Clod, Pebble

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The line in the bookstore snaked through Cooking and Self-Help, past the cash registers, almost into the street. Davies queued at the end of it, heart sinking. There were scores of children, some running, some squirming, voices shrill and demanding, so unlike his Krissy, his quiet girl, at her mother’s now, waiting for him to pick her up at six. Karen had been reluctant, but for once he had pressed and won, and Krissy was his for the weekend.

Her pre-birthday weekend, he had it all planned: first a movie, then D’Amici’s for dinner, an eight-fifteen reservation, he would present her gifts there. Quarter to five now, it would take him twenty minutes to cross town to Brookline, no, more like thirty on a Friday rush hour. Half an hour should be enough. He heard the edge in Karen’s voice whenever he was late: You can’t call, Gerald? last month when he missed by, what, barely an hour, stuck in traffic, the cell’s battery dim then dead but no point in telling her that, explaining, she was beyond his explanations now, her own soured to constant low-grade accusation: I just don’t want to see you disappoint her.

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