Inhaling the scent of burning leaves, she remembered a time long ago.
     Back then, she had longed for the autumn leaves with their reds and yellows and deep russets, crisp under her feet as she marched along a country road, waving at school friends and waiting for the big yellow bus.  Fall meant the cessation of summer harvests with the inevitable packing sheds steamy with the pungent odor of rotting fruit.  Autumn signaled a farewell to long days beginning at the first hint of dawn and ending at dusk, followed by late-night suppers.  And good-bye to days of wandering barefoot along the dusty rows between the trees, while layers of dirt formed a crackling patina dislodged only by several soakings in hot pails of water.  Autumn days meant blessed release from her father’s twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance.
     On the heels of the fading summer days came the beginning of a new school year, complete with an array of homemade clothing sewn with generous seams so they would last all year.  Skirts and jumpers in red or green plaid with matching white cotton blouses, worn with deep red or brown oxfords.  And little white ankle socks.  Finished off by a matching book bag slung around the neck and across one shoulder.
     Lainey thought about all of these images as she ran through the streets of her new neighborhood.  And like the autumn days of long ago, she hoped that this one would bring a host of new sense memories.