SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

SOJOURNERS

Vanessa wants me to go with she and Sebastian to walk the dog. She doesn't want me alone in the apartment. She's scared I'll test out the collection of nuclear weaponry I hide in the closet. 

There's a light drizzle outside. Sebastian's raincoat matches his galoshes: blue with train tracks, like everything else he owns. I don't own a raincoat. Or boots. I borrow Vanessa's. The jacket is two sizes too big and smells like Marc Jacobs. We each get a ridiculous patterned umbrella. The nearest park is three blocks North, but they installed a new see-saw and Sebastian just has to test it out.  

"We'll kill two birds with one stone," Vanessa tells me. "Tire out the dog and tire out the kid. The house will be quiet tonight."

It's late September and I'm already sick of the weather. Walking the dog is a treacherous activity, reserved for cold, muddy days when the ground is soggy enough for paws to dig. Don't they have butlers for this? Vanessa holds the leash. The hood of her jacket is down. Her hair hangs moppy and wet in her face. She doesn't mind. She even unzips her jacket when we get to the park and lets the rain soak her work blouse. Must be a quirk of the successful persons. When you're that smart, you don't care if your exterior is screwed up.

Sebastian darts ahead of us to reach the slippery airplane see-saw. Vanessa and I find a bench. She squeezes Tobillo's leash between her knees. We watch Sebastian mount and dismount the see-saw, slip and slide on the seat. The rain lets up and the sun plays peek-a-boo between the clouds. Sebastian has invented his own game, one played among lonely four year olds whose foster sisters have no business playing with them. He straddles both sides of the see-saw with his arms outstretched and rocks himself back and forth. Looks like he's doing tai-chi. 

Where Hope House was, playgrounds were crack houses. Park benches were the homes of the homeless. The only dogs were with the police, so I have ample experience with canines. I'm still caught off guard when Vanessa asks me to walk Tobillo around the field behind the playground. It needs to burn off all those milk bones to make room for its supper of gourmet kibble. Rich people are relentless with animals.

I drag Tobillo behind a tree in the middle of the field. I'm too nice. I grant it the liberty of privacy before it squats and does its business. I watch Sebastian. He does a decent job of compensating for a missing playmate. There's a skill that waters the insanity plant. We learned about junk like this in Hope House. If symptoms of madness are showing up this early in childhood, the home environment is the culprit. 

I know. Science astounds me. 

I have to intervene before too many of my brain cells vanish. I yell across the field. "You need--"

Vanessa interrupts. "--your mommy!"

The rain has let up. Vanessa sheds her jacket and places Sebastian at the far end of the see-saw. She climbs on opposite him and they go up and down, into the sky and back down to earth. Pilot and copilot, scoping the four corners of the world.

I ignore Tobillo tugging at the leash and watch them. Vanessa could be Sebastian's saving grace. Vanessa, queen of the Ivy League. I've searched high and low for a deficit in her perfection, and have found nothing. Her genetic code was assembled with no deformities. She says whee when she pushes up from the ground and bounces down again. Sebastian kicks his sneakers against the metal and makes airplane noises. I trudge away from the playground and try to get Tobillo to piss, only because something trembles in me when I see those two on the see-saw, defying the laws of gravity.

I wish Vanessa were a bitch. Then I wouldn't feel so guilty for hating her.