I am sitting on a park bench, a spiral notebook in my lap. The lake has grown still, with jewel-bright patches of algae on its surface and the dissipating wakes of the water birds. The tire swing is empty, dripping with dew. Everyone is walking in unmatched pairs: an old Asian lady with a towheaded child of three; teenage boy, dark as mahogany, and a middle-aged white man in a button-down shirt; an overgrown boy in plastic glasses, bent sideways to look into his father’s face as they walk together down the path. The father is limping, the son padding eagerly underfoot. Pooooor Daddy! the son says, and the older man’s expression is equal parts love and masculine chagrin. He switches the aluminum cane to his other hand–a one-post fence in the space between them.
Who did you see today?
