Graveyard

Instructor Introduction

In a sense, Hadley Fischer’s essay has functioned as a voyage of reclamation, a quest for
coalescence. When I asked her why she chose her particular topic in providing, as the prompt
asked, “a nuanced, multifaceted portrait of a person, place, or object with which or with whom
you have a rich, meaningful, but perhaps complicated relationship,” she admitted that a lot of
her childhood memories were foggy, at least until she once again ran across the central vision of
the farm as a graveyard for toys. After that image reoccurred to her, several elements of our
English 325 course seem to have crystalized around that string of family memories. One is the
concern underlying a class reading, Mark Doty’s “Return to Sender,” in which Doty must grapple
with how to speak his truth openly and accurately although it diverges, at least potentially, from
the allegations of others who have shared certain experiences. Another element was the
exhortation to get to the conceptual through the perceptual — in a world without telepaths, often
the most direct way to communicate between minds is to do a bank shot off the palpable objects
of the world we share. Whether we simply choose to repeat for the millionth time, “Show, don’t
tell,” or spend more words contextualizing something nominal within T. S. Eliot’s theory of the
objective correlative, any of Hadley’s readers can come to appreciate how skillfully she renders
her grandparents’ farmhouse and the surrounding area as a locus of identity, of belonging, but
also of eventual betrayal and dislocation. Her essay is filled with items and places that are
invested, that wear complex meanings, and that sometimes lead to even more complicated
ramifications. Finally, I applaud how elegantly she uses various patterns of parallelism to
fashion her story into a unified garment. With little verbal ostentation, Hadley Fischer offers an
essay that sleekly yet powerfully hangs together, belying how tattered and wrinkled the fabric of
raw existence can often get as we attempt to sew it into shape.

— John Buckley

Graveyard

The ambiguous path to the farm always confused my mother. After an hour on the interstate, we took the Prestonville exit, merging right and continuing on to a well-paved, elevated road. If I glanced to the right of the road, I would overlook a Ford plant, and straight ahead I would see a cemetery with stone graves resting on a grassy hill. Once we veered left of the cemetery, we entered what could be considered a small, rural town. The largest building we passed was the town church surrounded by a gravel parking lot. A small convenience store and sporadic run-down homes were the only other structures I remember about the rest of the town. Maybe there was more that I don’t remember. About five minutes after passing the church, we would drive along a road lined with trees, and every couple of minutes, the line of trees would break for another house or trailer home, with gravel driveways and beat-up trucks snuggled up into the green scenery. My mother and my siblings and I would drive along that road for a good while. But, when the path started curving, the road started shrinking in width, and the leaves of trees felt as though they were swallowing us more than before, the correct turns to arrive at the farm were much more disconcerting. My mother always called my father about one turn, the turn onto Davidson Road—was it left or right? When I was younger, I didn’t actually know the name of Davidson Road. Eventually, about ten years later in my life, I had taken the trip enough times and had paid enough attention to my mother’s calls each time to know its name.

After a frantic call from my mother, a right turn, and five more minutes driving straight, we would approach a landmark that signaled that we were, in fact, on the correct path. On a corner where the paved road met gravel road stood a shack. The exact details of the house were not what we always recognized, though I think it may have had a tin roof and white paneling. Or, what looked like it used to be white paneling, but now was rusted and yellowed. Instead, my family recognized the house by its patchy front yard that was always covered with childrens’ toys. Pretend cars, fake plastic lawnmowers, baseballs, and doll strollers were spread across the lawn, so much so that the patchy grass was hard to discern. Sometimes a cat or dog would be running among the toys on the lawn, though funnily enough, I rarely remember seeing any children out playing in the graveyard of toys. My mom always looked to her left when we passed the house, driving slowly to pass on her judgment of such improper care of one’s property. I, on the other hand, always wondered what the family who lived in that house was like. How many children did they have? Did both of their parents live there together with them? How different was my family from the one that lived there?

The farm was owned by my father’s parents. My grandfather had bought the land to hunt on, but when his children started having children, the farm also served as a place where my cousins and I would all reunite for weekends when we were little. The main cabin on the farm was completely handmade by my grandfather and my dad. My older cousins started coming to the farm much before I was born. My first trip, therefore, was during my infancy. We visited the farm starting from the beginning of my life, and continued to do so all through my years in elementary school. My father’s sister, two brothers, and all of their children would travel from our respective homes in different states to come together as a family and spend time with my grandparents.

