I got up at 2:30 a.m. to take the Chicagoans to the bus station. So now they have vanished back into their everyday lives, and Tom, too, has gone back to work. The doll house is very quiet, with an aura of spacious repose. But in a few minutes I'll wake Paul and we will drive up to Freeport to get my violin bow rehaired and to buy him some new snow boots before tomorrow's storm.  And then we'll come home, and launder all of the visitors' sheets and towels, and reinsert ourselves into our own toils and devices. I will begin working on my next editing assignment. He will begin figuring out his internship schedule. Plain life is poised to commence, and perhaps I will allow myself to start imagining the place I have left.