Chapter 16: The Loud Way

I told Keith about the clips in the parking lot of the water department, and he went quiet in the way that frightened people who didn't know him.

"Eleven," he said.

"Eleven more."

"I'll pick them up with you today."

"You have a meeting about pipe pressure."

"I'll be late to it."

So at three-thirty we stood together at the preschool gate, behind a line of mothers and one grandfather with a stroller.

The teacher would bring the children out in pairs, the way she always did.

I was holding Keith's hand, in public, in the daylight, and a mother two places ahead glanced back and smiled.

Then I heard the engine.

A black SUV pulled to the curb across the street.

Preston got out, in a charcoal coat and a scarf.

Behind him a young man climbed out with a camera on his shoulder, and I knew him: the one from the birthday party.

"Oh no," said the mother beside me.

"He's not allowed here," I said. "I called the school."

"He was on the visitors list for a donor reception," she said, "and nobody ever took him off."

Preston crossed the street with his arms wide.

"There they are," he called, loud enough for the whole sidewalk. "The moms and dads of the future!"

Nobody smiled.

He stopped a few feet from us and tipped his head at the camera.

"I just want to see my kids," he said, to the lens. "I think that's reasonable. The mother's kept them from me for four years."

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