CHAPTER 29

  PEACE ON THE FARM

  There is peace on a farm like nothing in the city. This feeling grew inside me the more time I was on Grandpa Jack and Mimi’s farm. I wouldn’t say it was the first time I ever felt peace, but it was the first time I felt that level of peace in my life. It still resonates within my soul to this day. Something I long for and miss. The vision of gold wild oat grasses in a field and California oaks with their root-like branches reaching up and out to the sky like heaven.

  I’ve been obsessed with those visions in my life. Longing to return to the peaceful part of childhood that felt like it was never going to come and one I cannot get again. The only connection to those visions as an adult is seeing the vastness of a blue sky with billowing clouds in it or the intricate pattern and inconsistency of an oak tree leaf.

  California oak tree leaves follow an inconstant pattern as they travel around its main stem. No two are alike. The flow of the curves of an oak leaf looks like juvenile cartoon leaves. Void of what one would expect a real leave to look like. It is not the arrowhead or diamond shape that you expect a traditional tree leaf to look like. And no two, in all their untraditional curves, are the same. Related, maybe, but not the same.

  Grandpa Jack had never felt so at peace as during that time on Vincent’s farm in France. It was his first entry into the world of how a man could connect with his labor and the natural world at the same time. Something you don’t find in a classroom or office. Those are the places that connect you to the world that men have created. A farm finds that perfect balance of man’s need for work and a connection beyond himself.

  It is the natural, manual labor aspect on a farm that just feels organic. One with the weather, earth, and nature. It is something you don’t see or hear or taste, although it comprises all of those things. It is something you feel. It is something that you surrender yourself to. Grandpa Jack remembered that trip to Vincent’s estate with only fond memories.

  There is an escapist feeling on a farm, when in fact you are not really escaping; you are deeply living. Darby and I had learned in the year leading up to the time on the farm that the easiest way to escape what life would bring was to bury your nose in a book and hide out from living in the shallow realities the world can bring.

  There came a time that summer when my comfort on the farm gave me legs to explore. After a while, I found my way into the storage shed that sat next to the house. The two-story wooden building had a staircase that went around the outside, up the back, and to a deck on the second floor. Fitch told us that at one time, the building was a wildfire watchtower for the valley. Before all the farms around Owensville were divided up, the tower allowed views for miles across the valley.

  One day, I was up on that second-story deck. I had fashioned some scrap wood I found in the barn into a sword and shield. The old wooden building was my castle, and the farm, my kingdom. Like the great Mount Fillon, I stood watch for any attacker that should come my way. I would protect my family and my sister from anyone who would want to hurt them. I maneuvered my sword and shield like a trained warrior as I cut the air back and forth across the deck of the shed.

  Soon enough, Darby, who was sitting under the shade of the giant oak on the front porch, working her logic puzzles, had taken notice.

  I called out to her, “Princess Darby, do not fear. I will protect you from our aggressors. No foe or enemy or giant or beast will dare come to take you in my presence, for I am the king! And this is my mighty sword and shield of strength. Thy kingdom is forever safe in my presence.”

  Darby just rolled her eyes at me like she often did. No sense of imagination.

  I continued swinging my sword and thrusting it into imaginary enemies. I then pulled the map from my pocket and unrolled it.

  “I proclaim this my kingdom! That no man, beast, or vile creature should rule over me and my dominion.”

  I looked down at the map and then out over the valley. In doing so, I noticed continuity between the map and the outlook over the farm and its surrounding valley. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen all this before.

  “Darby, come quickly.”

  Darby answered without even looking up, “Darius, I don’t feel like playing right now. I’m busy.”

  “No, come check this out.”

  She rolled her eyes again, in dramatic pre-teen girl fashion, then noticed I had the map out.

  “Darius, put that away!” she yelled across the way from the front porch. She ran over and up the stairs. “Are you crazy! What if someone saw you with this?” She asked, grabbing it out of my hands and crumbing it up.

  “No, look!” I insisted. “Besides, Grandma is inside, and Grandpa and Fitch aren’t around. Just look at the map. I think Grandpa used this deck to draw the map.”

  I grabbed the map back and opened it. “See here, this mark. This is the tower, and there is the barn.” I pointed to the various markings he had drawn from the map in the cabin. I walked with her over to the corner of the wraparound deck so we could see behind the farmhouse and the shed, “There, I bet that is that grove of oaks.”

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  We looked at the map and its overlay again.

  “Darby, are you seeing what I am seeing?”

  “See what?” she said.

  “Darby, most of the X’s are just west of the farm. And these here, could this be right? Could there have been a giant here on the farm?”

  Sure enough, in between the thick brush of the cabin and the well house was an “X” that seemed to indicate that an encounter had happened on the farm. I couldn’t believe it. My anxiety quickly heightened out of fear and excitement.

  “This can’t be right,” she said. “We must be looking at the map all wrong. We have no idea if this is even the farm on this map.”

  “Yes, we do! It all makes sense. Look at it again,” I was frustrated. “This is a map of the farm and the valley. Why won’t you believe it? Why won’t you believe in anything I say? Why does it always have to be your way? You know, you are so stubborn. Gramma Louise is right!”

