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The children think their father is peculiar because he listens to classical music out back in a lawn chair. All the other daddies mow the lawn and paint the house and play basketball with their children.  But our daddy lazes in the back yard, in a lounge chair, listening to classical music from his portable radio. He reads the newspaper. He dozes.

“Daddy, come to the park,” says Agatha, our 6-year-old. She tugs on his shirt.

“Let’s just wait till the piece is over,” he says.

Agatha tugs again. “Please daddy.”

“It’s almost over. Then we’ll go.”

Agatha runs to me with her sad little mommy please eyes but I tell her, “Agatha, you must be patient and wait until daddy is ready.”

I distract her, I succeed, her tears evaporate and she answers cheerfully, “Okay mommy.”

Agatha sits down on the grass next to her daddy’s  lawn chair and she studies the grass and the soil. She has already helped me plant petunias. She dug two holes and watered the two plants we lowered into the holes together. After, she washed her hands, but she still has mud on her knees.

Helen is on the porch with her coloring book and crayons. She is four and her coloring is abstract expressionist. Nobody understands it. She wanted to wear her pink dress, with the white bow, and I agreed after she promised not to play in the dirt. She is sticking to the porch far away from the dirt.

“See mommy,” she says as she holds up the book and its lines of black green and ruby red splayed in some mysterious order across the page.

“That’s wonderful darling,” I say. “What is it?”

“Mommy you silly. It’s a clown.”

“It’s a wonderful clown.”

“Thank you mommy. Daddy look.”

Daddy looks up from his crossword puzzle and he stares at her coloring.

“Is that you Helen?” he asks.

“No daddy, it’s a clown.”

“And you’re a clown.”

“Daddy, I’m not a clown.”

“You’re not? Well what are you?”

“I’m a girl.”

“That’s right, you are. I think you’d make a good clown.”

She giggles, turns the page of her coloring book and leans back over it to begin another project.

A yellow jacket buzzes around my head and refuses to leave so I must stand and walk away from the flower bed.

“Go away,” I say, but it follows, so I retreat indoors for a glass of water. Helen follows me.

“Mommy,” she says, “may I go to the park with daddy and Agatha?”

I sip my cold water and look at her sorry pink cheeks and blue eyes and her dark brown hair falling on her pink dress.

“What about the dirt?” I ask.

“I can change,” she answers, smiling because she has an answer.

“If you change, and daddy says you can go, then it’s okay with me,” I say.

She smiles and runs outside to ask her daddy. The music is in its final movement and he is ready for the trip to the park. Now it is his turn to play god, to be a hero, to forget there is anything in this world other than the perfection of his children and his music and, I hope, me. I walk back to the flower bed to plant the last petunia.