I am sitting on this bench and it is peeling paint and my son is digging in the woodchips with a plastic spoon we took from a takeout place and he looks small and he looks messy and I hate that I notice it but I do. The sun is hitting the chrome on those fancy strollers and it is blinding and I feel like I am vibrating with this weird anger because every other kid here looks like a GAP ad and my boy is wearing his cousin’s hand-me-down sweater that has a permanent mustard stain on the cuff and the sleeves are frayed but it is what we have. I look at the other dads with their joggers and their $800 strollers and I feel like a ghost or a mistake and they don’t even look at me but I know they see the scuffed shoes and the way my boy just sits in the dirt instead of climbing the ladder like the rest of them. I watch him and he is just staring at a bug and he isn't playing with the others and I know the milestones say he should be social and he should be talking more but he stays quiet and it feels like a heavy weight in my lungs. My mother calls me every night from the village and she asks if he is talking yet and she tells me how my cousin’s son is already reading and I tell her he is fine and he is smart but I am lying through my teeth and the guilt is like a physical sickness in my throat and I just want to hang up and never pick up the phone again. He is two and he hasn’t said a word today and maybe he won’t and I see that blond kid over there pointing at birds and naming them in two languages and my chest gets tight and I want to scream at him to shut up but I just grip my cold coffee and wonder if I am RUINING him because I am the one home and not her. This woman next to me is wearing these expensive leggings and she is talking to another mom about some private preschool that costs more than my rent and they are looking at me but not really looking and I know I am invisible to them because I am just the guy in the faded hoodie with the accent they can’t place. I see her kid run up and say "Look, Mother, a ladybug" and he says it so clear and my heart just drops into my stomach because my son can't even say "apple" without pointing and grunting and I wonder if it's because I don't talk to him enough or because I'm not good enough at this. It is the clothes that get me the most and I know it is stupid but I see the labels on the other kids and then I look at the frayed hem on my son’s pants and I feel like a failure as a provider even though I’m the one here doing the work. Back home a man stays in the office or the field and he comes home to a clean house and a quiet wife but here I am wiping snot off a plastic slide and feeling the eyes of every mother on the back of my neck and it is exhausting. They think I’m sweet or they think I’m lazy but they don’t know I traded my whole life to be here and now I’m just a guy who can’t even teach his son how to say papi without him crying and reaching for the dirt again. This one lady in the Lululemon tights walks up and her kid is a goddamn giant and he’s doing pull-ups on the bars and she asks me how old mine is and I say two and her face does this little twitch. She says oh mine is only eighteen months and he’s already potty trained and she smiles that fake sharp smile and I want to tell her to go to hell but I just nod and look at my shoes and feel the shame rising up like a fever. I’m failing him and I’m failing my father who died thinking I’d be a big shot and I’m failing my wife who works twelve hours a day so I can sit here and watch our son fail to meet his milestones and it’s all a big joke. My hands are shaking and I need a cigarette but I can’t have one and I just want to grab him and run home and hide under the covers but the sun is still out and the park is still full of successful people. I see the blond kid again and he is sharing his organic fruit snacks and my son reaches out and the mom moves her kid away real fast like my boy has a disease and maybe it’s just the stained clothes or the way he doesn’t make eye contact but it feels like a total rejection of everything we are. I look at his little hands and they are dirty and he is so innocent and he doesn't know that he is a disappointment to the neighborhood or that his father is a wreck and I just want to protect him from that realization for as long as I can but I know the world is going to be mean to him because he is different and because we don't have the *plata* to polish him up. I am writing this on my phone while he finally naps in the car and the screen is cracked and my thumb keeps catching on the glass and I just feel so empty and so full of rage at the same time and I don't know who to talk to because my wife wouldn't understand and my friends back home would just laugh at a man complaining about being at a park. I am stuck in this middle place where I am not a real man by their standards and I am not a good enough father by these standards and I am just drifting and I am tired and I just want to go back to a time when I didn't feel so SMALL.