“Them’s my kids. Simon, Lester, and Caroline.” She nodded at the corner of the room where an Indian swing was set up between the window and the sooty fireplace. A baby slept soundly in the swaddled blankets. “That one there’s Irma.”

“Came by to see if you need any help with liftin.”

“God, don’t own nothin heavy yet except Simon.”

“You want to see somethin?”

“What?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“No, no. Somethin you can see only once. Never happen again.

Just a few blocks from here. Kids can come too.”

Betty looked out and contemplated the rain and then the box of clothes at her feet.

“Got a lotta work to do.”

“Won’t take that long. Come on. Give yourself a break. Rain’s lettin up.”

Betty looked outside again.

“Suppose those kids need a little air anyway.”

She called them in and bossed them into their coats, wrapped Irma in a small quilt, and they all set off down Franklin.

When they reached the Met there was already a crowd gathered to watch the destruction, pinned like flies on flypaper to the perimeter ribbon on the other side of the street. The mood was part carnival, the rest funeral. But that was always the tenor of the city—whether they were knocking it down or building it up, whether it was jubilee or disaster. There was a quiet abandon with which the city built and rebuilt itself. But the sheer recklessness of knocking down the Met drew a crowd of hundreds into the rain under battered umbrellas, implements not often used in Minneapolis, where people went bareheaded and un-raincoated as if either daring the weather or in silent sopping agreement that they deserved whatever they got. Some people even brought wicker picnic hampers packed with lunch, as if on a summer outing. They took their children from school and bought film for their cameras.

It all seemed impossible. Even as they watched it happen, it was ludicrous that the mass of steel and glass, New Hampshire granite and Superior sandstone, that had dominated the south city skyline would be gone. They had begun in the cold-whipped month of December and wouldn’t finish until early September, but everyone came out to watch the big machines get to work.