The husband stands alone in the midst of all the children and, as he looks around, suddenly all the signs in the children's hands seem directed at him. STOP, the signs say in childish block letters, and this alarms him. Wait, he thinks, stop what? And how? Never mind stop being a coward, how did he first become one? His relief at avoiding any further confrontation gives way to the terrifying sense that he is too late to arrest the skidding disaster of his life, that he could not possibly know where to begin such an overwhelming endeavour.

Why did you do that, he says to the girl, after the taillights of his wife's car disappear around a bend in the road.

Now she has to forgive you, she says.

Isn't that what you wanted, she says.

I don't know anymore, he says.