The park was the short way to the pier. The 6:40 ferry, and on the far side of the water, the night flight. The bag was light enough to run with. Twenty minutes for a fifteen-minute walk, and the difference already spent at the pharmacy.
At the corner by the chestnuts the voice arrived first.
“You didn’t do my homework.”
Low.
Two children by the fountain. The taller one wore a schoolbag on both shoulders and held a notebook out, shaking it. The smaller one stood with empty hands, eyes on the notebook.
“I’m never doing it.”
The tearing began on the second syllable of never. Through the spine first, then by handfuls. The pages came down under the chestnuts’ new leaves, white on green, and were still settling when the crying began.
The crying was true, and it moved — toward the benches, gathering words as it went. The words had a culprit in them.
On the second bench a woman looked up from her phone. She looked at the crying, then past it at the smaller one standing in the litter of pages, and stood. Her first three steps turned heads at the other benches.
The distance from bench to fountain had swallowed the first voice. Between the corner and the fountain there had been one witness, and the witness had a ferry to catch.
The 6:40 gave eleven minutes. The walk took eight. The woman was halfway across the playground.