“I brought my watercolor brushes in my backpack,” Toby told me.

“I know you did,” I said, standing up to help him slip his blue cotton shirt back over his shoulders.

We left the clinic and walked out into the cool autumn air of the parking lot.

By five o’clock, the sun was casting long golden shadows across the green lawn at Oakridge Park.

We sat together on a weathered wooden bench fifty feet from the park’s quiet duck pond.

We had bought the new tin of watercolors at the craft shop downtown on Tuesday afternoon, to replace the set Brenda had thrown into the hospital trash.