“Don’t let yourself wind up with rooms full of marginal people,” my mother had said. “If you’re having a party, invite only people whose presence at it will make you happy, because those are the people who will have a good time; with them, it will be a success.” In fact, pretty much all of my good friends were coming. Pretty much all of Freddy’s good friends were coming. Almost all of my parents’ good friends were coming. Nearly everyone any of us cared for was going to be crowding on in.

Only one of my mother’s friends responded with regrets and didn’t come. Later, she was to say that she hadn’t understood how close my mother was to the end, but even so—she must have known that this was to be the last of my family’s astonishing parties, the last one at which my mother would quietly lend her air of grace and so make of the flowers and the food and the company something miraculous beyond the simple measure of festivity. I suppose that different people live in worlds of different priorities, and to her this was simply a party, and not very important. She was the sort of person who had never understood why we poured so much energy into the flowers and the food and the invitations and the tablecloths. Perhaps she didn’t believe that we all inhabit a flawed world beyond our control, and that to extract from that world of flaws a moment closer to perfection than daily experience is a great and noble thing. Her friendship—her remarkable friendship, for she was a remarkable friend—had of course been manifest constantly in phone calls and letters and visits, was of course a matter of sensation and emotion and laughter and tears. But it would also have been a part of a collective of love that could for a few hours be brought into one room, and surrounded with peonies, and made wholly palpable.

I talked about it with Helen in the afternoon, while we were getting dressed for the party. I was upset. “Stop being petulant,” said Helen. “She’s a good friend to your mother, and she’s been a good friend in the ways that matter. It’s going to be an astonishing party, but it’s just a party. Try not to get so out of control about it. There’s no point having a fabulous party at which you have a bad time. And if it is your mother’s last party—she’d also like you to have a good time. If you can’t have a good time for yourself, or for me, then have one for her.”