Chapter 5: The Park

Douglas came to the park forty minutes early.

I know because I saw him from the gate, sitting on a bench with a paper bag on his knee, not looking at his phone once.

Polly saw him too.

"It's the sad man," she said.

"His name is Douglas."

"Why is he sad?"

"Ask him."

She walked up to him with her rabbit under her arm and stood in front of his knees.

"Why are you sad?"

"Hello, Polly." He sat up straight. "I'm not sad. I'm nervous."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to bring you something, and I didn't know what you liked."

He opened the bag.

Inside were a bag of oranges, a bag of apples, a jar of peanut butter, a kite, a jump rope and a plastic tiger.

Polly looked into it for a long time.

"You bought the whole store," she said.

"Most of one aisle."

"I like the tiger."

"He's yours."

She took it and held it up next to the rabbit to see if they would get along.

I sat on the far end of the bench and kept my hands in my lap.

Douglas glanced at me over her head, a plain look, asking nothing.

I looked away first.

For an hour he was terrible at it.

He pushed her on the swing too hard and then too softly.

He said "kiddo" twice, and she told him she was not a kiddo, she was a Polly.

He tried to untangle the kite string and made it worse, and she stood with her hands on her hips and explained to him how knots work.

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