It isn't like he shops as much as he used to. There aren't as many ridiculous Home Shopping Network purchases, no more semi-regular trips to Darrow's equivalent of Brookstone, fewer new suits, certainly no massage chairs that he'll never use or coin bears that won't even sit around collecting dust because they're still in boxes. They were never going to bring him any real satisfaction anyway, and he doesn't need to buy things to try to find that now. Still, in the afternoons, when Hannah's at work and he's got Noah, the mall is one of the places he likes spending time. It's a familiar sort of atmosphere, busy but impersonal, and he can usually find something to get Noah, even if he doubts any new toy could supplant Giraffe in his affection. Noah's dragged that thing everywhere. It would be incredibly adorable, as he tends to find most things his son does, if it hadn't also been a lot of trouble to make sure it didn't get lost.

So far, today, Giraffe has mercifully stayed put in Noah's stroller with him, leaving Jacob one less thing to have to worry about. He isn't sure if that means Noah has gotten better at holding on to him or that he and Hannah have been more successful in keeping it attached to the stroller, but either way, he'll count it as a victory.

By now a pro at juggling shopping bags and stroller both, he's holding a couple as he heads past one store and comes to a stop in front of another, admiring a tie on a mannequin and debating whether or not to go in and pick one up. Distracted, it takes him a moment, then, to realize that with enough other people passing by, he might be — and now is — in someone's way. "Sorry," he says, before he even gets a good look at who's there. "Let me get out of your way."