Chapter 71

He began to walk up the drive, thinking how different the smell was from the quiet residential streets of the city, but he forbore to compare them; they were both wonderful in their own way. At that moment, thissmell, the very feelof the countryside, wild and natural, was different in a special way. It smelled, and felt, like memories.

Moving along the drive with deliberate slowness, Garner felt no sense of hurry. He savored the experience. But when he crested the rise and saw the figure of his aunt sitting in a chair on the front porch, he picked up his pace, eager to feel beneath his sneakers the wood stairs leading up to the porch. He called and waved, and when she waved back, he felt a reassuring sense of familiarity and affection.

The house, he noted as he approached, was unchanged, but his aunt—