New York City, November 23, 2015

★★★ The stiffness of the playbills in the breast pocket of the heavy wool coat meant that it hadn’t been needed since the day they went in there. According to the ticket stub in with the playbills, that day had been March 22. There had been clean daylight from the very beginning, to help rouse the children. A skinny little dog, wearing a dog coat, sniffed at the sidewalk outside where the pet-gear store used to be. The Q train was stifling, but the cold made up for that within two blocks. A few clouds appeared on the blue, overhead and reflected in the windows across the street from the office. The afternoon sun up the avenue was blinding but not appreciably warm, and in the time it took for the food truck to cook up pad Thai, the shadow of the buildings crept into the edge of sidewalk where people were waiting. Sun got so far into the narrow parking lot it could only be seen as an incandescence from the depths. The climate control in the office was totally haywire and helpless; people wore knit hats indoors. The back muscles, already tensed, felt the sharper cold of rush hour and started to hurt.