New York City, November 29, 2016

★ The rain was steady but light enough at first for the five-year-old to re-furl his umbrella, keep his hood down, and veer around and past the plodding umbrella-burdened other children. The classes were still lining up in the yard, the bad-weather plans uninvoked. It was wet but not raw. At noon the rain was coming heavily, sending the gutter flow sprawling into the roadway. The lights mirrored in the sidewalk under the deep gray gave more than a passing sense that it was already night. Outside the library windows in the later afternoon passing taxis threw up arcs of spray. It rained harder still on the short walk to the cafe, and from there the rain outside came in thinner and thicker spells while pedestrians went by in the slowly deepening gloom, till a waiter put wavering candles out on the counter and tables.