Once past the graveyard of toys, we followed the gravel road a bit further until we came to a cul-de-sac of sorts, and to our slight left: an opening in the trees that was blocked by a stone wall that went up to my mother’s shoulders and a long, metal, red gate. I think when I was very little, too young to have anything but a fragmented memory, my grandparents, older cousins, aunts and uncles, worked together to build the stone wall. To get through the gate, one of my siblings or my mother would have to climb out of the car to put in the code to the padlock, lift the handle that connected the gate to the farest tree to the right, and then push the gate all the way back so that it swung wide enough for out car to get through. Finally, we pulled through the gates, passed by a moss covered pond to our left and more trees to our left, to finally drive into the clearing where the heart of my grandfather’s land was built.

The main cabin was lined with white tin, and the back side connected to a large garage where tools, hunting gear, a tractor, a golf cart, and gravel were housed. At the front of the cabin, a rectangle-shaped piece of light gray concrete acted as the “porch”, with a chained porch swing and a large container made of hard plastic. That container housed all of the farm toys for me and my cousins: Frisbees, beach balls, Nerf guns, sidewalk chalk, and pogo sticks. This, I suppose, separated my family from the people who opted for the graveyard of toys just fifteen minutes down the road. When I was little, my brothers and my older cousin, Alex, would play Frisbee and baseball with the men in my family to the right of the house where the gravel pathway ended and the fields of grass and crops began. The women in my family would sit on the porch, around the “fire pit”- a large circle of ash and dead grass in front of the cabin that had been formed after years of making fires in the same place- or would prepare beds or food inside the cabin. The rest of my cousins, four other girls, would draw as much as we could on the small concrete porch with sidewalk chalk, or adventure to the hay bales a short walk away to climb.

The inside of the main cabin was mostly brown. The kitchen was small, and the long wooden table to its left was usually filled with ingredients for s'mores, hot dogs and burgers to be roasted over the fire, skewers, buns, and greasy snacks that we were never allowed to eat at home. There was a couch and bed on the main level as well; the couch was covered with a sheet the same chocolate brown color as the bed’s comforter. Above the side with the couch, if you looked up, you would see a small upstairs area with a guardrail made from wooden planks. The ledge was decorated with mounted heads of deer, as well as various fish and bird taxidermy. To get to the upstairs, you took the creaky, narrow, and incredibly steep wooden staircase. All of the children slept in the bunk beds housed upstairs, each with the same familiar chocolate brown pillows and duvets. A parent always had to help the younger ones climb up the stairs, as the railing to grab on to for support was generally much taller than them, and nothing separated the rail from the bottom of the stairs meaning that the children could easily fall right through.

The golf cart was the best part of the farm. All of the kids would pile into the back bench and trunk, fishing rods and worm bait in hand, to drive straight out from the front of the cabin past a field of crops, then down a steep and bumpy grass path to the lake. There, we would all compete to see who could catch the most fish. My family would also drive us around the land, through the woods and on hunting paths, trying to make the girls squeal by accelerating on particularly bumpy paths or playfully threatening the boys to get out and find their way back to the cabin.

At night, we all sat around the makeshift fire pit. The parents usually handled making our hot dogs and burgers, though at the end of the night, the kids would all bring out their artistry to make the best s’more. Some of my cousins preferred their marshmallows blackened on the outside and enjoyed watching the marshmallow inflamed on their skewers for as long as they could. I competed to win the slow and steady game, attempting to produce the perfect golden outside and gooey center.

The farm is one of the only places where I have memories of my dad’s entire family all together consistently. Large Fischer family reunions during Christmas in Santa Claus, Indiana, were only once a year, and so my memories are fewer and far between. When I was little, I viewed the farm as a place that brought my grandparents’ family together. It was where my cousins and I grew up together, and where my dad’s siblings and their spouses could all come together. My aunts and uncles were all married, all of my cousins were still living at home, and my grandparents were still hosting family dinners and Christmas get-togethers. It was, I believe for at least a little while, where my grandfather and grandmother cultivated their family.

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I remember standing on the porch of my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I was seven years old. It had been a while since my last trip to the farm. My parents and grandparents were all inside, while my older brother and I stood outside. I was unsure of why I was excluded from the conversation, why I wasn’t allowed to enter the house I was always welcome in.

