The other day during lunch Reagan had an out-of-body experience. A zooming out, as if in a film, to a bird’s-eye view of everything below: the dining-room clamor, the tables of women bathed in midday light. And in each of them—chattering, chewing, sniggering, sulking, teasing, laughing; black, brown, bronze, pink, peach, cream—a living thing. In an instant, the room was transformed into a hallowed space, more so than a church. No cardboard wafer not-melting on the tongue, no drone of prayers or incensed air too thick to easily breathe. And yet, there was a sacredness in the room’s abundance.
