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sure would never be used again.

two
    January–February 2003
    Friends and family returned to their lives, the house was quiet.
    My new loneliness frightened me. Living alone with my child was not what I had planned.
    A small group of friends, family, and Helen, a caring therapist whom Henry and I had been seeing for several years as a couples counselor, graciously surrounded Liza and me in the blurred weeks following the funeral. My friends tended to my daughter when I could not. They brought food into my house, filled and emptied my dishwasher, hauled my garbage cans to the curb, as Henry used to do. They listened to me cry and held me.
    Within two weeks I felt able to take Liza to school again and do some work, run a load of laundry. I wanted to feel like a competent human being again, in charge of my new life.
    My brother, David, began the process of reorganizing my financial life and wading through Henry’s will. His wife, Susan, helped me tidy and organize my house during their weekend visits. My parents called daily.
    Other friends invited Liza and me to join their families for meals to blunt the loneliness of too many evenings on our own. But sometimes visiting friends was unbearable. As we departed,offering thanks, they stood in the warm incandescent light of their doorways, waving good-bye. It didn’t matter that I knew how complicated family life was, that their lives weren’t perfect. They had the illusion of perfection, a warm family feeling. Whatever illusion we had was gone, and I knew they pitied me. My life was a mess, but I didn’t want pity.
    Our house had become too large. I found myself getting lost. My prior roles of sous-chef and weekend hostess were over. Liza and I lived quietly in just a few rooms. I dropped Liza off to play with her friends at Cathy’s or Emily’s house more than their children came to ours. The door to Henry’s office stayed closed except when my brother visited. The dining room was unused, passed through weekly by my housekeeper, who dutifully dusted the tables and the serving platters, stacked in the same concentric ovals I had arranged after the New Year’s Eve party.
     
    Liza and I sat in our kitchen one evening. I twirled a spoon in my soup bowl. Liza ate more enthusiastically, then put her spoon down on the table.
    “How do we know that we are not people in a movie?” she asked.
    I looked at her, not sure how to reply.
    “Mama,” she continued, reframing her question, “how do we know that things are real?”
    Great. Now we have a junior existentialist in the house.
    “Well,” I said, “we don’t know. We just have to hope that what we think is real is real.”
    “But how do we know?” she asked, insistently.
    Ah, a scientist, who wants empirical evidence.
    “We don’t know,” I said. “We just have to hope.”
    “Mama,” Liza said, “how do we know that things aren’t a dream? You know, how sometimes life feels like a dream? Do you ever feel that way?”
    “Yes, sweetie, I feel that way all the time.”
     
    I forgot to drink water unless a glass was placed before me. My face became gaunt, my lips, parched and peeling. Neighbors and friends brought food—casseroles wrapped in foil, roast chickens from a nearby gourmet shop, containers of homemade lasagna. I placed all the offerings in my refrigerator.
    Liza needed to eat, of course. I warmed up the food, placed dishes in front of us on the table in the blue-floored kitchen, and watched her eat. I dished a small amount of food onto my plate, took a few bites, and pushed the remainder around with my fork, hoping to look purposeful.
    Liza was not fooled. “We aren’t really a family anymore,” she declared thoughtfully one evening as she spooned up yet another bowl of Annie’s boxed macaroni and cheese. I murmured something about reinventing family with just us two, but it felt false. Dinnertime had been a time when we were together, the three of us, eating Henry’s carefully prepared food.