The Last Time

This time we know it’s the last time. We make our way to the lake, driving through pouring rain for most of the way. When we arrive, the air is cool, the sky clear.  We go on a walk to stretch our legs. Bright yellow buttercups and pastel phlox line the road. We make our way down to the lake, the water calm. My son and I spot fish off of the dock and my daughter skips stones. Both children take turns on the swing that hangs from the willow tree.

In the morning the sky is blue with soft puffy clouds. The ground is soggy, water from the recent rains pooling in the rows of grapevines. We drive away from the lake through small towns and farmland, everything so green around us. It is the first day of June. We had just been on these roads in April and there was snow.

My children color and listen to music. Queen Ann’s Lace stretches for miles along the highway, the delicate white blooms blowing in the breeze. We count roadkill in Pennsylvania (73) and abandoned cars in Ohio (3). Progressive Field has its lights on when we pass by, game time less than an hour away. After Cleveland, the hills completely disappear, and there is farmland as far as the eye can see. My husband and I wonder for probably the last time why the ponds in Ohio are such an odd color.

We know we’re close to the Indiana border when we see the windmills. It is still a couple of hours until we are done driving, eventually finding ourselves on the familiar grid of roads that crisscross through the corn and soybeans.  

I first visited Indiana in December 2008. My husband and I were still dating and I was nervous to meet his grandparents and cousins. A snowstorm near the Indiana border made it impossible to reach his grandma’s house that first night and we ended up staying in a hotel. When the snow cleared the next morning, I remember feeling anxious about the flat landscape that surrounded me. I grew up in a valley surrounded by hills and I suddenly felt exposed, as if nothing tethered me to the earth and I would simply drift away. I did eventually adjust and learn to appreciate its beauty. 

We tried to visit at least once a year and I went from girlfriend to fiancé to wife to mother. My daughter’s first Thanksgiving was in Indiana and I made the trip while pregnant with my son. Somehow Indiana became a part of my history too.

We arrive at our destination in the early evening and have dinner at the place we always do—a drive in with bright-colored picnic tables outside. My husband’s parents and aunt meet us there. The adults order walking tacos and my children get their usual hot dogs and ice cream treat.

After, we go back to the house. In April, only the hyacinths and daffodils were blooming but now the honeysuckles that border the shop and climb up the porch lattice fill the air with sweetness. When we step inside, the house already feels different without her.

In April we celebrated my husband’s grandma’s ninety-first birthday. We rented an old farmhouse with wide-plank floors and accent walls with wallpaper that featured birds. His grandma visited the house twice with his aunt, and on the second visit we hosted a birthday party for her. My husband and daughter made her a three tier chocolate cake because she told us that was her favorite. There was a ham dinner with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables and she ate every bite. My daughter played her viola as everyone sat around the large farmhouse table and listened. After dinner, we drew questions that we wanted to know about each other out of a bowl. I learned that my husband’s grandma studied Latin in high school.

We didn’t know that she would be gone in less than two months, but this was why we always made the trip. We knew there would come a time when everything would end.

Now back at the rental, my children play in the backyard and discover a path to a park behind the house. They swing on swings, pretending they’re astronauts launching themselves into space.

The next two days are spent with family. There is a local water park that we take my children to and they soon conquer their fear of the large water slides. On the night before the funeral, we order pizza just like the last night of our April visit. The pieces are small and oddly shaped, triangles and rectangles of thin crust and cheese.

At the funeral, my children and niece fill baskets with tiny water bottles. They hand them out to those who who attend and we all raise our bottles toward the end of the ceremony. At the cemetery we each take a flower from the casket piece: a pink carnation for my daughter, peach roses for my son and husband, and a pink lily for me. My children want to keep the petals after the flowers are done blooming.

Later, there are sandwiches and cut up fruit and cheese for lunch, homemade strawberry and sugar cream pies for dessert. We eat, but cannot stay too long. Soon, the van is packed and we are on the road, driving as far as we can into Ohio.

As we drive, my son looks out at the vast expanse of corn and soybeans, the flat farmlands reaching the horizon. “I don’t want this to be our last trip to Indiana,” he says. “I love it here.”

My husband and I don’t say anything. There is no reason to continue to make this trip that has been a part of my life for seventeen years, a trip my husband has done his entire life. We hoped these trips would help our children feel connected to a part of their heritage, to create memories with their great grandmothers and extended family. We never planned on coming back when it was all over.

But maybe we will some day. Or maybe my son will come back decades from now and see the flats that stretch to the sky, and will feel like a part of him has finally come back home.