Caroline shivers and squints hard. The tears in her eyes are only partly from the cold wind that is beginning to increase.

Howard starts to feel the knot in his belly tighten up, the winding, finger-pointing accuser that hasn’t left him alone since things started going sour.

He tries to clown Caroline into another place, another frame of mind. “Speaking of Lincoln, did you know that Lincoln and Kennedy had a lot in common? It gets weird, the coincidences.”

“What are you talking about, Howard?”

“You mentioned the Lincoln. It reminded me about how much in common there was between Lincoln and Kennedy.” Howard rolls over onto his back and pushes his knee against Caroline’s thigh. Without hesitation, she hooks her hand around the inside of his knee and squeezes. Her hand stays there.

“Like what, for instance?” Caroline says.

“For instance,” Howard says, “Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln.”

“I knew that. I mean, I think I heard somebody say that before.” Caroline leans over the baby again, adjusting the blue blanket. “What else?”

“Booth and Oswald both have the same number of letters in their full names.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“And here’s the weirdest--Lincoln was born in a log cabin, and Kennedy once spilled Log Cabin syrup in his father’s Lincoln.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. Jesus, Caroline, it’s a joke.”

Caroline drops her gaze to the tips of her brown boots. She picks off a little piece of leather, a boot hangnail, and tosses it onto the carpet of fallen leaves. “I know it was a joke, Howard. It’s always a joke.”

They’re quiet for a minute. Above them, in the dozing trees, skeletal branches rub together, trying to stay warm Through the web of wood spins an orange frisbee, thrown wide and to the right by one of the few other people in the park this October afternoon. It swipes off a twig, changes direction, and lobs in a crazy decline onto the canopy of the stroller.

“If that wakes up the baby,” Caroline warns. It does. She pulls Dakota up by her armpits, up out of her little nest, and hugs her hard with both arms. The baby doesn’t cry, she smells her mother’s hair, her neck and her shoulder, and is happy to be there.
Caroline gets up from the blanket. “I’m going to the car to feed her. where are the keys?”

Silence from Howard.

“Howard, where are the keys to the car? I have to feed her, and the car is locked.

Howard reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and hooks his finger around the familiar loop of his key ring. There are three keys on the ring now; the Lincoln ignition, the Lincoln trunk, and the key to a small cash box they've hidden in the trunk, wrapped in a towel, wedged under the flat spare tire.

There are three keys on the ring now; the Lincoln ignition, the Lincoln trunk, and the key to a small cash box they've hidden in the trunk, wrapped in a towel, wedged under the flat spare tire.