And now the quiet house.

Furnace murmurs. Tea kettle sighs into silence on the stove. Cat, feeling bereft, curls on the couch between Tom and me. He is sad, and not sorry to be quiet; none of us is sorry to be quiet. It is the best medicine for this kind of sadness. Two mornings in a row I have cried after partings, tears leaking down my cheeks as I drove away from the bus station. It is terrible to watch my children walk away from me, and it is wonderful to watch them walk into their own lives. Both things are true, and that is why I always cry.

Well, it was a glorious week, and now it is over. Today I'll wash piles of laundry, stow away beds and bedding, refit my study, learn how to be two people and a cat again. It's a good life we have here. I am reminding myself of this. Inexorably, we construct our patterns of space and dependence.

I love my children so much. I am so happy that they are finding their own aeries. If they lived around the corner, maybe we would annoy one another more . . . who knows. As it is, there is no friction. We spent a week together, six people in a small house, without an eye roll or a cross word. The ease of plain affection: that is a kindness in itself.

It's cold outside. It's warm inside. I'm drinking tea and sitting under lamp-glow as the sky slowly brightens. My children will travel into sunlight.