The Old Farmhouse

There are some families that seem to fit together so perfectly. They all love to play sports or read books or go to the beach. It’s like they have a hive mind.

My family is not like that, never has been. My mother is the quiet, loving homemaker who keeps a clean house, makes sure there are always wonderful meals on the table, and does whatever else she may need to do so we can be healthy, happy, and successful.

My brother, Daniel, is a junior and a great athlete. He’s a solid B student and will probably go to college on a football scholarship. My sister, Vicky, is a sophomore. She never misses the honor roll and is already beginning the process of deciding where she should apply for college to get the best education and the most scholarship money.

My father, the family breadwinner, is a vice president at the local bank and makes sure we are provided for financially. He believes in setting and meeting goals. He does not approve of wasting time or money on things that don’t have a clear purpose. He celebrates success in all areas.

So far, this seems like a family that fits together really well. You may have noticed though that there is one member of the family I haven’t described yet.

That’s me. I’m the problem. I do have a goal but it’s not one Father would consider worthwhile. In the first place, it doesn’t require a college education. A high school education would be good but not totally necessary which is why I put very little into my schooling. I’m a solid C to C minus student. It’s good enough to get a diploma and that’s all I want.

Growing up, we lived in town but much to the embarrassment of my father, my mother’s parents had a farm about a mile down the road. I loved to spend my time there. I gladly helped feed the animals, clean up the barn, and work in the fields. I knew I could make a good life for myself there. Unfortunately, this was not a goal my father would have accepted.

As you can imagine, things got tense for me at home quite a lot. When I was twelve, I ran away from home with no plans beyond getting out of there. I ended up going to the farm but instead of going to my grandparents’ house, I headed to the other house on their farm that had been empty for as long as I could remember.

Let me explain why they had an extra, empty house. The small farm next to theirs was owned by an elderly couple. When the husband died many years ago, his wife couldn’t take care of the farm. My grandparents bought the farm to add to their land. They also bought it to help out their friend. The deal was that she could live in the house as long as she needed it and share in the profits from the land. She got a secure future. They got the land at a very reasonable price.

When she died three years later, the house was deserted and no one has lived there since. I always loved exploring that house even with, or maybe because of, the changes years of neglect caused. I could sit on a dusty old chair and tell the house all my deepest fears, disappointments, desires. I don’t know how I knew but I did know that this house and I belonged to each other. It became my sanctuary, my defender, my fierce protector. It wasn’t until I was finally leaving for good that I realized how absolutely true that was or what the house and I were capable of doing.

The first few times I left home for the farmhouse, I’d sleep there and in the morning, I’d show up at my grandparents’ home hoping for a good breakfast and some chores I could do. Instead, they would call my frantic parents. It would relieve my mother’s worry but do nothing to calm my father’s anger. It did make him less interested in my returning home.

By the time I was fourteen, they wouldn’t even worry. Nana would call Mother in the morning and let her know I was safe. Father decided there was no hope for me anyway so he was just as glad I wasn’t at home to irritate him.

At first when I went there, I was a visitor in the house. I was exploring the lives of the couple who had lived and died there. I could feel their love, the tiredness after a hard day’s work. The frustration they felt the years the weather defeated the farmer’s attempts to earn enough money from the farm to pay for their sustenance. Their joy when they had a particularly good year was clearly still held within these walls.

They were so happy when they welcomed a new child to their lives and shared the farm with their son. Their disappointment when he decided he wasn’t interested in farming and moved to Philadelphia to take a job in marketing was also very noticeable. Loneliness filled the house after the farmer died.

The house held all their feelings but mostly it held their love. It made me feel wanted and accepted.

I didn’t notice that the house was changing at first. It happened so gradually, almost imperceptibly. Then one day I realized I could no longer feel the lives of the old couple. The only things I felt in the house were my hopes and disappointments, my anger, my fears, all the emotions of a young teenager who can’t find a way to fit into his world. The house had decided it belonged to me. No place or no one in my life before or since has made me feel so welcome, so loved, so safe so understood. I was home.

I began to react to things the way I did. It reacted to things and people in ways that would protect me.

