Patricia O’Donnell
Our house was filled with the scent of their lives: fading lilacs from a bush which overhung their drive; chickens, clucking in the gravel for bits of corn. The carnal smell of earth overturned, heaved up brown and cool to receive the seeds thrust inside.
And the sounds! They filled our house for days, spilling into the yard. Horses snuffling and stamping thick weeds on a September afternoon. A dog’s repetitive barking, tied for years to a chain on the barn. And the wind, rustling through thick leaves, making slow sweeps over deep grass, tinkling wooden chimes left years ago on a far porch, and forgotten.
We heard their voices just before dawn. Their rooster crowed—the rooster who passed away years ago, done in by another neighbor’s dog broken loose from his chain. Then we heard the slapping of doors and the murmur of two voices carrying into the night.
They passed from one page to another: they faded as those people who are not oneself do. They broke apart in our vision and became lost, pieces blowing away in that scented wind. Yet still I hear those voices carrying across the field, and I want to shout, my sounds rising into the sky with theirs.
Patricia O'Donnell
Patricia O'Donnell is Professor Emerita of Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. Her work has appeared in many places, including The New Yorker. Her most recent novel is The Vigilance of Stars. She lives in Wilton, Maine, with her husband. Learn more at patriciaodonnell.weebly.com.