Your mom and dad walk sometimes. Sometimes to rent movies. Sometimes to buy pens. Sometimes to buy milk. Once in a while, coworkers mention they've seen them walking, and those people wonder where your mom and dad live. "We live close," they say. They don't want to appear overzealous.
Sometimes to buy videogames. Sometimes to buy magazines. Sometimes to buy donuts.
They hold hands until it gets too hot and then they hold pinkies. If they're both on the same foot, one of them will do a little skip. They're short, but they don't let anything tall or wide come between them. They pass on the same side of street signs. They agree on which direction to go around a car parked on the sidewalk. They only let bushes come between them if the bushes are shorter than knee level. Then it's okay. Your mom wants your dad to walk on the side closest to the street. He almost always remembers.
Sometimes to buy pizza. Sometimes to buy thank-you notes. Sometimes to buy bike tires.
Once, in the middle of an empty house lot, on a freshly-cut tree stump, there was a flyer for summer jobs. No one took the phone numbers. Twice they walked past a man breakdancing with a cigarrette in his mouth. There was no music playing so they weren't sure if they should look at him. They smile and nod at other people walking by, but that's the only time people get to practice their thousand-yard stare. Your dad looks away from the landscaping around the new Spanish-style townhouses. He looks away from the new brick and metal credit union. He watches for the signal to cross the street.
