The third book in the Erik Winter series, 2007

ONE OF THE CHILDREN JUMPED DOWN FROM THE JUNGLE GYM into the sandbox below, and he laughed out loud, suddenly, briefly. It looked like good fun. The man wanted to join in, but that would mean getting out of his car, walking around the fence and in through the gate, and climbing up the structure, which was red and yellow.

A drop of rain fell on the window, then another. He looked up and could see the sky was darker now. He turned his attention back to the playground and the trees beyond it and along the left-hand side. There were no leaves on the branches; the trees were bare. Things you couldn’t see in the summer were visible now. The city was naked. That thought had struck him as he drove there through the wet streets. This city is naked again. He didn’t like it. It was almost worse than before.

Now another child jumped down. He could hear the boy laughing as he lay in the sand; he could hear that even when the radio was on, as it was now. He wasn’t listening to it. He was listening to the boy’s laughter. He was laughing himself now. He wasn’t happy, but he was laughing because hearing the child laughing, it sounded like so much fun to be a child getting up to climb the jungle gym and jump down once more.

It stopped raining even before it had really started. He rolled down the window a bit more. There was a smell of autumn turning into winter. Nothing else smelled like it. Leaves lay on the ground and had turned black. People were walking along paths through the park. Some were pushing strollers. A few people were standing around in the playground, grown-ups. There weren’t many of them. But lots of children, and many of them were laughing.

He had also laughed, not now, but when he was a child. He could remember laughing once when his mom had lifted him up high and his head had bumped the ceiling lamp and the light up there had gone out when she put him down again.