An awkward figure floats kind of in a carmine roughed rectangle, titanium white and cerulean baseball game inexplicably interrupted by a misshaped faun, each canvas was more fascinating the next. Dan took in each twist limb, every garish color. The bright minimalist hallway of the Museum of Unfortunate Art had lulled his mind left Dan open to the assault of colors. Dan felt lightheaded.

Hazel tugged at his hand.

“Hurry Daddy!”

Dazed, Dan let himself be pulled through the sports related art to a gallery of plump nudes, angular nudes, sinewy mounds of painted flesh. Blushing Dan hurried behind a determined Hazel. Her Mary Jane steps were fast and determined.

“Grannie’s up ahead,” Hazel squealed.

In her favorite dress Susan waited by the velvet rope. The older woman’s eyes danced.

On the walls a sign read: Daniel Kavan, Sr. A Retrospective in Horror. Inside the gallery Dan saw the hours and hours his dad had spent in his studio painting hideous happy children. Hours Dan remembered and hours Dan remembered and resented.

The big black eyed children smiled.

“Daddy, they’re horrible,” Hazel said laughing and clapping. A prim docent unlocked the ropes and gestured invitingly. Dan, his daughter, and his mother linked hands and walked into the gallery.