THE HUMIDITY HAD soaked the cold groceries in their bags till the cardboard softened. A sudden glow in the bright new growth across the street drew the eye in time to see a moment of sunshine. Individual clouds were dense enough to be gray but the sun kept finding a way around them. A robin splashed in the manmade waterfall at the top of the Loch, over and over, throwing lines of spray off its wingtips with each bout of wiggling. The foot of the falls had a fishy smell. A heron stood still in the stream right off the path, with birders gathering to watch it. It swiveled its head to snap at the dragonflies as they darted from hover to hover. One came too close for too long, and the heron nabbed it and gobbled it down. The pavement in the shade was still dark with old rain, and water trickled into drains along the walkway from wet spots that didn’t amount to streams. Out beyond the woods, sparrows bathed in the dust overlooking the Harlem Meer. The savagery of the heat was not what it had been, but the air was still uncomfortable. An earthworm lay caked in dirt in a dried-up puddle, flinching and twitching as tiny ants ran over it. Removed from the asphalt to wet earth, it made no immediate move to take advantage of its reprieve.
