Coming downstairs so late, the sun is already in the kitchen.
The house smells lovely, but from what source I cannot tell—as if a lady from church had walked through, or someone had cooked and then cleaned up, fastidiously, leaving behind a ghostly soupçon.
It is a holiday-morning smell, free of drudgery or resignation.
I pick the carcass of last night's roasted chicken and chop celery ends and old fists of onion I've saved for the stock—drawn into the kitchen by an invisible hand, or just the bright October sun itself.
In goes a Bay leaf, and before long the aroma of poultry and herb—the anthropomorphism of loving security itself—inhabits the rooms like gathered friends, throwing their coats on the armchairs, laughing and smoking.
The sensation of richness, the wealth of one's experience, is overwhelming, not diminished now by the empty house or rickety memories ... or by the fact that it is past.
The dog rolls upon his back, rubbed by tender, invisible hands.
