Ethan decided Central Park at breakfast, the way he decided most things, with the complete confidence of someone who had considered the matter and reached a conclusion that did not require external ratification. “We should go to the park,” he said, over cereal, looking at neither of us specifically, which was how he made suggestions he expected to be accepted without requiring lobbying. It was a Sunday in early November, cold and clear, the kind of day the city produced occasionally like a gift it hadn’t planned on giving. The trees along the paths were past their best color but not yet bare, holding onto the last of the amber in the particular determined way of things that intended to stay as long as possible. We went to the park. ----- The three of us walked in the way that had deve

