Here in northeast Ohio, Hale Farm exists as a quaint little throwback to bygone days. One of those family bonding places especially made for autumn days — complete with hayrides, folks in period dress, goats to pet, and a cute gift shop. Our family day started with the requisite throwing of hay at each other inside a railroad tie fence. Typical kid stuff — hunting down dad and my brother to plop a solid handful of straw on their head.  We took photos that day, the picturesque family shots where everyone looks happy and normal. Well, not quite family shots. Mom always took the pictures, she was never actually in them. She never, ever, wanted to be caught on film.

We also got to make our own sledgehammers. There was a station where a craftsman helped you form the head, hollow out a hole, and set the handle. All wood of course, like the early settlers. I thought it was the coolest thing. It inspired daydreams of log cabins and horse corrals and cowboys from all the Louis L’Amour books I read. I longed to heft it to my shoulder and swing it like a man. Instead, I brought it home and tucked it in the corner of my room next to my bed. I figured it was as good as the proverbial baseball bat for keeping the monsters at bay. 

On the other side of my room was a ceramic bunny. Actually, there were lots of bunnies. Mom had decided I should collect bunnies. I suppose we’ll revisit that somewhat emasculating concept later on. Anyway, this bunny was about life size, maybe a little bigger. My grandmother had made it in a ceramics class for me, and I liked the idea that she thought about and made something for me. Grandma was dead now. I watched her waste away and finally succumb to brain cancer, so this was the only thing I had to remember her by. I wasn’t too fond of all the other bunnies gracing the shelves, but that big one on the floor made me happy.

I woke up one morning to a quiet house. No big surprise there, mommy dearest never made it out of bed before noon. Dad must not have been working night shift, because his muffled snoring snuck through the porous walls of the tiny house. The siblings weren’t up yet. I wandered down the steps and saw that mom had been painting the night before. She kept an odd schedule, usually staying up into the wee hours and then sleeping all day because she had a migraine. Oftentimes her midnight pursuits involved rearranging the house or making a craft of some kind.  On this occasion, she had pulled out some oils and painted a daisy on a piece of slate. It wasn’t big, maybe 6” x 10”. It wasn’t particularly good, but it had a certain folk-art charm. It was, however, shiny, and I was mesmerized by the sheen. I had never seen an oil painting up close before. I loved the smell and the paint daubs scattered on the pallet. I loved the texture and the way it glistened. The whole scene fascinated me — it felt real and alive.

I reached out and ran my finger along the edge of the slate. I dabbed a finger on the flower to see what it felt like. I thought it was dry. Oils, as it turns out, do not dry quickly.  The flower smudged. My stomach dropped. My curiosity had once again made a mess of things. I had to fix it. I tried to move the paint back where it was with my finger. It smudged even more. I stood there frozen. Now what? Should I attempt to paint over my mess? I had no idea how to even begin that process.

About this time, dad ambles out of the bedroom in his tighty whiteys on the way to the bathroom. He stops when he sees me standing there and comes over to see what’s going on. He looks at the mess I’ve created and does what any normal dad would do. He squeezes my shoulder, gives me a conspiratorial grin, and says, “uh oh, how are we going to fix this?”

Actually, no. He didn’t do anything of the kind. Instead, he spun on his heels and marched right back to the bedroom to wake my mother and tell her what a destructive little shit I was. He couldn’t wait to give her all the juicy details about her ruined flower painting.

As a woman who rarely slept during normal sleeping hours, it was a bit like waking a grizzly during hibernation. There was going to be a great deal of unhappiness, roaring and screaming, and you might get devoured. 

She lit out of the bedroom like the house was afire. Pale pink “headache” bandanna wrapped around her greasy head; chubby body falling out of the ratty plaid nightgown. She’s yelling. Screaming. The usual fare, what an awful, deceitful child I am, how I can’t be trusted with anything, how all I care about is myself. I ruin everything I come in contact with.

Then inspiration strikes. She tells me to stay in the kitchen and I listen to her stomp upstairs. I stare at the pattern on the dingy brown and yellow linoleum with impending dread. I don’t know what it’s going to be this time. Is she going to smack me around for a bit? Throw things at me? Is she going to my room to find some other evidence of criminal activity to add the list of sins for which I need to be punished?

