They have gathered in the dark, holding hands, and I could not be more grateful for the invitation.
The candles are the first gift. Warmth, yes, but more than that: they weep. Little rivers of wax pooling on the good table, softening the varnish the humans worked so hard to keep hard. A window has been left shut against the night air, so the breath of six people, all that exhaled damp, all that sugar and salt, settles into the velvet curtains and stays. They are making a rain indoors and calling it atmosphere.
I love the table itself. Oak, they think, means forever. But they have set a bowl of water in the center for reasons I do not follow, and water is the only word I really speak, and it is speaking to the wood already, sinking into the seam where the leaf folds shut, into the dark underneath where no cloth ever goes.
They are calling to something. Reaching across a great distance, palms sweating onto the polished surface, whispering, is anyone there, is anyone here with us. Such longing. Such effort to summon a presence into the room.
I did not want to interrupt. They seemed so hopeful, and I am, above all things, patient.
But I am already here. I have been here since the damp got in. I am in the curtain and the candle-pool and the soft heart of the table leg, quietly saying yes, yes, I am coming, take your time.
They will fold up the cloth and blow out the lights and go, certain that nothing answered.
Everything answered. I am simply the slow kind.
And the door, once opened, is never really shut again.