The day, which had begun overcast, cold, and threatening, had suddenly brightened and warmed, so that when my two-and-a-half-year-old wanted to go to the park I agreed. Our first stop, as always, was at the swings. Having abruptly abandoned her fear of them, Louisa now requires long and vigorous pushings.
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We had the park nearly to ourselves. The big kids were in school, and most of the other little kids must have been napping. But there was a family–a man, woman, and baby–sitting on a bench a few yards away. The little girl played at their feet as the adults talked, their voices audible only as murmurs. The woman was around 30, stylishly dressed and conventionally pretty, with curly, shoulder-length dark hair and big gold hoop earrings. The man’s short, curly hair was beginning to gray at the sides. He wore light slacks and a navy Shaker sweater with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows–he looked like a lawyer on his day off.
The woman stood in front of the man on the curving asphalt path and prodded him in the chest with the red nail of her index finger. He glowered back, arms akimbo, the veins in his neck visible 15 feet away as they swelled.
The little girl was carefully dressed in navy tights and tiny sneakers, a navy skirt and a hooded white sweater with a blue-and-gold University of Missouri M on it.
“That’s a sweet baby,” I told him. “Mmmmm,” he replied through a tight little smile.