She marches into the kitchen with the wooden sledgehammer in one hand and the ceramic bunny in the other. She places the bunny in the middle of the floor and drags me over to the counter. Then she swings. She screams. I scream. She becomes more enraged. She swings the hammer again. Chards of ceramic fly around the kitchen. She keeps swinging, trying to break off more and more pieces. Chunks slam into my skin. She’s at full throttle now, swinging and screaming and foaming at the mouth. She tells me how much I deserve it. I destroyed something of hers, and she is going to destroy something of mine. I need to know what it feels like to have something important to me destroyed. I need a lesson. I am such an ungrateful little brat, breaking everything around me, intentionally hurting others. She’ll teach me. She’ll show me.

She throws the hammer down, grabs me by my hair and shoves me to the floor. “Look at the mess you made” she screams. “Pick this up. Pick it all up. PICK IT UP!!!” I’m trying not to cry, that will just make it worse. I’m not sure if I should actually pick up the pieces or just lie there and wait for her to hit me. Everything is fuzzy, my brain is not processing fast enough. I know whatever I do, it will be wrong, I’m trying to pick the least wrong immediate response. My palms and knees are digging into chunks of clay. I start to pick up a few of the pieces next to me. She screams “Get up!” and slaps me on the head. She points to a big chunk of ear by the door and pushes me towards it. I am thankful to be temporarily out of arm’s reach.

As always, dad stands idly by and watches the carnage.

I take the garbage can out from under the sink and start mindlessly bending down and placing pieces into the brown paper trash bag. I am a piece of shit. I can’t believe I ruined her painting. The room is a blur. And now Grandma is really dead.

–

The tiny, transparent house I grew up in was listed for sale not long ago. I called the realtor and asked to do a walkthrough. Oddly, they turned me down. I had not mentioned that I grew up there or given any other indication that I wasn’t a serious buyer. Part of me wonders if that was divine intervention. I can only imagine the visceral response my body would have had to trudging up those dingy steps to the tiny back entrance. Stopping to check the quiver of arrows for the spare key. Inhaling that peculiar aroma of sun baked glass and the aged linoleum and the lumber below. Pausing to see if the 15-lock security system was still in effect. Staring at that wooden door and summoning the courage to push beyond the threshold to the memories that sat poised to accost me on the other side.  

Perhaps I was saved from inescapable torment. The kitchen sink and the faux wine barrel cupboards. The former resting place of the corded house phone. The padded basement door that no longer showcased a Ziggy calendar. The rolltop desk that doubled as Christmas stocking holders for Dad’s walnuts. The mirrored living room with the leak-stained drop ceiling, the brass nerf hoop, and puke green carpet. The too large bathroom for the tiny house, with the painting of the lovely brown girl gazing upon us in her resplendent glory. The carpeted steps that I brushed by hand, leading around the bend quite literally to Jesus. And Einstein. The globetrotter basketball light that washed the sloped ceilings in vague streaks of red, white, and blue. The wooden night light that was as likely to set the house afire as it was to shed both warmth and luminescence to The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The barred windows, Dumbo-graced walls, and mothballed tombs in my sister’s room — the one that was mine prior to her arrival. The jolly ranchers, the hi-fi, and the secret silver coins that resided in my brother’s perch above what constituted the rose garden. 

There was a plethora of memories locked in those 900 square feet, and perhaps I would not have been able to handle all – or any – of them. Thankfully, I will not know, because I was denied entrance. 

My sister recently obtained her real estate license. In what I’m assuming is morbid curiosity, she did her due diligence on our old stomping grounds. She sent me the pictures from the listing. I wandered as a reluctant voyeur through the weave of time and space. The scenes had changed, but the act was still the same. There was not enough difference to prevent me from noticing the sameness. I was drawn back into the abyss of all those memories. We sent a few texts back and forth, mostly to take solace in our shared discomfort and acknowledge our intense desire to leave the memories of this place. 

There are shows dedicated to the paranormal, the seeking of ghosts and spirits in places that keep the departed tethered to our plane. Those ghosts don’t bother me. They want to be here, and they have their reasons. They’ll work through it eventually. I’m more concerned about the ghosts that arise from a memory, clawing back into existence through the thin vapors of the distant past. There is a peculiar strength to those ghosts. Tenacity. Patience. 

I despise those ghosts.