Convenience Store, November

A man is loading groceries into his car when he sees a kid — seven, maybe — fighting with a heavy automatic door, both arms full of backpack and what looks like a rolled-up solar system.

He holds the door. The kid looks up, nods, goes in.

He's not in the kid's story.

This is about the forty-three seconds after, when he's at the trunk lid and wants to call his son. His son is twenty-four. Lives in Austin. They talk twice a month, which is plenty, which they've both said.

He doesn't call. Drives home. Tells his wife about a bad driver.

For six days he thinks about that kid.