Not Here

Searching for pillowcases trimmed with lace that my mother-in-law once made, I open the chest of drawers upstairs to find that mice have chewed the blue and white linen dishtowels to make their nest, and bedded themselves among embroidered dresser scarves and fingertip towels. Tufts of fibers, droppings like black caraway seeds, and the stains of birth and afterbirth give off the strong unforgettable attar of mouse that permeates an old farmhouse on humid summer days. A couple of hickory nuts roll around as I lift out the linens, while a hail of black sunflower shells falls on the pillowcases, yellow with age, but intact. I’ll bleach them and hang them in the sun to dry. There’s almost no one left who knows how to crochet lace.... The bright-eyed squatters are not here. They’ve scuttled out to the fields for summer, as they scuttled in for winter—along the wall, from chair to skirted chair, making themselves flat and scarce while the cat dozed with her paws in the air, and we read the mail or evening paper, unaware.