A young mother stands on the edge of the playground, ready to snatch up her toddler as he takes wobbly steps through the sand towards tire-swings and teeter-totters and towers of iron bars, where scruffy kids hang upside-down like bats. She wears blue jeans, a white blouse and sensible shoes, and every time her son stumbles, she moves a step closer to him, holding out her hands as if to catch him.
         The day is sunny and mild, and the park is crowded, packed with shrieking kids. Some of the mothers hang out in groups, sitting at picnic tables, gossiping. Others lie on worn blankets in the grass, enjoying the sunshine, reading, their ears fine-tuned to the hum of the playground and their children’s voices.
         The young mother dashes toward her son. “No, Dylan,” she says, slapping his wrist. “We don’t throw sand.”
         Dylan looks up at his mother with vacant eyes, his fine hair swaying like dead grass in the breeze. Frowning, he grunts and plunks himself down. His little hands dig in the sand. A pair of older boys race by him, laughing and shouting, kicking up sand as they pass. The sand sprays Dylan’s face. He rubs his eyes, and begins whining.
         “This is why we don’t throw sand,” his mother says, picking him up and resting his bottom against her hip. She brushes sand from his eyes, his cheeks. He cries, kicking his fat legs against her.
         She carries him back to her blanket on the grass. The blanket looks like a bedding quilt. Two pillows lean against a large duffle bag on the edge of the quilt. She sets Dylan down beside a pillow and unzips the duffle bag. He begins screaming and throwing his arms. She shifts her body away from him, digging inside the bag and muttering words of comfort. Her cheeks turn red and sweat drips from her forehead. Her eyes scour the crowd as if for help, or to apologize for the scene.
         Nearby, some women sit at a picnic table chatting, sipping drinks and picking at their children’s uneaten sandwiches. A woman named Mary lies on the grass beside the table, telling her friends a story about her first date. She slaps her large thighs and chews a mouthful of chocolate cookies, part of a snack she brought for her sons, not herself. And when she laughs, wet crumbs spill from her lips and collect in the folds of her sweatshirt. Mary props herself with one elbow and shifts her weight between arms. She looks like a seal.
         “I brought vodka and juice,” says a woman at the table, producing a large pop bottle. “Who’s having some?” She passes around plastic cups.
         “Margo, you lush,” another woman says.
         “That’s right,” says Margo. “So what?”
         Mary reaches for a cup. “C’mon, Nadine.” Nadine takes one too.
         “To brighter days,” Margo says, hoisting her cup.
         “Oh, Margo,” Nadine says. “You need a man.”
         “No I don’t,” Margo says. “It took a lot of years for me to realize that, Nadine.”
         Nadine half smiles. She and Mary exchange glances.
         Margo sips her drink and adjusts her glasses. She looks out of place among these women. When children run by, her mouth tightens. She keeps her hair shoulder length, the colour bottled, and she bites her nails and complains about the high cost of living. Her face is gaunt and wrinkled, like a skull inside a skin sack, but with all the air sucked out. Margo motions toward the young mother. “Look at her kid cry. That silly girl doesn’t have a clue, does she?”
         “Oh, c’mon. Give her a break, Margo,” Mary says. “That was us ten years ago.”
         “Speak for yourself,” Margo says.
         “Hey, Mary, I think that girl’s son is crying because your boys kicked sand in his face,” Nadine says.
         “Ah, crap,” Mary says, and she brushes crumbs from her sweatshirt.
         “They were just running by,” Nadine says. “It was an accident.”
         Mary rocks herself back and forth as if building momentum towards getting up. She grunts and heaves herself up and moves toward the play area. At the edge where a wooden divider separates sand and grass, she stops and plunges her fists into her considerable hips and hollers. “Michael! Jimmy! You two get over here right now!”
         Her voice booms, and all the children in the park stop and watch as the two boys emerge from under the slide with their heads bowed and bodies slumped.
         “You two slow down and watch what you’re doing,” she says. “Or else.” The boys turn away. “Hold on. We ain’t through yet. You see that baby over there?” Mary cups their chins, one in each hand. She presses her fingers firmly at their jaws and steers their faces in the direction of the screaming child. “That baby’s crying ‘cause you two kicked sand in his face. Now get over there and say you’re sorry.”
         The two boys approach the young mother. She dabs at her son’s eyes with a wet cloth. “You’re okay, Dylan. You’re a brave boy.” Dylan stares ahead, his mouth open and drooling.
         The boys stand over her like gawky willows, their arms behind their backs. They twist the heels of their sneakers into the grass.
         “I’m sorry,” the one boy says. His gaze is set at the ground.
         “I’m sorry,” the other says, nudging a stick with his foot.
         The young mother smiles nervously. “That’s okay.”
         The two boys look at each other and then race back to the playground. Michael, the older one, leads. Jimmy follows close behind, trying to catch up. They hop over the wooden border at the playground’s edge without slowing down. They kick up sand, showering the walkway leading to the gazebo. Mary sighs. “You two!”
         Mary approaches the young mother. “I’m sorry about my boys. Is your baby alright?”
         She nods, holding her son as if Mary might snatch him away. Dylan wriggles from his mother’s grip and steps onto the grass, his chubby legs wobbling. “Don’t go far,” the young mother says.
         “Your first?” Mary asks.
         She nods.
         “You here alone?”
         She nods.
         “There’s a group of us over there,” Mary says, motioning toward the picnic table. “We’re just talking, you know. You’re welcome to come over. If you like.”
