“What do you want to do today, Camera?” I asked. “You want to go to the park?”

My little black-haired boy looked up from his coloring book but didn’t say anything. I knelt down beside him to inspect his coloring. He hadn’t gone outside the lines, and his shading was perfectly even. “This looks good,” I told him, trying to sound as proud as I was. Still, he didn’t answer. I touched his cheek and marveled at how soft it was, how even -- like his shading.

“Camera? What do you say? Should we go out today? Get some sun?”

“Camera” was the nickname his father had given him, which I used grudgingly because it was the only thing he answered to. Cameron, his given name, the name I had chosen, had become a sort of pre-middle name. Camera Cameron Joseph Stone. That was the ultimate slap in the face. His father, Eric, had left us and hadn’t even wanted me to have Cameron when I got pregnant, but the stupid name he chose was the one that stuck.

“What will we do at the park?” Cameron asked.

“Well, you can play on the swings or the slide, or you could play with the other kids––”

“They don’t like me.”

“What makes you think that?”

He shrugged. “I just know.”

I had observed other children avoiding Cameron, but I would never admit that to him. “That’s silly. Come on; get your jacket. We need to get out of this house.”

Cameron reluctantly left his coloring book and followed me to the front door, taking his red nylon jacket off the hook but not putting it on.

“It’s chilly out there,” I warned him.

“That’s okay.”

The park was half a mile from our house, and I needed the walk. Ever since Eric left, I’d been eating like a pig. When he was around, he’d always comment on everything I ate, saying things like, “Wow, how many cookies have you had?” and, “Better slow down on that cereal, leave some for the rest of us.” Thing is, at the time I hadn’t been the least bit overweight. Now that he was gone and I could eat in peace, my tendency for an occasional binge had turned into something a bit more routine. I would have to cut that out. Eric’s alimony and child support payments weren’t enough that I could afford a closet full of new big girl clothes. Besides, if I were ever going to get remarried, I should try to maintain my figure.

It was the first Saturday in October, and the brightly colored leaves that filled the trees had begun to fall, littering the ground, so we had to shift our feet through them. Most kids would not have simply walked through the leaves as though nothing were amiss; they would have run and kicked at the drifts of patchwork color, laughing at the destruction and mess they could cause with no repercussions. But not Cameron. He trudged along at my side, his gaze straight ahead. I reached out to take his hand, and he held it willingly but with no return of warmth.

Up ahead, the park was teaming with activity, kids running everywhere, raking up mountains of leaves and then diving into them, their mothers watching from benches or sitting on the low stone walls around the pavilion, sipping their lattes. I liked coming here because even on Saturday there weren’t many fathers present. I didn’t like to take Cameron to places where he would be reminded of what the other kids had that he didn’t.

“That looks like fun, doesn’t it?” I said, pointing out the leaf divers.

Cameron sighed, sounding more like an exasperated adult than a stubborn seven-year-old. I stopped him on the sidewalk, crouched in front of him, and made him look at me.

“Cameron, what is it? What’s wrong?” My tone was sharp. He looked away, and I realized I had used his real name, not the stupid nickname Eric had given him. I thought of revising what I’d said, then decided against it. I wasn’t going to use the nickname anymore. This was my son, his name was Cameron, and his father wasn’t coming back.

“Cameron,” I said again, emphasizing his name, “you have to stop this… this act you’re doing. You’re not too good to play at the park with the other kids. Do you hear me? I’ve had enough of your attitude.”

Cameron’s lower lip quivered slightly, but other than that, he showed no indication that he’d heard me. I stood and pulled him along with me. He lagged behind, so I practically had to drag him. When we reached the park, I released his hand and attempted to give him a nudge in the direction of the kids playing in the leaves. But I used a bit too much force and ended up looking like I shoved him. He fell forward a couple of steps and glared back at me with the first emotion he’d shown all day. I looked around to see if any of the other mothers had seen me, but no one was paying attention.

While Cameron wandered aimlessly, I took a seat on the stonewall that bordered the pavilion, a few feet away from a woman drinking coffee from a silver travel mug and reading a book. I should have brought a book, I thought, or at least a magazine. Watching Cameron avoid any activity that a child might enjoy had immediately started to bore me.

“What are you reading?” I asked the woman.

