The Smell Of Other People's Houses

Content Warning: This section discusses domestic abuse, sexual abuse, substance use disorder, and mental health conditions. 

Ruth lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, and recollects her family before her father’s death. Her father was a hunter, and she recalls him carrying deer home and cutting off the meat. She would touch the animal and feel its heart stopped. Ruth thinks of her parents dancing around the kitchen and recalls her mother’s smell and beauty.

Ruth’s father frequently spoke against Alaska’s statehood and its threat against Alaskans’ hunting and fishing rights. When Ruth was five years old and her mother was pregnant with her sister, Lily, her father traveled to Washington, D.C., to defend Alaska’s independence. Her father’s plane crashed on the way home, and Lily was born a day later. Ruth’s mother experienced a mental health crisis after her husband’s death.

Ruth and Lily were sent to live with their strict, Catholic grandmother. For Ruth, her grandmother’s place smells like “an old person’s house” (4), and she feels homesick. Soon, Alaska achieves statehood, but Ruth only wants to remember the past.

Five years later, on Ruth’s 10th birthday, a devastating flood occurred in Fairbanks.