All the cars were out. I'd groaned against it. It was up to me to think about how much more there'd be to pick up. Already there was an assemblage of cardboard bricks and hot-track and snap-road that stretched from a ramp against the front door almost the two rooms to the kitchen. My vote hadn't counted. There was nearly every building included I could think of, all their ramps and stuff incorporated into the roadway. We'd had to lug a big tub of the junk up from the basement. And down there were scary shadows.

I found myself attributed with all the construction and emergency vehicles. I didn't know what that meant. Other than that I got gypped out of all the cool cars. But I couldn't really complain about anything without sounding like a whiner. They weren't my cars. Even all the rest was entirely his own. Not just all the stuff, but also all the putting together stuff. All I was was steadying hands, one end bringing up the tub, helping put up the parking garage.

Still I also got almost all the rest of the trucks. I could work on electric highwires or recycle plastic. For all he has all he uses is the three-wheeled one like a land-speed rocket. It flies around the room, blasting all my stuff from way up in the air. Fortunately it's accepted that one of my hose lifts is in fact a laser. I get to blast away some lesser vehicles, but then the rocket returns.

At seven my son wouldn't dare get in his car without a valid license and a reasonable laser shield. I'm doomed. As excitement pitches, all of civilization is doomed. I stand up and stretch, blinking and rubbing my eyes and thinking how much there'll be to clean up. Then I take the steps into the kitchen to get a start on dinner, leaving him to it.

The airplane doesn't fly very well. Most of the rubberband runs out when the thing is back in the grass ten feet away. We get off one good flight, but even then it seems trying to fly it from the crest of Dog Hill is a bad idea. The balsa doesn't stand much of a chance in the wind.

But down below are the trails so we ditch the plane. We keep away from where all the dog people are knotted together with their dogs. Even so we have to watch out. It's against the law for the dogs to be off leash just like it's the law that the people have to pick up after the dogs. But none of that means some mean dog might not come tearing after you, and underfoot we rename it Dog Poop Hill.

We aren't even to the trails before he becomes one exposed chattering nerve. It's probably been a year or two since we've been here, but his memory is rippling pleasures up and down his spine. The trails are asphalt, wide enough for maintenance vehicles, all roads leading to the beautiful raw timbered bridges the park built over the wet and dry creeks. The traffic is mostly dogs and mountain bikes. We chuck stones into the main creek for awhile, then dodge down dirt paths through the vagaries of a fake wilderness.

I'm in the kitchen desperately trying to get dinner going. He walks in from the inevitable carnage in the livingroom, solemnly bearing the yellow truck on the silken pillow of his palm.

"You want to know why this truck is so special to me?"

I know why but let him tell me why.

"Because it's the very first vehicle I ever got."

I come walking all the way down the long stairs all by myself, stopping on the low landing, turning then to face the last bend of steps. I pause there, my heart in my chest loud and clear.

I force myself all the way down to the floor of the house where nobody is, not even sleeping. In the just gathering dawn everything is barely grey or mostly black, the scary alien shapes of the only house I remember. I'm not sure why I'm there. There's no one to fix me breakfast, no one to play with. It seems I might see something amazing or dangerous. I can't force myself out of the hall through the doorways into any of the rooms. The warm familiarity doesn't exist in the dark; everything screams sinister.

All the shadows shouted at me to go back to bed! so I did.