I realized that for the first time when my father came to find me. I was in the living room sitting on the dusty old couch when he came in. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the couch and called my name. He couldn’t see me sitting right in front of him. “I know you’re here. Get your ass out here. You have work to do at home.” He looked all over the house, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered under his breath, “I know he’s here somewhere. He’s such a waste of perfectly good oxygen.”

The same thing happened when a cop showed up because he was searching for a prison escapee and got a tip that someone was living here. At least this time I didn’t have to listen to insults when he was leaving.

The next time Father needed me back home, he tripped over a root from the big oak out front and twisted his ankle. He hobbled to the car and went home.

The house kept me safe no matter what was happening at home. It protected me. It knew me and knew I was right.

Now, it’s my senior year in high school. I can’t wait to graduate and be out on my own. Maybe I can stay in my house now for real and help on the farm while I look for a paying job.

At least that was my plan until the most horrible of days, the second Saturday in March. I went to the farm that morning as I did every weekend. I knew something was wrong right away. It was eight o’clock. The chickens had not been fed. The goats were still in the stalls, not out in the field. The window shades were draw and there was no sign of anyone.

I ran to the house. No one was awake. I went upstairs. At first I thought they were sleeping but when they didn’t respond to me, I called 911. The coroner ruled that they had died from carbon monoxide poisoning when their old furnace failed.

The reading of the will told us what we already assumed was true. Mother inherited the farm and everything else they had. I offered to run the farm and split the earnings with the family. It would have been a dream come true for me. Mother said she would have to talk to Father. As soon as she said that, I knew I wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t long before Father announced the farm would be sold. I don’t even know if he asked Mother’s opinion.

I went to my house on the farm which would soon belong to someone else. I sat there and sobbed for hours. Here I was so close to having everything I ever wanted and I’ve already lost. I hate my father. I’m sure he hates me too. After that I stayed there. I only came home when I needed fresh clothes or a good meal. I knew I was letting my mother down but she had let me down much worse. She had the whole family to help her. I had nothing or no one except for my soon-to-be sold house.

When I wasn’t at school, I was at my house pacing the floor, shouting about how unfairly I was being treated or cursing my father. I was helpless. All I could do was wait for the end to happen.

I didn’t even go to my graduation. It just didn’t matter to me. They sent me my diploma. The next time I visited my family, Mother asked me if I wanted it. “Keep it. It means more to you and Father than it does to me,” I growled.

By summer I realized it was so long since the declaration that the farm would be sold happened, I thought maybe they weren’t really going to do it. I knew that wasn’t possible but I grabbed onto the only hope I had.

One morning in August I woke up to the sound of a car in the gravel farm lane. A man got out and went around the farm taking pictures of everything. He didn’t try to come inside my house. I think he figured that whoever bought the place would tear it down. When he was done, he took a sign out of his car and put it up by the road. The farm was officially for sale. On the way back up the lane, he missed the turn up ahead, slammed on his brakes, slid on the gravel and came to a stop against the big oak at the end of the lane. He wasn’t really going that fast but, for some reason, his seatbelt failed and he flew up against the windshield. He was in the hospital in a lot of pain for months. I wonder if the settlement from the company that made his seatbelt made up for all that pain.

In October, Father called a family meeting and announced we were going to do a haunted house in my house. I realized, at that moment, that he didn’t even consider me a part of the family anymore. I was just an inconvenience. I’m the only one who objected. Daniel and Vicky obviously felt the same way or rather didn’t feel anything at all about me. They were going to start decorating the next day.

I knew now that I needed to leave this whole place for good. I said good-bye to my brother and sister, told them that I loved them and wished them well. I said good-bye to Mother. “I just can’t stay here anymore. It’s too hard and it’s just not where I need to be.” I promised to keep in touch and gave her a paper with my cell phone number so she could always contact me. She gave me five hundred dollars from her inheritance to give me a start.

Back at the farm, I took one last look around the whole place before going into my house. I planned to explain to the house what was happening and why I needed to leave but the house already knew. I packed up everything I needed to take with me and threw it in my car. I went back in the house and checked every room to be sure I had all that I needed.

