Quiet

He had to be careful because every time there was a noise she would jump. And he was always making noises. Pieces of wood he splintered with a knife for kindling sent her scuttling straight out of the room. Or closing the iron door of the woodstove. Any door, really, even the microwave. He ended up just leaving doors open. Walk into the kitchen at any given moment and all the cabinets would be agape, as if they’d been caught in the act of speech and frozen like that. The lawnmower she took as a personal affront. Leaf-blowers, garbage trucks. Men put noise into the world, she would say. And he let the grass grow, the leaves pile up. At night animals would rustle through it. He couldn’t actually hear them, but he knew they were there.