Standing at the threshold to the cabin, Abby can smell her children. Their scent is faded, an undertone to the smell of mildew, rotted leaves, and rain, but she can still find it. It has been many years. Where are they now? She knows, but it hardly matters.
    She steps in, brushing aside the cobwebs that are draped over everything. Inside, it’s warm. She knocks on the walls. They feel solid beneath her knuckles. The floor creaks but is firm. An old tool bench sits in the far corner. A rusted hacksaw hangs over its edge, and a pile of scrap wood rests on its surface. The scene is haloed in mottled light that filters through the dirt-splattered windows.
    She believes places can be haunted. She believes that an aura lingers, that violence only slowly burns itself out. Still, she thinks it will work.

It will take some effort, but it will work. mmm As she walks back to the house, the cabin receding behind her, she tries to cast her thoughts toward the future. She feels freer the further from the cabin she travels. Her long strides carry her over fallen logs splintered across her path, shoulders brushing past the milkweed. The afternoon is beautiful, the air thick with the smells of late summer and the white noise of insects. She can imagine being able to enjoy such a day, sitting on her porch with a cold glass of iced tea sweating in her hand, her mind and soul as boundless as the birds that circle lazily above her. It is possible for her to think of unbroken sleep, of a full belly, of being in repose, her body as soft and supple as the churned dirt of her garden.
    She sits at the kitchen table and thinks. Perhaps Tom Wattle, who used to live right on the other side of her property line in the old house that is only visible when the winter claims all the leaves. He must be old now but perhaps not too old. He had always been strong and kind. She phones him. He seems surprised to hear from her. They exchange pleasantries, him telling her about his adult children, her avoiding the same.
    “To what do I owe the occasion?” he asks.
    “Remember that cabin out on the other side of my property? I want to rent it out. But first I need to fix it up. I don’t suppose you do that kind of thing anymore?”
    Tom laughs, a deep, loamy laugh that makes her smile. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m 80.”
    “I guess maybe I did. Time operates so strangely for me now.” They both pause, the line filled with a heavy silence.
    “Well, what about Trevor?” he asks finally.
    “May that son of a bitch never darken my doorway again.”
    “I guess that’s right,” Tom says, a questioning note in his voice. She has always wondered what people know, but the uncertainty hangs about her and the family like a ward that keeps everything from crashing down.
    “Well, thanks anyway. Come by for coffee sometime if you like.”
    Abby hangs up and then slumps down at the antique walnut table she and Trevor found and restored, the afternoon sun leaving the kitchen in shadows. She looks over at the pile of bills on the counter, some envelopes a foreboding red. She doesn’t want to move. Abby has lived her entire adult life in this nineteenth-century country house with its boxy rooms and narrow halls, its creaky floorboards and loose railings. Trevor had loved this house as much as she did. He had spent many a Saturday making improvements, wielding his hammer with a surety that was almost saintly.
    No, she thinks. No.

She drives to the grocery store the next day through a misting rain that scatters rainbows across her vision. She slows to a crawl, turns into the parking lot, and parks with a relieved heave of her shoulders.
      Inside, she buys pasta, tomato sauce, and potatoes. She is too old to shop as if she is a poor college student, maximizing calories for as low a cost as possible, but here she is. As she makes her way down the aisles, her stomach rumbling, she keeps her eyes on the shelves. She doesn’t want to see or talk to anyone. It’s too late now to explain anything.
    Her daughter, Amelia, enjoyed accompanying her to the grocery store when she was younger. Amelia had been an animated and curious child, and they’d carry on wide-ranging conversations as they mean-dered through the aisles. It was the saddest thing when she had grown dark and morose, had turned inward on herself. It had been easy, at first, to blame the change on teenage angst. By the time Abby could no longer pretend, it was too late.
    The cashier rings her up, and she breathes again when the purchase goes through on her debit card. It’s enough food to last a few days. After that, she’ll have to figure something out. She still has her garden to tide her over for another week. Her next social security check is not due for two weeks.
    In the parking lot, a bag slips from her hand, and a jar of tomato sauce explodes on the ground. She regards the red nebula on the pave-ment before bending down to carefully pick up the rest of the scattered groceries. She holds the remaining bag tightly, careful not to let it too slip away.

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