The last room I checked was the kitchen. On the table was a cardboard box I had never seen before. It was so old and beat up that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t fallen apart years ago. I picked it up very carefully and took it with me.

Everything I had was in that car. It was already late afternoon when I left. I drove for a few hours without knowing where I was going, finally stopping for dinner at a diner next to a cheap motel.

After finishing dinner, I got a room at the motel and went inside. I was so shook by all that had happened I decided to stay at the motel for another night and see if I could figure out what I was going to do.

I told the motel receptionist I was staying another night and went out for breakfast. A quick shopping expedition provided me with a few supplies I would need like a toothbrush and toothpaste and some snacks and drinks. When I got back to my room, it took a few trips to bring my bags inside along with some of my cleaner clothes. The last thing I brought in was the old box. I was just way too curious to wait any longer to find out what was inside.

I had just sat down on the bed to open the box when my phone rang. It was my sister. I didn’t understand why Mother had given her my number. “Something terrible has happened. We don’t know if Daddy is okay. Turn on the local news. Come home as soon as you can.”

It was right there on the news. They had broken into the regular broadcast to show it. There it was. My house was nothing but a pile of rubble. “The old house was completely destroyed by the fire. It appears that the family had spent the day turning the house into a haunted mansion that was set to open next week. The old electricity couldn’t handle all their tools and equipment and overheated. We are still not sure if anyone was in the house. The family has been accounted for except for ,the father of the family.” I could see his car still parked in the driveway. I knew my family could too.

I packed up to leave but not before opening the box. I had to know. It looked empty but I knew what was inside. It contained all the emotional memories and impressions the house had stored, all my emotions, all my dreams, all my pain, all my joys. It also held all those same emotions it had stored from the farm family that lived there first. When I opened the box, my entire being was flooded with all of it. The house was gone. It was my job to keep everything inside myself until I found another way to store it.

My father was never found. I know the house took him. My mother, my brother and my sister grieved for him. I did too although not as much.

The farm was never sold. Between the story about my grandparents’ deaths and the house fire, it would take a while before the talk of a curse died out.

I moved home because I didn’t know where else to go. I was a mess with all those emotions and memories swirling inside of me. The psychologists I went to didn’t help much. Maybe if they believed my story, they could have been more to help me.

The last one did actually give me an idea that worked. He said, “Maybe if you write it all down, you will be able to move on.” He was right although he didn’t know why.

I sat down and wrote the story of a couple who bought the only land they could afford, cleared it and turned it into a working farm. They put so much time and love into building the home they would live in for the rest of their lives. Their son was born in the house and brought even more love and joy into their lives. I told about the good times they had and all the wonderful experiences he had growing up on the farm. I also told about the challenges, the disappointments, the pain, the frustrations and the loneliness in the life they experienced. I poured every memory, every emotion of the old couple into that story.

The book, Inside the Old Farmhouse, was a best seller. It was on everybody’s book club list. I did a lot of interviews. The film rights turned out to be a hot property and the movie should soon be in the works.

I am using the money from the book to make improvements at the farm. I’ve torn down my grandparents’ house and built a new one in its place. I think that once my brother and sister have moved out, Mother will sell the house and move in with me. I built an in-law suite for her. I have everything I have always wanted. I am finally happy.

This hasn’t gone quite as well for Daniel and Vicky. With all the shocking events and the publicity that went with it, neither was able to keep up with their school work. Daniel’s grades dropped enough that he wasn’t allowed to play football. Vicky’s grades suffered too. While she will still be able to get into college, it probably won’t be the college she hoped for and there won’t be any academic scholarships coming her way. They are both strong and determined people. They’ll get through this. It’s just not going to go as planned.

I’ll admit it feels good to be the successful one in the family for a change. I should also probably admit that it wasn’t an accident that the house caught on fire. The house led me to the basement and showed me the wiring that could be messed with to cause the fire.

Also my father wasn’t incinerated in the fire. There’s an old well right behind the house that none of us knew was there. Maybe it wasn’t there before this. He fell in there while he was trying to decorate the outside of the house. I wonder if he was still alive when the fire started.

I think he would be proud to know that I set a goal and worked toward it with singular purpose. Don’t you agree?