There’s a reason I try to be away from here as often as I can. The worst of the fog may have lifted, letting me see again, but it’s in the most familiar objects that the beast still nestles, exuding itself from the caned rocking chair in the corner, the one that Margaret and I bought together in Southampton, and from the fluted-glass lamps on the sideboard that her parents gave us as a wedding gift. It pulses in the watercolor of the old octagonal house that hangs above the sideboard, over Margaret’s shoulder, as she passes Celia the bulgur salad and Alec the plate of bread, and it slinks onto
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