A day or so after my safety lecture, Sarah and I had gone over to Mindy’s Market to pick up a few items. Despite my rant, I was trying to be less fanatical in my approach to family safety, and part of that included being more relaxed generally about things. So when Sarah arrived home and said she wanted to go and pick up some groceries, I offered to come along. I’d been in my office, making pencil notations on some pages I’d just printed out, and met her at the front door after she changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater. We each grabbed light jackets because, even though we were well into spring, there was a cool wind blowing in from the north.

There was lots to talk about. At least lots for Sarah to talk about. It had been a busy day at The Metropolitan.

“So I tell Leanne, you know Leanne?”

I said yes.

“I want her to go down to the waterfront, where there’s a press conference being called by Alderman Winsted, about all this garbage that’s piling up by the yacht club, but it’s raining out, and she says she can’t go because the ground’s going to be soft and mushy, and she’s wearing this new Donna Karan thing, and these nice shoes, because she thought she was going up to cover the Wang trial—”

“The which?”

“Wang. The guy who cut up his girlfriend and dropped her body parts all over five counties.”

“Okay.”

I was struggling to release a cart, which was jammed into the next one.

“Except the Wang thing has been put off a day, and Walters called in sick—”

“Again?”

“I know, this is like the fourth time in two months, and it’s always his first day back after a couple off, and he always calls from Ottawa, where he’s boffing this chick from the Citizen, and the way I figure it, he just wants a long weekend, right? And then the M.E. wants to know why some fucking moron copy editor rewrote Owen’s story about the guy who was charged with possessing all this kiddie porn, and his defense is artistic freedom, and I say, maybe it’s because Owen wouldn’t know an interesting opening sentence if it came along and bit him on his nose, and he says that may be true, but maybe next time, the copy editor could rewrite it in such a way that she doesn’t switch the names of the accused and the defense lawyer. Anyway, what happened with you today?”

“Nothing.” I had the cart free now and we were trolling past a display of fresh fruit.

“Did you hear from the kids today?” Sarah asked.