Daffodils

Turn onto Highway 145 out of French Lick, Indiana, and drive. Just drive, about fifteen minutes or so. Now pretend it’s 1990-something, and look out the window to your left. There’s a house there, perched on top of a hill so green it hurts your eyes to look at it. The house is white, three stories. There are something like thirteen steps cut into the side of the hill, but these you won’t see till you make the turn at the mailbox and leave the sign for Moore’s Ridge Church behind in favor of climbing the driveway. In front of you will be an expanse of faded asphalt that leads off into the trees. This is what’s left of Old State Road 145, the highway’s predecessor. There could be an eighteen-wheeler parked at the end, if Daddy’s home. He’ll be throwing a tarp over the next morning’s load, climbing over the truck and trailer like a monkey in a tree, bare-chested, with a red hankie hanging out of his back pocket.

Park the car. Be careful of the kids: they might be playing on the rope swing tied to the big oak, twisting it ‘round and ‘round and then pushing off and flying out toward you in dizzying circles. Or maybe they’re riding their bikes, the little dark-headed boy called Matt occasionally abandoning his to help his sister get up some momentum on her oversized tricycle. Watch you don’t run over it, there. That boy loves his bike.

Of course, it could be they aren’t riding bikes at all, but sitting on the abandoned road playing with the powdered gypsum their father often hauls, which is called “peanut butter” and has a delightful texture, like wet silk. It sticks together decently enough till you throw it, and then it falls apart in the air in a puff of dust. It’s fascinating stuff.

If you don’t see them at all, check the far side of the mulberry bush. It’s on the right side of the road, on the edge of the tall brush that sweeps down the hill toward the highway. They know they aren’t supposed to eat the mulberries unwashed, and certainly not before dinner, so they hide out of sight and split the illegal hoard between themselves, talking quietly. They’ll wash their faces and fingers in water from the spigot next to the house to get rid of the evidence, and later their mother will send them out to pick more and sprinkle them with sugar for dessert.

Walk around a bit. There’s a shed made of corrugated tin in the flat part of the yard at the bottom of the hill. You’ll find rabbits in there, and an unfortunate captive turkey – of the wild variety – named Mr. Ugly, who has no idea he’s slated to be Thanksgiving dinner. Next to the shed is a small flock of sheep enclosed behind an electric fence. Boring creatures. Stupid.

Now, up the hill with you. You can take the stairs, or if you’re like the little girl and find it easier and don’t mind grass stains on your knees, you can crawl up the slope and use one of the steadier branches of the oak tree to get to your feet.

The concrete walk leading up to the little porch is probably scrawled all over with colored chalk. The little boy likes to practice his letters and numbers on it. There are three steps and a wrought iron railing, but try not to lean on it too hard: it’ll fall right over and take you with it, straight into the flowerbed – Thump.

Inside the house, the living room opens up and then narrows to a hallway that leads to the bedrooms, the in-house entrance to the basement, and the bathroom at the very end. A doorway off to your right will lead you through the dining room and into the kitchen, where you’ll likely find a woman standing over the stove singing while she stirs a pot of chili, into which she has put a box of elbow macaroni to make it stretch to feed four people. She has a beautiful contralto; she belts out Patsy Cline like she is Patsy Cline. Her hair, in the evening sun coming through the west window, is a breathtaking blaze of copper and ruby and fire spilling down her back to her waist. Sometimes, her children and her husband stare at her like she’s the queen of all things beautiful.

A door in the wall will open to reveal a flight of stairs that will take you to the attic: three rooms, stifling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. At one end is the room where the children’s mother keeps her sewing machine and the bolts of fabric she uses to make clothes. In the middle is the room with the children’s toys: they come up, get what they want, and carry it down to more agreeable climes. The little girl scoots down the stairs on her butt and climbs them on all fours. If her hands are full, she’ll toss the toys down first and then follow behind them.

The backyard has a swing set and a little wooden shed that houses the well and well-pump. The children have been expressly forbidden to enter this shed, but it makes a great base for games of Tag. The edge of the yard gives way to a stand of thick brush and thorn trees, through which a wide path has been cut that leads around the corner to a spot overlooking an abandoned house next to the highway. Every April, the yard of this house explodes into a riot of yellow: daffodils, growing so densely the grass can barely be seen between them. The little girl thinks this might be the spot where the sun once crashed straight into the earth. She loves these flowers. When things get bad, the flowers are what she thinks of: she goes away in her head and finds the daffodils.