Joni Tevis teaches literature and creative writing at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She is the author of two books of nonfiction, The Wet Collection and the forthcoming Boomtown, from which this essay is taken.
Midnight, she knew, tasted of bitter water but smelled good as damp dirt. The dark hours had taught her that as she’d slid from room to room. A big house creates its own sink of nighttime silence, ponderous as weather; how quiet the place back east had been. But these rooms were noisy as she wanted, alive with the ring of dropped nails, chuffing saws. Hammers swung all night at her command.
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