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The summer began I suppose as many summers do, us parents standing around waiting to pick up our kids, last day of school, shaking our heads wondering at the passage of time, at our kids moving on, about to be unleashed into the yawning expanse of summer, and standing there talking the way people will when they think they might not see each other again for a while, coming across more friendly than I suppose we really were, saying how we'd soon be on the phone inviting each other round for drinks, evenings spent on lawn chairs, in back yards, watching the sun drop, our children running barefoot and bathing-suited through piddling sprinklers, silhouetted against the green of a summer evening, idyllic, illusory, somehow imagining ourselves and not our children getting the summer off. As it turned out it was a rainy summer, rainy and cool, and most of the things my wife and I wanted to get to we had to squeeze in between the showers and torrential downpours, a lot of it left undone. With more than half the summer gone, most of it really, I got a call, my first call, from one of the other parents.

Andre. His name was Andre. His daughter and mine sometimes played together, got invited to each other's birthday parties, that sort of thing. He left a message on the machine inviting me out to play pool downtown. We'd never done this kind of thing before, never been out, but it was one of those things that got talked about while standing around watching our kids play after school. Playing pool, drinking beer, how it sounded good. I called and spoke to his wife, a quiet woman. She said Andre was out. I left a message saying I'd like to. Later Andre called back and we set up a time.

The place Andre suggested, the pool hall on George St., was closed for some kind of private party, so we wound up in a bar around the corner. It was busy and smoky, the beer was cheap. There were two tables, both coin-operated. One was open. And so, we chose our cues and started to play. I was grateful we were actually doing something rather than just out for drinks. We somehow had practically nothing to say to one another. We were awkward together and the more it went on like this the more it seemed as if, beyond the playground and our daughters, Andre and I might have nothing to say to one another.

We played a few games, continuing to ignore each other, ignoring how badly we played. Myself, I was ignoring how fast I was drinking, more or less looking for escape of one kind or another, and I was on the verge of making up some excuse to leave when two men with pot bellies and cowboy boots came and challenged us to a game. I almost had the words, 'No, you guys go ahead,' out of my mouth, happy to surrender the evening, when Andre said, 'Sure, why not.'

To my surprise we were still playing almost an hour and a half later, and no better either. We were soundly beaten every game and after every game Andre produced yet more coins, setting us up for further defeat. There was more beer as well. Certainly more than I needed, enough that when things wrapped up, when the games finally stopped being played I didn't even notice how it happened. It just stopped and then we were out in the street and it was raining, much as it had been all summer, and I do remember us stopping in at the Night Kitchen for a slice of pizza and then carrying on and as we walked, huddled against the weather, I slowly realized that Andre was finally talking.

I don't know where it started. 'Do you remember that incredible fear?' he was saying. 'When we were kids? The terror. The thing in the closet, something following you up the steps out of the basement. That feeling? Absolutely mortifying. And even when you knew it couldn't be true it was still there. I think we're kind of living like that now. I mean, we've never known war most of us. We're completely insulated. And for the most part nobody in this country knows what want is. Not most of us. Almost everything we're afraid of, all our fears, they're complicated games, they're things we imagine, things we've been led to believe. Almost none of it's real.'

I turned and looked at him here, the rain coming down around us. He walked with his arms at his sides, hands shoved in his pockets, head bent down, looking at the sidewalk just in front him, as if trying to make sure the place he was about to step next was solid ground. I sort of knew what he was getting at but not really. I said nothing.

'We live in a bubble,' he said next. 'So many possibilities. I have everything I could possibly want, realistically. And still I'm not happy.'

We were quiet after this, or else I don't remember what we said and then I remember the two of us huddled under an awning, about to part and him saying maybe we could get the kids together, that he had a place on a lake not far out of town and I don't know what I said to this, and then he was gone and I was stumbling home completely soaked.

I am a flawed person. I know this. Usually when I find myself with people who don't know me very well I spend most of the time looking for opportunities to impress them. I look for ways to look clever. I name drop, I wait for the chance to mention I went to school with Keanu Reeves. I wait for the right moment and mention the beautiful cars my father owns, or I'll wait for the right moment and mention the famous nightclub I worked in for so many years, in Toronto, before moving away. And I'm getting bored of this. I wish I just knew how to be funny. I have no idea what I'm looking for in other people and the older I get the more my body refuses to let me drink like I'm nineteen. I was sick pretty much half the next day.

That following evening my wife and I were on the couch after the kids had gone to sleep. The mood fairly solemn. A large part of the afternoon had been spent trying to balance the books. Not recommended for hangovers. The outlook wasn't bleak, not completely.

It was around then I remembered Andre talking on the walk home and I mentioned it to my wife, tried to recount it as best I could. She raised her eyebrows.

'I think they're not doing very well, just now,' my wife said. 'She's very ill. Cancer I think. Maybe Leukaemia?'

