I looked up and found a woman standing before me. “Oh,” I said, “You must be the mother . . .”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. She just climbed up . . .”

“She’s very particular.”

“Apparently not,” I said.

“Nonsense. I should thank you. She needed a nap.”

That was when I realized the little girl had fallen asleep.

I introduced myself.

“I know who you are,” she said, smiling.

Really?

Upstairs the kids were bashing a piñata. The party was almost over.

“Well,” I said, lifting up the daughter to her mother, “we didn’t get to finish the book.”

“Next time,” the mother said.

“Yes,” I said, even though I remember thinking, Who said anything about there being a next time?

KATE

DURING THOSE FIRST WEEKS, IT BECAME CLEAR: FOR THE SAKE OF MY BOYS, I would have to learn how to leave work at work. So each day at five P.M. sharp, no matter what Bruno and I were discussing or whatever obscure foundation I was researching, I would stop cold, put my desk in order, leave promptly, and head toward the subway.

But my arriving home at a consistent time didn’t guarantee a smooth transition. The boys had acute radar for when I was physically present but mentally elsewhere. It wasn’t easy to quiet my mind after a day of drinking in so much information. The innumerable charities worthy of support had begun to overwhelm me.

So here was what I learned to do. Each evening, on the packed-like-a-sardine-can Number 2 or 3 train going downtown, instead of continuing the conversation with myself, I’d pick my people. To the man in the gray hooded sweatshirt flaunting his new Air Jordans, I imagined telling him about two competing charities—One World Running and Sole 4 Soles—both dedicated to providing new and gently used shoes to the needy everywhere. To the young angry girl with multiple piercings, I mentioned that what makes me mad are the hundred thousand new chemicals that have been unleashed in our environment in the last five years. And what we are we going to do about it? To the pasty white businesswoman who boarded at Chambers Street clutching a bottle of Evian, I stunned her with this unacceptable fact: Almost one-third of the world’s people don’t get enough iodine from food and water. This can result in mental slowness and the needless loss of more than a billion IQ points around the world. And to everyone on the train, I shouted about how with the Micronutrient Initiative, we can iodize salt for only two to three cents per person per year! By imagining these conversations, I could quiet my racing, overexcited mind and for a brief moment feel that these needy causes weren’t just mine to champion. They were ours. Then, bing-bong, the subway doors opened, I stepped out with some others, climbed the eighteen steps, turned right, and walked toward one of three elevators that lifted me up to the street level of the Clark Street station, pushed through the turnstile, emerging outside with the sweet sense that my brain had been drained. The twelve-minute walk home through the Heights was used to clear out any leftover bits that might still be bouncing about. I made it all about breathing and walking at a moderate speed, gently directing all thoughts toward the approaching moment of the key in the door, deadbolt turning, the breadwinner’s victorious return home.