New York City

Metropolitan Diary: The handoff

Dear Diary:

It was 1995. My wife and I had a 6-month-old daughter, and my wife, a musician, had just returned to work.

Her job often started in the evening before I got home from mine. She would take the train to the subway stop that was right below the building where I worked. I would be waiting there at the turnstile, and she would get off the train and hand the baby over to me before running back to get on the train again.

She usually had to wait for the next train, but on this particular day, the train she had gotten off was still in the station and she was able to return to the seat she had been sitting in.

The woman who was sitting next to her was visibly perplexed. She waited as long as she could before saying something.

“What did you do to that baby you were holding?” she blurted out.

— Nitash Balsara