'I didn't know that,' I said.

'Maybe he was happy you didn't.'

'Maybe,' I said.

'Two kids?' my wife said.

'Two,' I answered. 'Same as us.'

'The same,' my wife whispered and a moment later nodded her head. 'I think these days a lot of people are feeling the same way. More or less. It's hard to escape feeling isolated. And powerless.'

The next day was Sunday. I got up early and made a big breakfast. I fried bacon and sausage. I made scrambled eggs and a plate of toast from the lovely bread we get down the street and by the time it was ready everyone had trickled downstairs and assembled at the table, my son, my wife, my daughter, the sun streaking in through the window.

'Looks like a nice day,' my wife said just as the phone began to ring.
'For a change,' I muttered.
My wife picked up the phone.
'Hello?' she said, and instantly looked across at me.
It was Andre. Did I want to bring my daughter up to their place on the lake? The girls could go swimming. I looked at my wife, said 'Just a minute' to Andre and covered the mouthpiece.
'It's Andre,' I said. 'He wants to know if I'll bring someone in particular up to his cottage for a swim with the older of his offspring.'
'What?' said my daughter, sensing my attempt to speak above her.
'Well?' said my wife.
'Well, there's all sorts of things we wanted to get done around here,' I said.
'Do you want to go?' asked my wife.
'What about the painting?'
'It'll get done. Do you want to go?'
'Where?' said my daughter, now fully alert that something was afoot.
'If you don't, don't,' said my wife.
I uncovered the mouthpiece. 'Hi, Andre?' I said, 'Let me just check with my daughter.'

I asked her if she wanted to go swimming. She nodded excitedly and jumped up and down and my son, too young to really know what was going on, but knowing he was on the verge of being left out, said 'Me too,' and Andre somehow picking up on this through the phone, said we were all welcome to come and it was decided then that I would bring both kids while my wife stayed home, she would do the painting.

I got directions to his cottage. An hour and a half later the three of us were on our way. Shovels, pails, swimsuits and sunscreen.

I have never changed a flat tire in my life. I'd never had a flat. Until that point it was a beautiful drive. Twenty minutes out of town, rolling hills, a few trees already and remarkably beginning to change colour. I was just thinking how we never got to this kind of thing often enough, getting away, when I felt the steering tug to one side.

Pulling over was no problem. There was a wide shoulder. And a minute or two later someone pulled up behind us. I was just leaning in the trunk, trying to see if I could find the spare and the jack and do this kind of thing by myself.

'Problems?' said the man, coming up to me.
'Flat tire,' I said.
'Need a hand?'
'I have CAA,' I said, shrugging, 'But no phone.'

The man offered me his. As he was driving away I wondered if I should have asked to use his phone once more and call Andre, but it was already too late.

The kids and I waited on the hill beside the car. They were grumpy at first but got caught up chasing grasshoppers and collecting a small fortune in pine cones. I sat and watched. We were on top of a large hill and had a good view all around us. I could see patches of forest, a lake, a few farms moulded in and around everything, the world lush and green with the rain we'd been having all summer, and of course once again the clouds were making their appearance, just as they had almost everyday all summer long. The clouds, I could see, were heading for the same place we were going, and though we would probably be dry if we stayed where we were, if we carried on we were likely going to get awfully wet. Swimming would probably be out of the question. For a little while anyway.

I watched my kids jumping around on the rocks, the sun falling warm and bright on them, in the background the dark clouds, and I felt a connection I never seem to feel, to my kids, protective and full of a love that I think about all the time but rarely get to feel. And I thought of Andre, and I don't know why, but I invented a terrible scenario: his wife dying, him taking his life, and what would happen to his kids if such a thing happened. And then I stopped myself. I tried to. But something lingered. A feeling.

In the middle of this I saw a car pull up behind ours and I stumbled down the hill. It was not CAA but another well-meaning driver. I told him we were fine. I said that someone else had stopped and I had used his phone to call CAA, and this newcomer asked if I wanted to phone again or was there anyone else I needed to contact. I thought of Andre and nearly said 'Yes' but didn't. I thanked the man and he turned to go but stopped and offered me some gum. I took three pieces and off he went. As I walked up the hill I wondered at myself, thinking how I knew I probably should have called, but somehow I was enjoying being out in the world, untethered, uncertain when it would all start up again. It would be soon enough. Until then I could be myself, whoever that was.

When I got up near where my kids were once more I saw they had cleared a place in the grass. Making a fort, they said. I looked beyond them and there, same as before, the dark clouds. I could see it was raining to the east and knew that if the sun was down low instead of straight up in the sky it would have given us the most wonderful rainbow, though it wasn't likely I'd have cared. This summer there have been rainbows until they no longer mean a thing. I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth and held on to the other two for my kids, thinking however grateful I ought to be, and I know I ought to be, all I can ever come up with is how terrifically ordinary it all is, everything.