         “That’s kind of you,” the young mother says. “Maybe we will.”
         A slight wind picks up. Mary sweeps a strand of hair from her eyes. Sunlight shimmers through the trees and Mary cups her eyes and gazes at the horizon. Then she smiles and turns away.
         “Christ, my kids,” Mary says, rejoining her friends at the table. She squeezes onto the bench and reaches for her drink. “Gosh, they drive me crazy.”
         Nadine laughs. “You should try three.”
         “A woman down the street from me has nine kids,” Mary says, “Can you imagine?”
         “My God,” Nadine says. “I can’t.”
         “When they walk to the store, the older kids pull the younger ones in wagons. It’s like watching a parade.”
         “The woman’s obviously got no self image,” Margo says. She removes a white plastic bottle from her black purse. “She thinks all there is to do in this world is have babies. Well there’s more.”
         A little girl wearing a pink sundress with blue hearts runs to Nadine. “Mommy, Bobby pushed me and he threw a pinecone at me and one at Sarah.”
         “Tell Bobby to come here,” Nadine tells the girl and then she turns to Mary. “They’re never happy unless they’re at each other’s throats.”
         Margo huffs and shakes the bottle, emptying half a dozen pills into her palm. She pops them into her mouth and gulps her drink, swishing the mixture in her cheeks and then swallowing. She jerks her shoulder toward the young mother. “Look at her.” Margo’s eyes narrow into wrinkled wedges.
         Mary shifts to take a look. The table rocks, and the bench seat creaks. “I invited her over,” she tells Margo.
         Margo sneers. “She’s too prissy to come over. What would she say to us anyway? She’s too young to know how the world is.”
         “She looks lonely,” Nadine says.
         “I think so too,” Mary says.
         “She ain’t lonely.” Margo breathes deeply and closes her eyes. “When I was that age, everything was different.” The wind catches her hair and flecks of grey sparkle in the sunshine. “Look at that long beautiful hair, that smooth skin, that tight body. I bet Daddy gave her a car when she turned sixteen and Mommy washed her clothes until she moved out. She wore a white dress at her wedding and married the frickin’ boy next door. The world’s still black and white to her.”
         Mary glances at the treetops. “That wind’s sure picking up.”
         “It might rain,” Nadine says, clawing at napkins and paper plates as the wind plucks them from the table.
         “When Nick and I moved in together,” Margo says, “we had sex every day for the first year, sometimes even two times a day. After a year, it was like brushing your teeth. You know?”
         The wind knocks over Nadine’s cup. Two women jump back as the drink spills onto the bench. They collect their snacks and juice boxes and stuff them into plastic bags. Trees sway dangerously and the wind scatters leaves, ripping them from the branches like confetti. Kids shriek with delight at the powerful gusts. Mothers circle the playground, calling their children’s names.
         Mary picks up some garbage. “Maybe it’s time to go.”
         Margo chews the rim of her cup, staring at the young mother. “She doesn’t know what it’s like. Not yet. It’s the little things that disappear first, the kisses, the conversation. She won’t notice, or she’ll deny it. But then one day she’ll realize the man she married hasn’t spoken to her for longer than she can remember. And she’ll look in the mirror and wonder where the hell it all went.”
         The wind snatches cups and chocolate bar wrappers. The sun vanishes behind a wall of black clouds. Parents dash toward cars, blankets folded under their arms, kids dragging their feet ten steps behind. Mary and Nadine move to the playground and round up their kids.
         Margo closes her eyes, her hair whipping in the wind. “She’s too young to know, but everything fades.”
         Nadine says goodbye to Mary and leads her children toward the road.
         Mary’s boys wait at her side as she picks up her blanket, her bag and her purse. “It’s time to go, Margo. It’s going to rain.”
         “Let it rain,” Margo says.
         “Okay,” Mary says. “I’ll call you later.”
         Margo sits at the picnic table by herself. She picks up her pop bottle and dumps what’s left onto the grass. She watches the young mother pack up her bag and move her son to the gazebo.
         Mary and her two boys cut through the gazebo. “Do you need a ride or something?” Mary asks the young mother.
         She clutches her son and shakes her head.
         Spits of rain hit the gazebo roof, the sound like fingers tapping.
         “Alright then,” Mary says, guiding her boys forward. Then she stops and turns around. “You see that house on the corner? The one with the yellow siding? That’s where we live. If you need anything, I mean.”
         The young mother smiles and nods.
         Back at the picnic table, Margo tosses the empty pop bottle onto the grass. She stands and holds her arms up to the wind, as if she hopes to be swept away. She walks to the parking lot and slips inside her car. Steadily, drops of rain fall on her windshield. The rain grows into a downpour, water pounding the hood of her car. She revs the engine and her tires spit gravel as she exits the park. Her car is the last to leave. And then the rain turns to hail, Margo’s windshield wipers clearing it all away.
         In the shelter of the gazebo, the young mother and her son huddle together. The hail striking the roof sounds like the roll of a snare drum. Her son trembles at the noise. She strokes his head. “Shhhhh.” Hail layers the ground in a blanket of white pebbles.
         Above, the sky is black. Below, the ground is white. The young mother holds her son tightly and begins crying as the grey sets in.
        

Judd Hampton lives and works among the pumpjacks of northern Alberta, Canada.  His stories have appeared in Night Train, Vestal Review, and Literary Potpourri among others and are forthcoming in Buzzwords and NFG Magazine.  His artwork can be viewed online at Outsider Ink, Opium Magazine, and Aileron.