New York City, July 14, 2013

★★ Enthusiasm boiled off fast in the sun. The toddler got tired of walking as soon as he’d gone out the door and across the avenue, calling a halt next to the fly-swarmed and puddling trash bags outside the bodega. The older boy said he could smell the subway, a harsh metal smell, half a block before the entrance. Shafts of the relentless light pushed past the moving leaves and through the sidewalk grate to land, flickering and dappled, on the cover of the third rail of the express tracks. Later, the toddler tried again, going the other way. His nap-restored energy carried him half or two-thirds of the way to West End before he pulled up again, blocking the sidewalk, and threw his arms up in surrender and request. He got lugged back home, past the outthrust shoots of shrubbery stimulated by the humid weeks. The bedroom was overpowered by the heat; down came the shade, to shut out the rest of the afternoon.