Indiana

The first trip happened during a snowstorm. I was twenty-one and my husband, then fiancé, and I had to stop in Ohio just before the Indiana border. The snow was blinding, the roads icy. That trip, we visited both grandmas, first his paternal grandma in central Indiana where we slept in his aunt’s old bedroom and I had Velveeta for the first time. We then visited his maternal grandma in northwestern Indiana. I met his cousins and we took the train to Chicago. We went to the aquarium and took the picture for our save the date, the Chicago skyline behind us.

I have made this trip many times. There were several years without children, then only my infant daughter, then my daughter as a toddler with me pregnant, and finally my daughter and son. My son screamed for most of his first trip.

Now, there is only one grandma to visit, the one in central Indiana where the land is so flat that you can see for miles in every direction. It always makes me feel exposed and untethered, like I will somehow blow away because there is nothing to hold me to the earth.

Lately we have visited in the summer during the week of the fair which is right around the corner from where my husband’s grandma lives. But this year she is turning ninety in April, so we make the trip during spring break to celebrate.

It is always a long drive. We make the trip to my in-laws’ lake house the night before and leave for Indiana early the next morning. I remember leaving at 5 a.m. after my daughter’s early morning milk as an infant. I took a picture of her smiling in her car seat, an elephant swaddle keeping her warm.

There are tears before the first rest stop which is still in New York, but then my children settle in and we drive without another stop until lunch. We eat in the car after running through the rain and into an Ohio rest stop. There are no restaurants at this stop and I’m glad my husband packed us all lunches. Once we are back on the road, there are car games and audiobooks, mad libs and naps. I listen to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament on the radio.

Ohio is always a blur. To help pass the time, my husband likes to count the abandoned cars on the side of the road. We make our way through Cleveland and the next noticeable landmarks are the windmills on the Ohio/Indiana border. My children are always excited to see them.

When we finally make it to the stretch of road outside of town, I notice how different everything looks than when we were last here in July. Even though the trees and flowers are ahead of us in New York, the fields that offer miles of corn and soybeans are now bare and brown.

We don’t visit my husband’s grandma the first night. I watch Caitlin Clark play in our hometown that we just left, and we get dinner at the drive-in restaurant in town. My children are excited about playing bird bingo at our rental.

The next day is Easter. I brought baskets and hid them as best as I could while my son waited for me to put him to bed. My in-laws arrive and there is an egg hunt outside. The trees have flowers and the hyacinths are blooming. My mother-in-law orders pizza for dinner.

We have Easter dinner the next day at our rental when my husband’s aunt arrives. My husband cooks a ham and the smoke alarm goes off several times. There are two decorative bunnies on the dining room table and more bird bingo. Later, we all return to my husband’s grandma’s house to watch women’s basketball. It’s another game that is taking place only a few miles from our home. In Indiana we crowd in the small living room with popcorn. Caitlin Clark has forty-one points.

The next day there is birthday cake with layers of blueberry and lemon curd.

There are so many things that my children look forward to in Indiana. There are the toy cars that my son remembers every year. There is Toss Across that my husband’s aunt plays with my children. There’s the railroad track with the occasional train, the old pennies to sort, the knickknacks to look at in the China cabinets. I hope they remember these times, feel a connection to this part of who they are. 

I am not from Indiana and I do not have relatives with any connection to this state. This has always been a place for my husband’s family. But as I look around at the familiar streets of this town, I think about how I’ve changed over the years—from fiancé, to wife, to mother with so many shifts in between. Somehow, this place has become a part of me too.