Lukas
After lunch, I help my mom and grandma clear the table. We carry the dishes back to the kitchen, and I start filling up the sink with soapy water.
Harper and Piper settled into the living room to look over paint watches and swap ideas. Before Dean left, I caught him sending a longing look toward Piper, and her responding stare said just as much.
I’m halfway through the first sinkful of dishes when Pops saddles up next to me, pulling the clean ones from my hand and rinsing them under the faucet.
We quietly work side by side, and once the mound of dishes is gone and my grandma is steeping her afternoon tea, I’m about to head out to finish mucking the horse stall when Pops grabs me by the elbow.
I nod, ushering him ahead of me as I toss the dish towel back on the counter.
We head out into the afternoon heat, and even though Pops asked for a walk, and the farmhouse is less than a mile down the road, that distance is too much for him these days.
“Let’s grab the side by side,” I offer, and he nods, turning toward the machine shed. I help him into the passenger side of the machine, then I climb to the driver’s side, the engine purring to life.
We take the dirt road at a leisurely pace, and it’s Pops who speaks first.
“For many years, I walked this road. We were still living down at your place for a while once we built the barns at the main house. Sometimes, I’d take a horse back and forth, but mostly, I would just walk, usually in the dark before sunrise and again after it went down for the night.
That’ll wake you up before the workday even starts. ”
It almost feels weird for him to refer to the old farmhouse as ‘my place’ now, but I guess it is. The house sat dormant for many years, my dad’s entire life, anyway. But it’s where my grandpa grew up, where he took his first steps and played with his brothers.
“Is it hard to see how much has changed over the years?”
“Not at all,” he says without hesitation.
“I like seeing us grow. When I was a kid, we had the old farmhouse and a small barn that collapsed one winter during a storm. We had miles of fence line across barren lands. I can remember how excited my dad was to build the horse barn that we use today. That was back before heavy machinery was available, too. Imagine that, using hand tools, horses, and our sweat and tears to build what’s still standing today. ”
It’s even more impressive when you think of it like that. So many buildings today are made from cheap materials that can’t withstand the test of time. But our barn is nearly a hundred years old, and while it’s had some repairs over the years and a new roof, it’s still as sturdy as ever.
I turn onto the dirt road that marks my place, hoping I can have gravel brought in and re-grade the road soon. I maneuver the UTV around the divots formed by the spring rain.
“Who knows where the farm will be once Grayson’s old and gray, and his kids take over someday,” I add.
“And you and your family, too, I hope,” he adds.
I nod in agreement. I’d love to imagine a life where I get married, and we have more kids to raise here with Ivy.
Where they get the same experiences as I had with learning to ride horses, spending summers picking rocks in the hay field, growing up as a teen learning to bale hay and stock the haymow for winter.
But there’s only one woman I can imagine spending the rest of my life with, and it’s scary to dwell on the possibilities while we’re still in such fragile territory.
Most days, I don’t see Theo or Harper ever truly settling down.
Theo works on the farm part time, but if it wasn’t his family’s farm, I don’t know if he’d have the same dedication to it.
If Harper had her way, she’d turn it into a sanctuary and let all the animals live out their lives grazing in nature.
Pops lets out a low whistle once the old farmhouse comes into view. It’s starting to look more and more like a fresh build every day. She has a new roof, secured foundation, and a complete upgrade to the electrical and plumbing system, not to mention the addition of central air.
A few weeks ago, we ripped off the old front porch, and with the face completely torn apart, we decided to expand the whole front of the house outward, adding some much-needed square footage.
Even though it’ll just be me and Ivy, there’s that flickering hope inside that one day I can fill it with children, with laughter, with little feet and arguments and late nights and kids that eventually want their own bedrooms.
I pull up to the side of the house and shut off the engine. Neither of us move, both opting to sit and soak it all in. “What do you think so far, Pops?”
He nods his approval, soaking in the new wraparound porch, the wooden beams that hold up the slate roof.
