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arduous and time-intensive. Abbott realizes the event could go on for quite awhile and be fun, but he’s afraid he won’t even be able to
swing by later
because the afternoon and evening are completely booked. He needs to go outside to play with pinecones, which always ends up taking way longer than you anticipate. Then it will be time to go inside to get some maple syrup rubbed into his hair, at which point he’ll be busy clenching his jaw and reminding himself over and over that stewardship is a privilege, that he lives an enviable life, that by any important measure he is a profoundly fortunate man. Abbott knows, regretfully, that he also declined the last four invitations, and that at some point you’re going to stop inviting him, but this day has been scheduled for a long time and there’s nothing he can do to change it. Before you know it, it will be bath time, and he needs to be there to squirt the plastic raccoon. After the bath, he’ll be going downstairs to pretend to look for something. If there is any time remaining in the day, which is unlikely, Abbott knows he should stop collecting acute and contradictory feelings for his wife, and spend just sixty seconds trying to imagine what it’s like to be her. Now that he rereads the invitation, Abbott sees that the event to which he has been invited took place last weekend. It is with sincere regret that he sends this regretful note so late. He hopes you had a great time, and he reminds you that he would love to get together in four or five years for a coffee or maybe a beer.

24 Abbott Goes In
    That crinkle Abbott hears as he undresses before bed is caused by the numerous plastic sleeves of juice-box straws stuffed into the pockets of the shorts he has worn for three days straight. Eventually he might ruminate about fluorocarbons and landfills, the domestication of the modern man, preschool dentistry, the lunatic conjunction of
juice
and
box
, but first he needs to sneak into his daughter’s dark room. She lies on her back, way up on her pillow. The top of her head is pressed against the wall, and her face is turned severely to the side, away from Abbott. Her hands are fists at her throat. She is braced against sleep, as if against wind, a wave. Abbott’s eyes adjust, but Abbott does not.

25 Abbott and the Antique Tractor
    Sure, they could drive across the neighborhood, but it’s more fun to walk. It’s good exercise, and it’s also nice to be outside in the summertime. Abbott dresses his daughter and gets her ready to leave. “OK, here we go,” he says, opening the front door. He feels nearly euphoric. That noise in the front yard is the squirrels. “Let’s go see the tractor,” he says. A neighbor told him there’s an antique tractor parked in the field directly behind the neighborhood, and he thought his daughter might want to see it. His wife, too. All of them. Here comes Abbott’s wife with that belly. Abbott looks at her and feels the stirring of ancient, mutually exclusive impulses. His wife regards the girl’s outfit. It’s probably right what she’s probably thinking. She says, “I don’t really … For one thing, I have never even seen those pants.” Abbott shrugs and says, “She picked them out.” This isn’t true. “Ready?” he says. “Let’s get going. Tractor!” “Wait,” his wife says. “Did you put sunblock on her?” Abbott nods his head in the manner of someone who could later deny having nodded. His wife looks right at him and says, “You did?” Abbott almost imperceptibly shakes his head. His wife says, “So you didn’t?” Abbott nods again. His wife says, “Could you put somesunblock on her?” The girl says, “Tractor.” Abbott closes the door. His wife says, “Does she have a new diaper?” Abbott’s eyes become glassy and unfocused. He breathes audibly