“What is going on?” I asked my brother. He was hesitant to answer me.

“Nothing”

I pestered him more.

“Mom and Dad don’t want you to know.”

“Just tell me,” I badgered. And after much more harassment on my part, he conceded.

“Grammie and Grampie are getting a divorce.” Apparently, he knew why we were there before I was ever told.

“What? Why?” I was confused. Surely, he didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t believe him.

“That’s not true,” I assured myself. I would wait until my parents came out, and then I would tell them all about my brother’s clearly ridiculous misunderstanding. I waited, attempting to push the swirling thoughts of my grandparents divorcing out of my brain. I became more anxious to corroborate my denial with my parents with each passing minute. They would tell me it wasn’t true, and I could move on.

I am not sure whether I found out the truth from eavesdropping in later conversations, my confronting my parents about the horrible “rumor” my brother had told me, or my parents immediately coming clean as they exited the house that day. They were getting divorced, and I was confused all over again. I needed to know why; I needed to understand. But, “They just don’t love each other anymore” was the answer I got for quite some time from my parents, and that was a concept I could not grasp- how do you stop loving someone?

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The answer to the question I could not seem to find a good answer for, the reason my grandparent’s sudden separation, turned out to be quite simple. Their divorce, in fact, was much uglier than two people who simply stopped loving each other and amicably decided to separate. This revelation also came with my discovery that their farm, our farm, had served an entirely different purpose in my grandparent’s marriage. It was not only a place where my grandmother and grandfather hosted their children and grandchildren to bring our family together. It was also the place my grandfather used to tear our family apart. The farm was the key to his infidelity. It is where he locked away his secret affair for years. Kissing my grandmother on the cheek and telling her he was off to the farm to hunt, or mow, or plant, he would instead meet his younger girlfriend there.

At first, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, how decades of marriage had crumbled to the ground. I remember wondering why we cut off ties with my grandfather- what about forgiveness? In church, I learned that God was graceful, and that we too, should practice forgiveness in our lives. Still, I didn’t understand how my grandparents, who were only ever together when I saw them, were suddenly never together again. My grandmother started coming to church with us, moved to a house closer to us, and became a much more present figure in my and my sibling’s lives. And my grandfather all but disappeared.

It seemed as though my grandparent’s separation catalyzed the unraveling of the family we had established at the farm. First, my dad’s brother and his family moved far away to California. He and his wife later got divorced. More than ten years later, his children do not speak to their father, nor do we.

My father’s sister’s family stayed intact for much longer, though it did not seem that way from my perspective. After their move to Chicago, our handful of trips during Christmas time to visit them served as my last, scarce memories of their once united family. Another divorce followed. We haven’t been together for Christmas ever since. Another marriage broken, and another cut in the strings our family had woven together at our farm. Another fracture in the once solid foundation I believed my family stood upon.

My grandmother was the remaining thread in our family fabric. Shortly after her divorce, her children brought their grandchildren to spend time with her as much as they could while she withered away slowly, then all at once, from cancer. My uncles still saw my aunts, I still got to see my cousins, and for a moment it felt like, despite its fractures, our family was still as strong as it was before. It seemed as though she was our farm, that she had replaced it in its unifying nature. But when she was gone, the last stitches keeping each one of her children connected were ripped.

Following her passing, though, it felt as though the only part of my dad’s family that felt whole, that I felt like I knew, were my parents and my siblings. And even though I grieved the loss of parts of our family, some part of me was also grateful that they happened. I was grateful, at least, because I remember how angry my dad was with my grandfather for his affair. He was the son who took care of his mother after having her marriage destroyed; he was there when her other children were absent. As opposed to my confusion when I was younger, I felt grateful for my father’s unwillingness to forgive my grandfather. I was grateful that he was there to see the pain my grandmother experienced, the sadness, grief, and anger she dealt with in the aftermath of her husband’s infidelity. I only saw glimpses of this pain, like when my grandmother broke down in tears walking out of the church sanctuary with us one day and my father wrapped his arms around her. And if this was her holding back her pain for the sake of keeping her grandchildren innocent, I was grateful that my father witnessed all of it behind closed doors. Grateful, because my father beheld his mother’s despair, and so at least my family would be safe from breaking. Grateful that no matter what, infidelity would never plague my parent’s marriage, and the last family unit cultivated at my grandparent’s farm would remain. And as a result of the fractured family I saw around him, I instilled an unwavering trust in my father.

