I told Mr. Pierce how we lived in a cottage, my parents and I. There was a wood with a river. A garden. A hill for walking. Laughter in the kitchen where my mother arranged flowers and my father painted. It was, in a word, the only word. Home. I braved a look at him. “They both died within the same year, and home was taken. Gone. I’ve not been back since. Couldn’t bear it, I think, to see others living in our places. It was such a wrench. To be ripped away. To scramble for earth and air. To find some of that sense in a person only to lose it again. I� I can’t bear it, Mr. Pierce. Can’t bear to
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