Where Finn had tried to sit, the other kid swung cheerfully, pushed by her blank-faced mother.
Ana found a bench, sitting them down, lightly patting Finn’s heaving back as he whimpered.
A woman next to her lit up a cigarette. She was a little heavier than the other moms, and older, with a battered quality in the ridges of her face. There was no makeup on her eyes, but they were bright.
“I know Finn,” she said. “He goes to daycare with Etta.” She gestured at the Chinese girl in the hat, digging in the sand with her mittens.
Finn heard this, peeked out from Ana’s chest, his breathing slowing.
“Where Etta?” He spied the girl sitting in the sandbox and slid off, ambling toward her. Because Etta’s mother was sitting, Ana decided it would be okay to sit, too, wiping Finn’s wet marks from her neck with a Kleenex.
“How’s he doing?” asked the woman. Ana appreciated the directness of the question.
“He’s good, I think,” said Ana.
A father appeared, bracketed on either side by toddler boys. The littler one licked sand from his palm like sugar.
“You’re not allowed to smoke here,” he said. “And is that your dog?” A dog tied to the fence near the gate offered a bark for emphasis. The woman squinted up at him.
“First of all, I’m hardly blowing smoke in your kid’s face, and secondly, the dog’s tied up,” she said with that same matter-of-fact voice. “Call the fucking parks board if you have a problem.”
The man paled. “You’re very rude,” he said.
“Your kid’s eating sand.” She took a long, dramatic drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke straight out in front of her like a finger.
The man gathered his children, and they tottered away. Etta’s mother butted the cigarette with her foot, then picked it up and peeled off the paper. She sprinkled the last tobacco into the garden behind her, and placed the filter and paper in her pocket. “And how are you doing? Are you his aunt?” she asked.
“No, no, we’re just … friends of Sarah’s,” said Ana.
“Kids of your own?”
“No,” said Ana, wondering when this question would stop making her feel as if someone had just torn off the shower curtain while she was midscrub.
“Well, then, you’re probably really enjoying the park,” said Etta’s mother, with a grim smile.
“It definitely feels like a scene,” said Ana.
“Don’t talk to anyone about vaccinations or breastfeeding.”
“Good to know. Thank you.”
Ana noticed that Etta had made her way to the jungle gym, where she stood banging her head against a post over and over, laughing.
“We don’t know what it was like for her before …” said the woman, standing up.
“Before?”
The girl stopped her banging and returned to digging next to Finn.
“In China. They showed us the orphanage, and it was pretty nice, but now we’re hearing that’s not where they lived at all. They really kept them in a shed or something,” she said, and then looked at Ana and smiled darkly, shrugging.
“That must be—” said Ana. “You must worry.”
“What can you do?” she said, lighting another cigarette, offering one to Ana, who shook her head no.
“There are these cases now, where it turns out the kids weren’t actually given up in the first place. You know that whole ‘foundling by the side of the road’ idea?”
Ana nodded.
“Seems that might be a little exaggerated. Maybe some guy drives up on a moped, while the mother’s cooking or cleaning, and he just snatches the baby off the porch, sells her to an orphanage for a thousand bucks, which is a lot of money over there.”
“Jesus,” said Ana. “How do you know?” She pictured the adoption forms, unsigned, waiting in her desk at their house. Then she saw James in a long winding line marked RETURNS AND EXCHANGES, the last of hundreds of white people clutching Chinese babies, taking them back like defective sweaters.
Finn and Etta were pulling each other’s hair now. Ana didn’t know if the squeals meant pain or delight. She was about to say something—but what?—when the mother yelled: “Etta! No!”
Ana tried again: “So how do you know? What will people do?”
“Eh,” said the woman. “We love her. There’s very little to do but that.”
She picked up a courier bag from the bench. At this gesture toward leaving, Ana was filled with desperation.
“My name’s Ana,” she said suddenly, surprising herself. It was the kind of awkward introduction she suspected little children were enacting every few minutes on this exact playground—a proclamation, mired in need. But this woman had loosened a stream of loneliness that Ana hadn’t realized was hidden beneath all the events of the past few weeks. What she felt now, in this park, as Finn dug in the sand, was that she missed Sarah. She was aware of how selfish it was, but she missed Sarah’s friendship for herself. She missed her kindness. And if Sarah were back, if Sarah woke up, then Finn would be secure again, and Ana would be released. Sarah.
“Nice to meet you,” said the woman. “I’m sure we’ll see you here again.” She began to walk off, and Ana, stung by rejection, looked away, up at the trees, considering all the hurt feelings circling a playground. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman stop after a few steps, perhaps confronted by her own embarrassment, wondering how much sympathy to give, what shape she should lend to this tragedy. Ana saw her waver and root around for her better instincts. She left Etta to the sand a moment longer and returned to Ana’s side.
“I’m Jane,” she said. “I don’t think I said that. And, uh, you know—good luck with this. I’m sure it’s tough.”
Ana nodded, blinking back her gratitude.
With his friend gone, Finn came to Ana and stood close to her legs, fingers in his mouth. He seemed to be scanning the playground for the next distraction.
“What should we do, Finn?” asked Ana.
He pointed outside the iron fence, in the general direction of the open park, toward trees and far-off tennis courts. As they walked, he held out his hand, and Ana took it. She gripped the warm palm tightly.
Finn led her to a large tree and pointed up at the squirrels. There were two chasing each other around the trunk, first the brown one after the black one, then, with no warning, an unspoken shift, and the black one began chasing the brown one, furiously fast, their tails bobbing, ducking, and weaving. Finn was laughing and pointing, and Ana laughed, too, brought up by his lightness.
“Silly!” cried Finn.
“They are silly,” said Ana. “Ridiculous.”
Finn was laughing so hard he dropped her hand and placed his palms on his stomach like a small Santa Claus, shaking with giggles. Suddenly, Ana leaned down and hugged him. The gesture was a surprise to her but not to Finn, who separated from her embrace and then came in for another hug immediately, as if love was entirely expected.
October
ANA ROSE AT 6 A.M. in the darkness. She changed into her running gear in the bathroom so the light wouldn’t wake James. But also, she was hiding her body a little bit, not out of shame but fatigue, knowing that if he saw her naked leg, her toe extended en route to a sweat sock, he would rise sleepily and grab her, try to knead her flesh until it gave way to his. She would acquiesce, usually, and then the order of the morning would be flung apart, the pieces falling in the wrong place. This was James unemployed, always grabbing at her, rubbing up against her in the kitchen, in the foyer, winking when Finn appeared to quell things. Ana found it distasteful, drawing the child into some adult fantasy, the turn-on of the forbidden. If she indulged James so early in the morning, she would live with a tilted feeling all day.