Free Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple Page A

to have Ruthie chase it out too. It ended up here in the corner.
    I returned to the big room and sat down at Joe’s place at the table. I pushed aside the dishes.
    “It’s where they make clothes for H&M.” Timby’s voice, through the cracked door to his room.
    “I can see why that would make you feel bad.” Spencer’s voice.
    Click-click-click. Yo-Yo, standing there, dim and hopeful.
    “Everything I say.” Timby’s little voice. “Piper acts like she knows more. I was telling her how I hate the Disney princesses—”
    “You love the Disney princesses!” I shouted.
    “I never liked them!” he shouted back.
    “Halloween you went as Gaston, and Gaston loves Belle, so—”
    Slam went Timby’s door.
    I lowered my forehead onto the table. It was much harder and colder than you’d think. I spread my arms out and up, just as Joe had done this morning. Not comfortable. Definitely not a position you’d find yourself in naturally. But what did it say? I’m depressed. I’m alone. I’m hurting. I need help.
    I sat up. Yo-Yo cocked his head. His tail dared to wag.
    “Go away.”
    “I know, right?” Timby said from his room. “I know, right?” Spencer answered. “I know, right?” Timby jumped in. “I know, right?” Spencer said on top of him. And on and on, until it was staccato and rapid-fire and I half expected a disco song to erupt, but instead it was giggles. God bless the gay and the young. Or the gay and the gay.
    “Let’s do this thang,” I said, looking at Yo-Yo. “Who wants a walk?”
    Having heard the magic word, Yo-Yo started barking.
    “It’s all true!” I said in my high-pitched Yo-Yo voice. “Let’s go, Charlie Trotter. Let’s go, Biscuit. Let’s go, Yo-Yo-san. Let’s go, Yoozy Von Boozy.”
    “His name is Yo-Yo,” said Timby coldly, now standing there with Spencer.
    “It’s my tell,” I said. “When I’m anxious, I make up nicknames for the dog.”
    “What do you have to be anxious about?” Timby asked.
    “Things,” I said.
    Spencer held his tongue and we headed out to face the second half of the day.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” I did or didn’t say out loud as we walked down the steep incline, the autumn wind whipping through the corridor of apartment buildings. The Olympic Sculpture Park, once a contaminated industrial site and now an impeccably designed waterfront public space, hummed with activity.
    A busload of children played hide-and-seek in a valley of rusty Richard Serras. Lovers lolled on quilts in the shadow of an enormous Calder, a pop of red amidst the cool blues and greens. A bicycle club rested at the Claes Oldenburg typewriter eraser, and squirted water into their mouths. Teens with Down syndrome, gripping handles on a rope line, hooted as they weaved through Louise Bourgeois’s black marble eyes. Tourists snapped gag pictures of themselves holding the Space Needle in their palms. Sculptures everywhere, whimsical or baffling, challenging or just plain lovely.
    Placed near all, discreet plaques etched with names of donors well known in Seattle and beyond: Gates, Allen, Wright, Shirley, Benaroya.
    Taking in the joyful mix drawn together by a common enjoyment of art, I couldn’t help but think: rich people, you gotta love ’em!
    “I’ll catch up with you,” Spencer said and ran in the direction of the glass pavilion marking the park’s entrance. If he didn’t stop until he crossed into Canada, I wouldn’t have blamed him.
    Timby and I headed along the wide path that gently zigzagged down to the water.
    “I was sorry to hear about Piper,” I said. “You need to tell me these things. Not if you don’t want to. But come on, we’re buds.”
    Timby jammed his head into my side and I put my arm around his shoulder.
    “Mom?” he said. “What’s your favorite season?”
    “I’ll have to go with the obvious. Spring.”
    “Mine is winter,” he stated proudly.
    “Winter?” I said.
    “Because of snow.”
    “When have you ever