“Still, it is like a long hopeless homesickness my missing those young days. To me, they’re like my own place that I have gone away from forever, and I have lived all the time since among great pleasures but in a foreign town. Well, O.K. Farewell, certain years.”
—Grace Paley, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
I saw the pit bull approaching from twenty feet away. I was on my way home from Blick with Ryder, walking down one of the main East-West thoroughfares in Manhattan. It was hot and crowded, pedestrians shoulder to shoulder.
I wasn’t expecting it to be so busy at four p.m. on a Monday, or I would never have attempted the errand. I picked up some blank canvases for Michael, wanting to do something nice by surprising him with a fresh stack to encourage his latest painting streak. I always enjoy bringing Ryder to Blick because the air conditioning and cool cement floors offer reprieve from the summer heat.
But this time would be my last.
