New York City, October 25, 2016

★★★ A beam of sun, bright flame-orange, came in the bedroom window from the west. It was cold enough to get the younger boy’s vest out of the closet and to carry it to school beside him and back again unworn. For an adult it was time for wool, for the puffing out of cheeks. The temperature down in the morning subway lagged behind the need for a coat. The varieties of clouds on offer began settling into gray, and unexpectedly umbrellas came out on Fifth Avenue. Tourists were plastic-wrapped in their open-decked bus. By noon, though, there was no sign it had ever been raining. The dry breeze brought back memories, a quarter-century old now, of fine afternoons spent denying how uncomfortably cold it was in the stands at the college football stadium. The gloomy clouds would rally again, but would just as suddenly leave the afternoon clean and sun-swept. The shade was so deep that headlights came on even while the light still shone on a water tower up the avenue. By the evening rush hour, the air through the train doors at the Times Square platform chilled the calves right through the jeans.