded up in my throat. The bee must be a good omen of some sort. It was a mysterious moment, touching and silly. Then the winged creature managed to fly straight out the door, leaving us to wonder if it had all been a vision. I wanted to drench the moment in meaning, but then, no, I just let it drop. I too took a perspiring glass of cold wine and sipped, let my hands move toward whatever I was speaking about, joining in creating the invisible knot work of gestures that afternoon. It was a lovely day, this day of the bee who fell in love with my husband's lilacs, which is what Chloe said to draw the small crowd toward herlook, the bee is in love with my dad's painting. All but a couple of the paintings had sold. Which, in fact, meant everything. A return to the calm that comes when bills are paid and doubt has been sent its creeping way once again, as it always is, and always needs to be. A return to the table that sits in the middle of our small family and fills with odd objects: bowls of