Jack and Diane

It's been a weekend of emotionally loaded blogs, though this piece carries quite a different charge. Read the second installment of the story of Jack and Diane:

They followed the tracks for several miles. They passed trees and ponds, and then a small subdivision. They could hear children playing in the street on the other side of the houses. There was something in the grass.

"Look," she said, and pointed.

It was a hobby horse, its head made of burlap and stuffed with straw, and mounted on a broomstick. It hadn't come from any store. Someone had made this for a child.

Jack picked it up. The girl pretended not to notice that his lower lip was quivering.

"Why?" he asked. "Why doesn't the child for whom this was made love it anymore?