About this story
You play Irene Redfield: settled in Harlem, married, careful. Clare crossed over years ago and married a white man who uses a nickname at the tea table that nobody in the room can laugh at. Eighteen chapters of a friendship you can neither safely keep nor safely end.
Who you’ll meet
Clare Kendry, with the room that is watching her.
How it opens
October sunlight crossed a little pile of ordinary morning letters.
The last envelope was long, thin, and foreign among the square white ones.
ZulenaShall I take the breakfast tray downstairs?
Leave it until I have opened the last letter.
ZulenaYes, ma'am. The coffee will keep a little while.
Choose
It looks too grand for morning business.
I know the hand, though not the paper.