The woman turns to find her baby with a mouthful of dirt and a face drawn up into the beginnings of a good scream. The older girl hurries to her sister’s side and begins using a finger to scrape the gravel out. It’s clear that this isn’t the first time the two have played this game.

“We have a good life,” Mimi begins. “You write. I paint.”

“I’ve stopped writing. You still paint.”

“I do,” says Mimi. “Course, I paint the same thing over and over.”

“Nothing wrong with water.”

Mimi settles against me. “I’m not going to change the world.”

The woman hikes the baby on her hip and leads the girl and her brother onto the duck dock. She takes out sandwiches and bottles from the stroller, along with a blanket. I feel my stomach rumble.

“My paintings aren’t going to prevent wars. They’re not going to stop climate change. They’re not going to end poverty or restrain greed.”

Eugene wanders back in our direction. I don’t want him anywhere near this discussion, but here he comes.

“Does that mean we’re failures? The both of us?”

I watch the woman on the dock with her three children. I wonder if there’s a father in the picture or if he has already run off. Or been killed. Maybe this is Mimi’s mother, when she was a young woman.

Or mine.

“Is that it?” says Mimi. “Is that what happened?”

Eugene sits down on the end of the bench and makes himself at home.

“Is there anything you still believe in?” says Mimi.

Go ahead, says Eugene. Tell her the truth.

I turn my back to Eugene. “You mean like militaristic religions, unprincipled governments, rapacious economies?”

Eugene leans on my shoulder. Tell her about justice, he whispers.

“What about me?” says Mimi. “Do you still have faith in me?”

The sandwiches the woman has brought have had the crusts removed. There are sliced bananas and apples in a plastic container. She and her daughter make a game out of putting pieces of grape in the baby’s mouth.

“Or yourself,” says Mimi. “Have you lost faith in yourself?”

Eugene stands up and starts walking away. I don’t know where he’s going, and I don’t care.

Mimi and I sit on the bench and watch the picnic on the duck dock. The woman has the baby tucked in against her breast, while the older girl runs from one duck head to the other, her brother hard on her heels.

“Remember when Nathan wouldn’t go to sleep unless he was lying next to me?”

“And every time you moved, he’d wake up.”

“And how he’d only nurse for a couple of minutes at a time?”

“And then we’d have to sing him back to sleep.”

“‘Ten Little Ducks.’”

“I should hate that song,” says Mimi, “but I don’t.”

“Please don’t start.”