  “Shut up!! You don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know me,” Darby yelled back. She pushed past me and down the stairs she went. I watched to see if she ran into the house, but she didn’t. Instead, she ran up to the grove of oaks behind the farmhouse.

  I didn’t immediately run after her. I knew it was best to give her some space. Besides, I knew I was right.

  Instead, I continued to look over the map and the outlying valley. I very well knew that Darby knew I was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She just needed time to draw her own conclusion.

  Darby had always been like this. She was stubborn. The problem with Darby had always been that the only person she would ever listen to was Dad.

  After a while, I walked up to the northernmost part of the farm, where the grove of oak trees sat and circled a small meadow. In between the trees was a stump that Darby was sitting on. She was facing away from me when I approached. Always in tune with her, I knew she had been crying. I knew very well she hid the fact that she cried about things she never discussed with anyone. I always kept it to myself because I knew this was what Darby wanted. No sense in upsetting her by calling her out on it. She tried to act strong, but I knew that just like I did, she put up fronts.

  I knew that everything was not always one way or the other. While we played the different roles our family had grown to expect for each of us, we were really more alike than different.

  As I approached her, I was loud enough so she could hear me coming. She turned her head to see who it was and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Darby, I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I’m sorry I said you were stubborn, even though you are. And I am sorry I said it the way I did. Come back to me.”

  She didn’t say a word.

  I continued, “You know, maybe we can camp out on that deck tonight. Who knows, maybe we will get lucky and see something. I know you, seeing is believing, right? Camp out with me tonight. We’ll bring Rascal with us. And he’ll alert us when something is on the farm. We’re sure to see something. Besides, it will be fun. Come on. It could be our castle mount, our tower above our kingdom. Like King Gayant, in Grandpa Jack’s story.”

  Darby thought for a second. Then said, “Maybe this camping out is a good way for you to truly realize these stories are not true. I’ll camp out with you if for no other reason but to prove this is all nonsense.”

  I knew she was trying to make me mad, but I wasn’t going to let her get to me. I gladly accepted her comment.

  Grandma Mimi loaded us up with popcorn balls and cocoa that she put in a thermos. The summer nights on the farm were warm yet breezy. We were lying out on the deck with a mountain of lavender-scented blankets and pillows from the house. The night sky was midnight blue and freckled with stars. The valley sat in darkest black, and the only farmhouse we could see was our own. There were no streetlights, and the only light outside was the porch light. The only other light came from the rare car that passed in front of the farm on the highway below.

  We both had flashlights, and old Rascal sat on top of the blankets as our protector. Rascal wasn’t so sure about the steps leading up to the deck, but once he got up there, he enjoyed curling up on the pile of blankets we lay under.

  With our flashlights, we scanned the area for any type of movement. I kept my eyes fixed on the outlying areas of the farm, relying on Rascal to alert me when someone or something was actually on the farm.

  “Darby, don’t you wish we could build a place like Mount Fillon for Mom and Dad?”

  Darby thought about it, “You know they are buried at the cemetery near our old house. Aunt Jane told us that any time we wanted to go, she would take us.”

  “I know that,” I answered. “But their grave markers are just like the rest of the ones at the cemetery. They’re really nothing special. Nothing we helped pick out. I just wish we could do something for them. Like King Gayant did for his family. Something we could put together on our own and visit on our own.”

  Aunt Jane and Gramma Louise took care of all the arrangements for the funeral and the cemetery. No one even asked us what we wanted for our parents. I hated the cemetery where our parents were. They looked just like one in a hundred other dead people on a sea of black granite stones and green rolling lawn.

  Darby always said that if someone had asked her, she would have wanted something under some trees for shade. Something where their parents could have a little peace from everyone else around them. I often worried about our parents having peace being dead and knowing we were still alive without them.

  I said, “You know, I think Mom and Dad would have liked this farm.”

  Darby said, “Maybe. I know they would like the fact that you are less rambunctious, less angry, and more at peace here.”

  I was immediately somewhat insulted.

  “I mean,” she said, “I’m glad to see you finally finding some peace yourself.”

  I was glad she clarified that. However, I knew she was hoping she’d find the same thing but hadn’t. She wanted peace as well, but she was not able to let herself find it. Too skeptical, too logical. Sometimes peace is hard to find unless you give up some things to get it. She wasn’t willing to do that.

  We stayed up long into the night searching and laughing and snacking. Finally, it got cold, and Darby found herself safe under the mountain of warm blankets. I kept looking, never losing hope. I was so determined to prove to Darby that his faith in their grandpa was worth something.

  That next morning, Grandma Mimi was up baking muffins and making juice for us when we came in from a fun but nearly sleepless night.

  Fitch came in after us. “Well, you two see anything unusual out there last night. Something you were looking for?”

  Did he know?

  Darby was quick, “Nothing unusual should ever be expected. “

  I was so mad.

  Fitch said, “Miss Darby, somehow the unusual and unexpected always seems to show up in life. If there is anything to be expected, it is that the unexpected finds its way into your life.”

  As usual, Darby rolled her eyes. Fitch saw her, looked at me, and rolled his own in a most usual way at me. It made me smile. It also made me wonder what he knew that he wasn’t telling us.