One fear of mine: My children resenting these days in the future. So I told my wife to put all of it aside for one day. For one day, I said, let’s focus on being the father and the mother, not the husband and the wife.

Fine, she said, as long as you plan it.

I reminded her about the poppy festival. I wanted to say, This has been the plan for weeks. Instead I said, Let’s take them to the poppy festival on Sunday.

She mentioned something about the crowds on Sundays.

I said, It’s either Saturday or Sunday, and won’t church keep some people away on Sunday?

She said, What about Monday?

I had to remind her that they have school. Had she forgotten? Again I didn’t say anything, but I pinched the back pocket of my jeans. We were in her bedroom. Our bedroom. Soon to be her bedroom, or someone else’s altogether.

We have two children, a boy and a girl. Luke is nine, and Jessica is seven. The last time we went to the poppy festival, Jessica was still a part of my wife. Baby Luke had his face painted by a clown with blue eyes. I volunteered Luke from a crowd of parents and children. The clown asked us, No brothers or sisters for this little guy? And I said, Funny you should ask, and went to put my hand on her stomach. The clown said, What a blessing. It took every piece of her not to flinch at the sight of him. I could see it. Since she was a girl in Lancaster she’d been afraid of clowns. Nothing is scarier than artificial happiness. But up close this clown seemed softer, and she allowed him to put face-paint on her stomach, for our baby Jessica, whom I can’t remember not knowing. She let the clown paint her stomach, and the mothers in the crowd made sounds that sounded like love and community.

This time, of course, will be different. Not just for my family, but for everyone. I can remember the day I realized things were changing. I walked alongside Luke and Jessica as they rode their bicycles. Jessica’s training wheels made a certain noise. Sometimes we’d take these midday trips to the Stater Bros., and I’d let them choose a DVD or video game to rent. Other times we’d stop at the Thrifty’s and take scoops of ice cream back to their parked bikes. But on this day we came back to discover that Luke’s bike had been stolen. I was naïve then. I ate a beautiful cone of green pistachio ice cream. We waited there hopeful that the person who’d taken the bicycle, sluggish with conscience, might come back. Eventually Luke asked, Why my bike and not hers. What could I tell him? We walked home, and I asked Jessica privately not to ride her bike. When I told my wife, she said, And you’re surprised because why, exactly? Have you seen the people moving in around here? Sometimes you could almost see the italics when she spoke.

Last year’s poppy festival, according to those who attended, went off without a hitch, so I’m hopeful that for at least one aspect of our community culture, order has been retained. I have friends – Martha from the bank, for instance – who are, I’m not afraid to say, socially backward people. Martha refused to open a Mexican’s account because his English wasn’t up to her standards. She went on her lunch break and left me to work with him. Meanwhile she misspelled the word bureaucrat on her rally sign. I’m different, I hope. I’m not afraid of change. I’m afraid of the disintegration of a good thing. Update: Nothing is scarier than the disintegration of a good thing.

Or maybe that’s her excuse, too. Update: Nothing is scarier than seeing your reasonable excuse used unreasonably.

Sunday’s come. We pack the car with blankets we haven’t used in years. My wife drives, maybe for the last time, and I turn in the passenger seat so that I can look at my children in the back. I ask Luke, Do you remember the last time you went to the poppy festival? Luke’s getting to an age where he’s not afraid to disappoint me. He says, How can I remember? I was just a baby. Jessica says, I remember. They’ve heard the story about the clown a thousand times. Jessica says, It’s my very first memory. Luke gives her a hard time about it, using the word logical, which he’s just begun to use everywhere. My wife says some quiet would be nice. She’s in a bad mood and it’ll only get worse. I don’t care. Soon we’ll be at the poppy festival and the orange flowers will turn the day into a color-coded memory, and the color will give that memory a smell, and a flavor, a chocolate orange, peeled away in layers, and the flavor will turn into a feeling low in my chest when I think about it, and – scariest of all – when I don’t think about it.

______________________________________________________________ Chris McCormick has been published in Eleven Eleven Journal and Fiddleblack, and was nominated for the Best New American Voices anthology. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 2009, and earned a merit scholarship to the New York State Writers’ Institute.