Four years after the pie nobody cut, the table was full and the basement chair stayed under the cloth. Derrick said grace short. Patrice had already cut the pie. Vanessa passed the greens and warned they were salty. Imani was in Dayton on a shift, texting a one-line happy Thanksgiving to both houses. Both houses. The phrase was new and careful. Patrice read it and did not make it a toast. Toasts were scenes. She texted back a period and a word: proud. The word was salt. She used it sparingly. It was correct today. The game scored. A child cheered. The cheer was only a game. The chair was not empty in the room because it was not in the room. The truth had a seat at a different table, and this table knew its name, and the pie was already cut, and that was the grace.
The around-the-corner car became a thing Patrice could say without the room tilting. She said it once to June, in the store, between detergents. June said you were in the car and he let you be the work thing. Patrice said yes. June said and now you are not. Patrice said now I am the person who sees the confirmation. Seeing was the upgrade. Upgrade was not romance. It was a phone on speaker. She bought the detergent. Detergent was a life. She went home. Derrick had done the rice. Rice was a grammar. She ate it. The bank-colored room held them. Ugly and true. She could live with ugly. Ugly did not stand behind a chair and wait all year. Ugly sat down.
Imani’s first clinical week was a blur she described in four lines. Lorraine sent the four lines to Derrick. He read them to Patrice. Reading aloud was showing. Patrice said she will be tired. He said yes. They did not send advice. Advice was a hunger. A tired was a fact. Facts were the new table. Imani slept. The city did not call her to a pie. The not-call was love of a kind. Patrice understood that kind. She had wanted it on the day the pie stayed whole. She had it now, in reverse. She did not summon. She confirmed. Confirmation was enough.
Vanessa’s friend asked for the movie again. Vanessa said the movie is over and the dishes remain. The friend laughed. Vanessa did not. She meant it. Dishes were the Friday. She brought greens salty on purpose so the joke would have a body. Imani, on the one Sunday, ate them and said still salty. Vanessa said then the joke works. They left it. Leaving jokes was a skill. The skill kept the table from becoming a annual trial. Trials were for the one Thursday. Thursday was done.