And the smells would hit him, of a family in the midst of their lives, the morning’s bread on the board, the woodstove, stone scent of the slate at the entrance crumbed with mud, the Lab, Leo, knocking the leg of a table with his tail, the pine and oak exhalations of the old house. The smells wafted in intertwining tendrils and filled a space in him he was used to having empty. It was almost painful.
