It was Christmas Eve, and around mid-morning, Gail took the kids to town to get some last-minute gifts to exchange with the Sloan kids, just down the road. Hal stayed in the tool shed most of the day, welding or tinkering with the machinery scattered around the yard. He gave the outward appearance of a busy farmer trying to get machinery ready for spring. But in the indrawn slump of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes, I could tell he was just trying to hold back the helpless wail of despondency threatening to break the dam of his self-control. I watched from the house as he scurried from one chore to the next, desperately trying to outrace the bitter tide of despair.
By late afternoon, it made me sick to my stomach, and I had to get away. I backed out of the driveway and drove west, away from the house, down the narrow blacktop road, across the drainage ditches crosshatching the countryside. I found myself turning left onto a small gravel road running down the east side of the acreage we had always referred to as the Wilson Place, after the people from whom my grandfather rented and Dad subsequently purchased it. It was the first farm, after the home farm, that my family had owned. I drove slowly past the dormant fields, corn stubble pointing randomly this way and that, jutting from the dark-grey, lumpy surface. These fields were rich, fertile—and Dad had them cut to grade, so they were easy to irrigate. They could be counted on to produce, year after year. Somebody would get a bargain with the Wilson Place.
As I looked out over the level expanse I realized that still within me there was a fragment of disbelief in the loss of the farm. How could it be that my family would not be here anymore? What would move in to occupy the place within my soul reserved for the farm? It had always been my starting point for self-definition. But someone was buying the North Pole, moving it to Venus. I felt like a salmon returning to its birth-stream, only to find a dam built across the way. And Hal, what of him? I still felt the scalding shame of his futile anger as he lashed out at me, and through me, the forces of uncaring economics that offered solutions without feelings, a life with no heartbeat, survival with nothing to live for. I was not sure my brother had the necessary emotional equipment to survive in the no-name world to which I had inured myself. It struck me that I had learned to live in such a world largely because I knew that always behind the faceless masses, above the ever-shifting heads of the crowd, beyond the manufactured, plastic skyline of my daily grind, there existed a place where people connected with each other, a place where roots ran deep and each person counted. A resting-place from the impassive onrush of the urgent. A home place.
In another moment of epiphany, it came to me that I carried this home place inside me. It had been growing there since my childhood, awaiting a day like this, and I just now realized it. It was born of my love for the farm, nurtured by the love its people shared in good times and bad, tempered by trial and disappointment, strengthened by the dogged faith in God that ran throughout, like the theme of a fugue. The home place lived within me now, separate from the geographical and legal facts about the farm, and no person, no court of law, could ever take it away from me. This place had shaped me, placed its stamp on me, and I would forever remain, for good or ill, a testament, a declaration of its influence.
The sun flickered weakly through the gray, overcast dome of the sky as it settled toward Crowley’s ridge. The air grew cooler with more than nightfall as I drove back to the house. I pulled into the driveway, and I could see, through the foggy windows, gauzy hints of the frantic activity mandatory for households with children on Christmas Eve. Packages were being wrapped for the evening’s exchanging of gifts with the Sloans. The two younger kids were hopping about like manic fleas, unable to contain their excitement.
Gail scurried between the wrapping of gifts and the warming of leftovers in the kitchen. Only Hal sat still, staring into the fireplace in the den, a raft of loneliness adrift in a sea of activity. I went into the house, tossed my coat on the back of a chair, and squatted before the fire, warming my hands. For a long time Hal and I stayed that way; in the same room and worlds apart.
Every now and then, one of the kids would race up the stairs behind us, but they didn’t approach either their father or me. I suppose they were aware of the fragility of the bubble of good cheer surrounding them, and knew better than to risk bursting it by coming too near us.
Finally I turned to face him and cleared my throat, just as he looked up at me and opened his mouth to speak. “Frank, I …”
“No, you go ahead.”
“Well, I was just going to say that I know I came across sort of high-and-mighty this morning, and I didn’t mean to. It’s just that … ”
“Yeah, I know … and I kind of lost it, too, there, and … and I’m sorry as hell, Frank, really I am. You didn’t deserve that load of garbage I laid on you this morning.”
I started to reply, felt my words jamming up behind the baseball in my throat, felt the hot tears spill down my cheeks. “Hal, I … you’re all the family I’ve got. Don’t give up, is all I want to say. Just don’t give up, okay?” I wanted to say more, so much more, but I couldn’t control my voice. I dropped my head, kneading my eyes uselessly as the tears spilled over my fingers. He looked away, into the fire. Still rubbing my eyes, I faced him again.
“Hal,” I said, my lips curling uncontrollably around my words, “I think you’ve got to face the fact that, no matter how much you love the farm, no matter how much history our family has with this place, no matter how hard you’ve tried, you’re going to have to leave here.” Still staring into the fire, his chest began to heave in silent emotion. “I hope you come to the place where you can see your life as something apart from this farm. It’s been good to you, and it’s part of you, but you still have to choose between dying with it and living with your family. Do you hear what I’m trying to say?” No answer. I plunged ahead, into the minefield, not knowing what else to do. “You made some errors in judgment, and you probably took some bad advice along the way, but, Hal, none of us gets to go back. You did what you thought was best, and it didn’t work. Cut your losses. Hal,” I pleaded, “decide to live! Live for Gail, for the kids. There’s something, someone out there bigger than you and your grief. I … I just hope to God you can learn to accept that.”
Gail came to the doorway, saw us there, and hesitated, looking back and forth between us. “Everything okay in here?” she called uncertainly.
“Well, Hon,” said Hal after a long pause, “that sort of remains to be seen.” He looked at me, for the first time since I had begun speaking to him, and a wistful smile was toying with the corners of his mouth.
After several swallows and blinks, Gail managed to say, “Supper’s ready. We’d better eat so we won’t be late.”
Hal and I started toward the kitchen. I felt his rough hand on the back of my neck. I looked outside, where the first few stray snowflakes were drifting aimlessly to the ground.
So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
So Fair and Bright 