Pictures of children (fiction)

He buys the scooter and has it delivered. It's perfect. Italian and cream and tan and parked outside on the front walk. Leaning there, nonchalant on its stand, it makes even Winnipeg under the elms look like residential Paris.   

Still, the shine is off. Neither of them wants to admit it, least of all he. There is always a way to avoid it, though in her eyes the signal flickers. If however, you don't keep your eyes open wide when you greet her with a kiss, you'll never notice. 

The question is whether he understands his need to continue, or how this, his most recent effort, might only be an attempt, yet again, not to lose. Does he understand the question? We do, but Vincent's awareness has become, in some way, our question too.

For instance, he's just read the latest New Yorker, to which he subscribes on his ipad, and on it he's chuckled at the cartoons (which he reads first, always), in particular at the one with the caption: "We realize it's a win-win, Jenkins - we're trying to figure out a way to make it a win-lose." 

The men around the boardroom table get it. So does Vincent, but not in the way that will be helpful for him, and for us. Meredith might get it too, but she would never read The New Yorker on her ipad. She'd want to know what Babble or dooce would say.

Wistful, she'd enter the blogger's world hoping for pictures of children. The one of the two girls standing at the front door, backpacked and bundled for the trip to school. Herein lies our first clue. It's obvious really. Embarrassingly so.