The Country House
by Erin Napier

I grew up climbing dirt mounds and magnolia trees in the country, playing a game I called “post office” wherein I would climb to the top of the tree and scratch a message into the velvety backside of a magnolia leaf, then drop it for my mom or cousin or brother to find and read when it landed. The bathwater was brown at the end of the day, my hair in tangled knots, mosquito bites on my legs, smelling like the wind and dirt of the natural world.