Meanwhile, my grandfather continued to live on the farm with his girlfriend. We never visited anymore. About two years after my grandmother’s death, my grandfather decided to sell his farm. After tension-filled conversations and price negotiations with my grandfather, my dad purchased the land, and the farm felt like ours again. My siblings and I returned to visiting regularly, and it seemed like my parents were cultivating our family there just like my grandparents had done so many years ago. My siblings and I came up to fish, make s’mores, have sleepovers, and drive around in the golf cart just as before. In fact, my mother’s parents also joined in on our family time there. I invited my friends up to come and spend the night. My father and my younger brother often went up to the farm on weekends to spend time together. What was a symbol of my grandparent’s family became a symbol of my own.

Once, I was rummaging through the coat hanger in the cabin of the farm. I discovered a woman’s shirt that I had never seen before. It certainly was not my mother’s style. I thought back, unwillingly, to the actions my grandfather had taken previously in this place. Though fleeting, a feeling of suspicion flooded my body, and I doubted my father’s loyalty to my mother. I hung the shirt back up and physically shook my head, erasing my doubts as quickly as they had appeared. I disregarded the article; perhaps it was my aunt’s that she had left behind. My father would never repeat the same mistakes of his father, mistakes that to this day he has never forgiven. The idea of my dad inflicting the same wounds that he had helped my grandmother to heal from, the same ones that caused her so much pain, upon his own wife was unimaginable, impossible.

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“Your father has been having an affair.” A year after my discovery of the woman’s shirt at the farm. A year after I repudiated my father’s disloyalty. Four years after my father put my grandmother to rest, alone. Four years after the absence of my grandfather at her funeral. Nine years after she found out her husband was heartbreakingly unfaithful. Nine years after the moment I had convinced myself was tattooed on my father’s heart. The moment I was so sure was going to protect us.

The farm: the key to my own father’s infidelity. Where he too had locked away his secret affair. Kissing my mother on the cheek and telling her he was off to the farm to hunt, or mow, or plant, he would instead meet his younger girlfriend there.

And now I think back to the shack we used to pass each time we traveled to our farm. A physical graveyard of toys and a visually deteriorating home behind it. And our farm, with our toys and secrets packed neatly inside a gray plastic container and the cabin’s pristine, well-kept exterior. Everything looks so differently now. It means something so different now. I imagine that, living inside the decaying walls my mother used to judge so harshly, the family inside is flourishing. I imagine that the parent’s have never strayed from each other, that their love for one another grows each day. I imagine that their children will grow up as each other’s best friends. That, even when they are grown and separated by distance or marriage or jobs, that their children’s bond with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are so strong that their separation feels trivial and inconsequential.

I do not have to imagine the family on the inside of our farm. So ironically on the contrary to its uncorrupted facade on the outside, the family on the inside was splintered and cracked. Our farm has never been a graveyard of toys. But it is where parts of my family have died. Buried beneath its freshly mown grass and rolling hills are the withered remains of marriages, bonds between brothers and sisters, and laughter among cousins. Hidden among its walls built by my family’s hands were secrets and lies. At one point, I believed the farm was a place that kept my family together. But I was naive, and unaware of the role it had played in the disintegration of my family.

After I heard the words “Your father has been having an affair”, the farm has meant nothing more to me than a representation of deceit, as a representation of each severed thread that once connected the fabrics of our family. The makeshift fire pit is no longer where my cousins used to compete for the best marshmallow; it is where my father burned fires to keep a woman who was not my mother warm. The small concrete porch is not where the women in my family used to admire their children playing or where I used to draw pictures with sidewalk chalk; it is where my grandfather used to unlock the door for his girlfriend, over and over. The cabin full of hunted animals does not remind me of memories of sleepovers with cousins; it reminds me of the ever-scarce opportunities I get to make memories with them now.

And so when my parents agreed to work on their marriage rather than let it fall through the cracks as the rest of my family has, and when they subsequently decided to sell the farm for good, I allowed myself to feel a little bit of hope. That land no longer belonged to my family, and in turn, I chose to believe we no longer belonged to it.