" You, Reader I wonder how you are going to feel when you find out that I wrote this instead of you, that it was I who got up early to sit in the itchen and mention with a pen the rain-soaked windows, the ivy wallpaper, and the goldfish circling in its bowl. Go ahead and turn aside, bite your lip and tear out the page, but, listen– it was just a matter of time before one of us happened to notice the unlit candles and the clock humming on the wall. Plus, nothing happened that morning– a song on the radio, a car whistling along the road outside– and I was only thinking about the shakers of salt and pepper that were standing side by side on a place mat. I wondered if they had become friends after all these years or if they were still strangers to one another like you and I who manage to be known and unknown to each other at the same time– me at this table with a bowl of pears, you leaning in a doorway somewhere near some blue hydrageas, reading this. "