The only thing I know is that the guy apparently raised rabbits and there was a divorce. And what the neighbors say: He let it go to wrack and ruin purely out of spite.

But that doesn’t explain why the trophies still glitter on the mantelpiece, even as the ceiling tiles and insulation droop over them. Or why the perfectly good old pickup is now wrapped in brambles. You’d think Sleeping Beauty was snoozing in the cab. It doesn’t explain the warning sticker posted on the front door. There’s a boot on the porch, just one, next to the rotting hole where the feral cat family ducks in and out. There were a few decorative plates on the windowsill before someone pulled up a trash can and broke the glass.

Someone just up and left. Left everything to rot. Are they in jail? Did they just split, in that American way?

There’s no way of knowing by looking at the empty house.

Something else has happened, now that the people have gone. The trees and weeds and berry canes have taken over, the chicory and the clover. The beasts and birds have found a new home. The place is alive, I tell you. More alive than it had been. It is simply not human territory now.

Someone is paying the property tax. And so the house is disappearing, too far gone to be saved, oozing into the wild.