Mary Pat sits at the kitchen table staring at the letter until the words blur. This woman wrote to her as if she were a friend. She signed her last name, which Mary Pat couldn’t even recall this afternoon. She called Mary Pat a fine woman and spoke to a friendship that Mary Pat is hard pressed to grasp. Yes, she’s friendly with Dreamy, but friendship is something else entirely. White broads from Southie aren’t friends with black women from Mattapan. The world doesn’t work that way. For a minute or so, Mary Pat looks for a pen and paper to write a note of condolence to Dreamy, but she can find
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