Homecoming

I am home. The thought feels bittersweet, to say the least. Setting my empty coffee mug down on the counter, I tug on my rubber boots and pull the coat on over my sweater. I woke up with a firm determination today.

The autumn leaves crunch under foot as I walk the old trail. Growing up, it was so well-worn that the grass didn’t even try to spring up. Now, the path was invisible, blending with the rest of the yard, revealing no evidence that anyone had been to the barnyard in years. I followed by memory, knowing just when to duck under the branches.

“I give them a year. Tops.”

“What do they even know about farming? We deserve it, not them.”

“Must be nice to just suck up at the end to just steal it out from under us all.”

“What is she even going to do with a horse farm?”

Their words haunted me every day since I had overheard them at the funeral home. They didn’t understand. They didn’t want to. 

Ten years. For ten years we had saved everything we could until we had enough to make the offer. Then, Grandpa got sick. He couldn’t keep up with the place anymore and the renters just let it fall into decay. No one cared about it, they had been trying to convince him to sell to the farmer down the road so they could pad their inheritances just a bit more. It didn’t matter that we had outbid Samuel, we were family so everyone assumed we had gotten some sort of a deal.

I have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter now. He accepted our offer. The farm is ours and I will do everything I can to make it that beautiful beacon of my childhood once again.

Grasping the doorknob, I turn it halfway to the right and then twist hard to the left as I shove it open with my shoulder. The heavy metal door scrapes open as a smile creeps across my face. “I still remember your secrets.”

The familiar scent of decades-old hay and decrepit damp straw floods my nostrils. I can almost hear the horses snorting and stamping, excitedly waiting for their morning oats. 

My breath catches in my chest as I listen. Chirps of barn swallows echo in protest of my invasion. 

Tracking boot prints through the dust on the floor, I flick on each of the lights one by one as I walk the uneven path. Removing my coat and hanging it on the tackle hook, I try to take it all in.

Grandma would’ve hated this. Bars are knocked out and missing from the stall doors. Parts of the floor are completely rotted away. And there, hiding behind every shadow and long-abandoned cobweb were the ghosts of my past beckoning to me, begging to swallow me whole.

Peeking into one of the stalls, I see it is full of old black garbage bags. Another full of the remnants of dogs once housed there never to be cleaned up after.

The next stall holds the rakes, pitchforks, shovels, and - the broom. Removing it from behind a thick curtain of cobwebs and dust, I carry it all the way to the far end of the barn. 

The familiarity of this simple act almost brings the breakdown. Blinking back the tears, I start the chore that began each and every single day of my childhood: sweep the floor. Thanks to my allergies, I had never been able to spend as much time here with grandma and the horses as I wanted to. Instead, I grew up being Grandpa’s shadow: in the garden, in the fields with the tractor, taking care of the cows. Grandma and I shared our time together in other ways, and of course, I was always excited to help her whenever I could.

Halfway through, I halt, staring at the ladder to hay loft. I smirk as I peer up through the cloud of dust I had just created. Up at the gaping hole revealing the dingy forbidden realm that plagued my curiosity growing up. 

“Get off that ladder!” I could still hear Grandma’s panicked and shrill voice. “It’s not safe up there!” She would warn. “That is no place for children!” How many times had I heard that growing up?

Well, I’m not a child anymore. Leaning the broom against the wall, I begin to climb. If I had thought the smell of musty hay was strong before, it was overpowering almost to the point of suffocating in the loft. 

I clambered over the side and onto the floor before slowly rising to my feet. Brushing off my pants, I felt the tickle of dry hay against my ankles at it made a nest inside my boots. 

Blackened light bulbs make a trail down the centre of the ceiling but I don’t need them to see. Holes speckle the roof allowing shafts of sharp autumn sunlight to illuminate the vast room. 

Taking careful steps, I test the floor beneath me, nervously dreading the step that will inevitably cause me to fall through rotten boards to the ground below. But that moment never comes. I cross to the next room immediately spotting the rusted old bale conveyor discarded haphazardly on the floor. Us kids weren’t allowed up here. We would load the bales onto the conveyor from the trailer and the aunts and uncles would take turns up here hoisting them off to be stacked up in the invisible depths of the forbidden loft. 

I had always imagined it as some magical Narnia-esque world not meant for our fragile tiny bodies. As I make my way into the room, I kick an abandoned pop can, one among many of the discarded pieces of trash up here and I can feel the weight of my grandparents’ disappointment. They would’ve never stood for such disrespect of their paradise.

A door leading to nowhere- the entrance for the season’s supply of hay bales- knocks against a broken shovel wedging it shut. Examining the setup and wondering if it would be worth it to try to remove the shovel and enjoy the view, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. 

The swallow swoops down at my head. I duck away instinctively as I curse its presence. As a child, I had never understood why my grandma always knocked their nests down. Didn’t she want to see the baby birds up close? It wasn’t until I got older that I realized what a nuisance they were. 

I jump backwards, catching my heel on the conveyor and almost falling. The sound ignites a flurry of scurrying in the shadows behind me. 

I see the movement just through the entrance to the room with the ladder. Welcoming this adventurous distraction, I follow it. Unfortunately, by the time I make it back to that room, whatever had been creeping had disappeared. 

No matter, because now I see the strange little room tucked away in the far corner of the room on the other side. A small square of plywood and two by fours with a dingy, filthy door propped two inches off the floor by rusted brass hinges. 

There is a hole where a handle should be, revealing a darkness that is far more absolute than the rest. 

Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I turn on the flashlight app as I gently kick the door open with my foot. 

An old barrel full of hay bale twine, some haphazard homemade shelves holding nothing but dust, above it a picture frame and a pair of horseshoes nailed to the wall. Not the exciting discovery I had hoped for, but the real world seldom works that way. 

Shining my light on the frame, I wipe away the dust with my sleeve to take a better look. Cheap emerald green plastic masquerading as fine marble framing an old photograph. My grandparents. So young, so full of joy. The sight makes my heart ache.

Isn’t it amazing how much of our features are timeless? Elements of us already present as children and remain even in our last days, hiding under wrinkles, emerging when we smile. They were younger than I am now in this picture but I instantly knew it was them. 

Hovering my gaze over the image, I smile back at them even as my heart breaks all over again. Something shifts inside of me and the emerald green starts to burn with an earnestness that it hadn’t before.

“I hope I can make you proud of me.” My voice cracks as I whisper it. 

It’s time to get back to work. This place, my happy place, it had fallen into disrepair a long time ago and I definitely have my work cut out for me.

Memories both good and bad crowd the edges of my mind, I sweep the bad ones away along with the cobwebs and dust around me. I can hear the egg timer from Grandma’s kitchen, remember the tricks Grandpa taught me when I was nothing more than his biggest fan - in these moments I am reliving my childhood. This farm, the only constant thing in my entire life, it is mine now and I will never give it up.

I am finally home.