It’s a Saturday and my wife was at her school for their Science Fair. Leaving for it this morning while the rest of us slept in, she wrote a note saying how sorry she was to be gone and suggesting that we visit. And we did, our daughter and I. In her classroom, among the aftermath of children at school on a weekend and now sciencing loudly in their new gym, our daughter found a left-behind video game handheld still playing the game’s soundtrack of Bush and Blur and other such fare, sounds like she’s enjoyed many times before, playing along with her father in his office. She danced and snapped and sang and smiled and radiated, our beloved daughter, and in her we were, as always, well-pleased.

On our way back out to the car, I looked to the end of a hallway and saw a young boy holding a trophy, looking up at his mother as she talked on the phone. She was patting his head and rubbing his shoulder with her free hand. Congratulating him in a briefly-distracted way as she made another boastful phone call, no doubt. Appreciating well-earned pride, I offered my loud “Congratulations!” from down the hall. The boy looked up, almost confused. As we turned the corner, he disappeared from view just as he was looking up to his mother again in a still-lost kind of way. The mother’s amusement at a stranger’s misplaced enthusiasm echoed through the corridors carried on the dour words “is fifth.”