They are gone and I am here, alone. Sitting at the black table with a vase of red and green flowers, waiting for Friday. It's warm. That's for sure. It's going to snow. That's what he said. "Friday is iffy," that's what he wrote. But he meant it was going to snow--I can tell after all these years.
I am in love today. Not with someone in particular. I am in love with everyone who has ever written a book and with people who learn to swim after 50, and with the people who teach them.
I want a party. I don't want to plan it and I don't want to be the center of attention there. I want to sit by the fire and watch the others come and go. This is not new. I have been doing this most of my life.
He lights the candles and starts the music. He leaves the soft blankets turned down slightly and he tells me how things are changing on the top stories of the mansion. I ask if the gate still creaks when you open it and he says, "Yep." I must go there soon. It makes me uncomfortable to ask the butler for anything, but I'll take my cell phone and text him and he will tell the butler what to do. I'll ask to have things left on a tray outside the door.
My new pajamas have sock monkeys on them.
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