Neither are suggested, both give the parents a sense of false security. We scuttle over and pull up a chair as the boys throw ball and the girls make drawings. Finally we see the neighbors out in their yard. It's the type of exhaustion that you feel after a long walk through a shopping mall. Tylenol makes it way into the day by six. My mother and I tread gently into the driveway, then the front yard until the helicopters and sirens clamor again and we gently curb the play back inside. They beg, they coax, they fight to go outside.
By four o'clock the tribe is restless, all of us. There are no trampolines or bike rides or other friends to bounce off. The rest of the day winds between Bananagrams and art projects, code red calls from the City, and anxiety of a mother who coaxes them into forts and grilled cheeses in hopes of avoiding the nervous energy that gathers steam when you are a hostage in your own house.
