Across the street, a Hang-Out group is getting drunk at a bar, being loud and snapping photos of each other, and the outdoor tables are filled with coupled-up strangers. I see some of the people looking at me as I wave, but I don’t care if they think I’m acting for a selfie video, it feels good. Ubers pass, each with a single rider or two heading elsewhere, on to their Aphrodite dates or back home from Firestarter sessions. I continue to wave as Katie drives into the early evening. I’m waving even as she sits at the light waiting for it to turn green, my hand in the air as her car is swallowed by taxis, as though if I wave long enough, longer than I’ve ever seen in any comfort porn clip, this feeling will actually last.

WE ONLY WANTED THEIR HAPPINESS

We never should’ve opened our hearts to their tears. But how can you say no to your children? And when they asked why, we told them it was dangerous. They were only five, eight, ten; they were kids. Wasn’t it enough that they had their smartphones? Their tablets? Their virtual reality consoles? Their screens upon screens upon screens?

But our children kept asking. Every birthday when they unwrapped their gifts of more electronics, we saw their disappointment. Why couldn’t they have it? they asked over breakfast, over lunch, over dinner. They asked when we picked them up from school or went grocery shopping, and we spent hours repeating our reasons, only to be asked again when we tucked them into bed at night. Maybe, in retrospect, we agreed simply to get them to stop asking.

One could always have it removed, we reasoned. And we turned to our husbands and wives—our companions who should’ve stopped us—but they, too, were exhausted from all the pleading. Most days were spent checking texts with the compulsion of chain-smokers, or searching for funny memes as if seeking the Holy Grail. At the end of the day, all we wanted was a couple hours of uninterrupted scrolling.

And so we scheduled appointments for our children’s birthdays. Or grandparents promised our kids the gifts. “We know it’s expensive,” our parents told us, “but we wanted to spoil them.” And then what could we do? When our children heard the news, their faces were as joyous as if they’d been given a kitten.