She looked up at me, and I could tell she was annoyed that I’d interrupted her. “Just some Oprah book,” she said.

“Oh.” I told myself I should leave her alone, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Which one is yours?”

She seemed confused. I nodded in the direction of the children.

“Those three, with the scarves.” She pointed out a trio of children, the oldest probably eight, the youngest five, all of them wearing brightly colored, striped scarves.

“They’re beautiful,” I said.

She gave me a strange look. “Thank you.” She began to read again, then looked up at me abruptly. “And yours?” she asked.

I looked around for Cameron. I had taken my eyes off him for just a moment, but he was gone. I jumped up, scanning the park for his red nylon jacket, but then I remembered that he hadn’t put it on. What color had his shirt been? I began to dash madly about, calling his name. “Cameron? Cameron!”

I didn’t see him anywhere.

I tried again. “Camera! Camera, where are you!”

The woman came up beside me and grabbed my arm to still me. I was hysterical.

“Where did you see him last?” she asked calmly.

“Um… shit… fuck!” I tried to take a slow breath and pointed. “Right over there, by that tree.”

“Right there?” she asked. “Where that group of kids is?”

“Yes.”

There was a circle of about six or seven kids gathered around something, and as I looked at them, I recognized Cameron’s shiny black hair. I ran toward him. The woman followed.

By the time we reached the circle, my panic had dulled, though my heart was still beating hard in my chest. I could feel it as I pressed my hand there. But I told myself not to freak out. Cameron was interacting with the other kids. I didn’t want to come over here wailing like a crazy woman. But why hadn’t he answered me? What were the kids looking at that had them so rapt?

I came up behind Cameron and peered over the ring of kids. In the center of the circle, struggling in the leaves, was a crow with a broken wing. It looked like it had been attacked by a cat. It was missing patches of feathers, and I could see blood and deep scratches on its pimply white skin.

“Oh, God, how awful,” the woman said.

One of the boys, an older boy with mean, squinty eyes, poked at the bird with a stick.

“Stop that!” I snapped at him. “You kids, back up. Give it some room.”

They ignored me. The woman and I looked at one another. “Should we do something?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Like what?”

“We can’t just leave it like that. It’s going to die.”

“I’m not touching that thing, and I’m certainly not taking it to a vet and paying for it to get fixed.”

I shook my head. “We have to… you know… ” I inclined my head toward her and spoke in a low voice, so the children wouldn’t hear. “We have to put it out of its misery.”

She raised her eyebrows at me and repeated, “I’m not touching that thing.”

“I’ll get a rock,” I said, and began searching around for one that was big enough.

“You can’t do that in front of all these kids!”

“Then get rid of them,” I said. I located a stone about the size of a football and hefted it. “Kids,” I said more forcefully this time. “Go on and play somewhere––”

A chorus of girls screamed. I turned back to find the circle broken, kids backing away, one of them running for her mother. Those who remained grimaced and made sounds of disgust as Cameron, now in the center of the circle, stomped the crow repeatedly with the heel of his shoe. The bird gave one weak caw and went silent. But Cameron continued to stomp the bird until it was nothing but a pulpy mass of broken bones and feathers, blood and guts.

“Cameron, stop it!” I cried, dropping the rock and sprinting the fifteen feet to where he was. I grabbed him and pulled him away from the bird.

The woman’s three children were heading in our direction along with about a dozen or so other people who wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The woman waved them away. “Don’t come over here!” she yelled, reminding me of a cop at the scene of a crime, telling the morbid people who stopped to stare, “There’s nothing to see here.”

I gave Cameron a shake. “Why did you do that?”

“You were going to do it anyway,” he said simply. “That’s what the rock was for.”

“Yes, but I was going to do it. You didn’t have to. You shouldn’t have.”

He looked at the ground, at his shoes. There was blood and feathers on them. “You were mad at me. I knew you didn’t want to kill the bird, so… so I did it to help you.”

I was stunned. And then I smiled and pulled Cameron into a tight hug. He hugged me back, hard, and put his head on my shoulder. For the first time since Eric left, I felt like things were going to be okay.
“How about we get out of here,” I said. “Go home and make some tomato soup.”

He smiled and nodded, and we left the park, kicking piles of leaves as we walked.