That's not dancing, that's karate.

The only three up for having any fun that night were the three of us, so we went to the neighborhood playground. The schoolchildren had left a kickball out after recess, so we descended on it for a game of kick-the-ball. We stood in a triangle very representative of our situation while the dog ran around in the dark, sniffing and pissing all over the field.

It was muddy and warm, a springtime evening in mid-December, the kind of night where coats are shed and left in a heap at the entrance. The railroad tracks edging the park rumbled so loud that we had to shout our stances on politics and pop culture.

It was a perfect atmosphere for relearning each other. We stood too far apart to denote our physical alliances; we were just three people who, by all rights, should be best friends but instead formed a triangle of past and current lovers trying to reestablish a sense of our drastically altered circumstances.

The sky looked like a pillowed mattress, stars and clouds giving odd texture to infinity. Decades later, when we were tired of kicking and mud covered our shoes completely, we retired to the swing-set. I lay down on the damp rubber of the playground, spreadeagled, and looked upwards. Somehow, I am always reassured by a sight that fills my vision completely, like a starry night or a passing train. Those things always provide a sense of stability that seems to make up for the fragility of people.

We trudged across the street, home, mud-soaked and made sleepy by our physical and emotional efforts. We were no longer perfect equals or three points on a triangle. The awkward jealousies and self-doubts had quickly come creeping back, but the years in the park had taken us forward at least one tiny and monumental step.