This year on the Fourth the kids heckled the fireworks, shouting at them to be bigger and louder until they were, and then they ran away and danced in the smoke.
I sat on a bench with my foot wrapped with ice in an ace bandage; it was itchy and doubled in size from when I stepped on a bee when leaving the beach two days before.
We lit the sparklers in anticipation of dusk. After the sun went down the adults wore hooded sweatshirts but the kids that were sitting preferred being snuggled in blankets to stay warm, and who can blame them.
At the end of the night Lucy pronounced herself "Dance Dodge Champion of the World." Four days later she is still blinking to get all that smoke out of her eyes.