“In a few weeks, I’ll have it painted a crisp white.” Harper begged me to go with something besides white, maybe a soft yellow or sage green, but it didn’t feel right. With the slate roof, wooden beams, and tongue and groove that lines the soffit, I wanted the white to contrast it all.
“I plan to add black shutters along the windows and hopefully planter boxes underneath. Not sure if I’ll stain those to match the roof and door or what.” I can imagine a bright front door, too. Maybe a barn red.
He reaches a frail hand out to grip the mirror, trying to pull himself out of the seat but failing.
“Hold on, Pops.” I rush out of my side and over to his, tucking my arm under his armpit and tugging him to stand. Once he has his balance, I release my hold but keep a steady hand behind him in case it’s needed.
The front yard is still torn to shreds after placing the new septic system.
That was one expense I hadn’t accounted for, but the well is still good.
Perfect condition, really, for how old this place is.
Theo warned me when we first got started that it was going to be expensive, and I knew I’d be spending most, if not all, of the money I had saved.
I just hadn’t expected to spend it all and then some.
Luckily, the expensive parts are done, or so I hope.
We walk side by side through the muck and mud to the front porch. Pops holds onto the railing at his side as he climbs, standing on the porch and tilting his head up to check out the tongue and groove paneling. “Nice touch,” he adds curtly before spinning around.
His gaze falls toward the west, where the main farmhouse sits beyond the trees, and I watch as something I can’t quite place, nostalgia, maybe, crosses his face.
“This view was always perfect. My parents said that’s why they chose this spot.”
I nod at that.
“Did I ever tell you this clearing was here?”
Now, that part surprises me. A natural clearing like this doesn’t seem to exist in nature.
“It was the perfect spot, high enough on a hill that the house wouldn’t be affected by floods. But a gentle enough slope where the yard seems to stretch out in all directions.”
“I would have thought someone cleared it this way.”
“Nope,” he says. “Mother nature made this one all by herself.”
I brush past him, moving to press the code to unlock the front door, and I swing it open.
The rest of the house is still a work in progress.
The old plaster that covered the walls has been ripped out, leaving the house down to the studs.
Fresh electrical and insulation lines the walls, the drywall sitting in a pile in the garage waiting for me.
He’s mostly quiet as I show him around the house, nodding along at my comments as I tell him what I envision the rest of the house to look like.
I show him the walls downstairs that I knocked out then started to reshape, and when we make our way back to the front entrance, I swear I can see his eyes start to blur.
“You all right, Pops?”
“I love this, Lukas.” He looks over at me, his hand coming up to squeeze my shoulder.
“I’m proud of what you’ve done to this place.
You brought it back to life. My parents would be proud to see what you’ve done with it.
” He looks out over the tree line, where the setting sun casts an orange glow across the land.
“They were sad to have to move out, but logistically, it didn’t make sense with all the kids and the farm being so far away. ”
My throat becomes scratchy at that. My dad has said that he talked it over with Pops when I asked if I could have the house, but he didn’t go much further into their conversation.
And while he seemed excited to talk about the renovations, I always wondered if it made him sad to see his childhood home change.
“Did you know that your grandma and I had broken up back in the day?”
My head whips to face him at the abrupt comment, and I stutter, not believing what I just heard.
He’s still staring over at the horizon, and when he turns back to meet my gaze, he smiles.
“We were just kids. Eighteen, fresh out of high school when we met. She was shopping with her girlfriends at a dress store outside of Copper Ridge. I was across the street with my brothers, picking up some grain from the feed mill. I saw her across the street and thought, boy, she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.”
I’ve heard bits and pieces of this story from my grandpa many times growing up.
How he saw my grandma and knew right away that he wanted to marry her.
He likes to brag that they dated for only a few months before he proposed, and they married on what would have been their six months dating anniversary.
“I fell in love with her from the start, kind of like with you and Magnolia,” he says, and my chest tightens.
“Some people search their whole lives to find someone but end up marrying out of convenience or compatibility, and that works for them. Then there are people like us who find someone we love at such a young age. And people often think that’s easier, but it isn’t.