The newspapers piling up outside Mr. Halvorsen’s home were the first sign that something was wrong. After seven days of silence, I called the landlord, and when we entered, we found him slumped at the kitchen table, where two carefully arranged place settings waited—one occupied, the other empty. Beside the second plate was a worn notebook, filled with twenty years of conversations between Mr. Halvorsen and his late wife, who had died years earlier. Page after page contained his thoughts and imagined replies from her, keeping their love and daily rituals alive long after her death. The final entry read, “You were quiet tonight,” followed by her imagined response: “That’s okay. So was I.” I closed the notebook and left the table untouched, finally understanding that although he had been alone in the house, he had never truly been eating alone.
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