I sat in my empty house, dark out already at four o’clock, looking at the pictures of people’s dinner tables and the pies their husbands or wives or brothers-in-law had made, or those they’d picked up at neighborhood bakeries. People on Duchess’s timeline commented on each other’s offerings and wished each other a happy day. It was a party that Duchess had thrown together at the last minute, and everyone was invited to her imaginary table in the ether. It wasn’t a real party, but it was almost as good, wasn’t it? We were together, sort of—in our thoughts, which is all there ever is anyway—and
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