On a hot Thursday morning, deep in month eight of the red tide outbreak, Cicely and Zinnia walked together to Zinnia’s hideout to retrieve a cold bag of placentas.
At first, you place the fruit very methodically around the house. A mango in the microwave. Limes replacing lightbulbs. A grapefruit in the coffee pot.
It happened on the corner of 147thand Miller, beneath the long branches of an oak hanging over the corner. It happened often enough— usually to white kids crossing U.S.1 in front of the University of Miami or other tourists on The Beach—but seldom in this residential area, and never on this intersection.
Mr. Chuck Stonehill walked over from next door and told me he found a tackle-box, a bullet, and a rubber by the picnic table in the backyard under the palm tree between our rusting beach trailers.