I talked up our move to the Big Apple for weeks. It was a bright fall morning when we returned to Grand Street. As we emerged from the clunky old Chevy I’d gotten in trade for the Infiniti (a deal blessed by my father, who swears that anything shiny parked in Manhattan will get broken into), a fire truck blaring its siren zoomed by. “It’s loud,” my daughter winced, shielding her ears.
Before I could give what would become the first of many apologies for the city’s shortcomings, another engine went by, followed right behind by a third. My acquired New York obliviousness to such rackets was still with me; all I heard was the welcome wagon. But the Chicklet reacted to the din as a kind of sensory punishment—which, come to think of it, was exactly how I felt about the tranquillity of the burbs.