We never went down the same road twice, those Sundays when we searched for The Old Farm. But whatever direction we headed, the final road was always dirt—a dusty, July road with scratchy, yellow grass-filled ditches.

And on those interminable summer Sundays, we never discussed our destination. Our parents, silent on the “where?” and “what?” joined forces to minimize harassment –  a fragile hope. We children focused our energies on the question of distance and nourishment.

The voyage started with a stern and unheeded warning from my otherwise stoic father not to ask for an ice cream cone because he had no money, and my mother’s insistence that there be no fighting.

Then for what seemed like hours, we bumped along, the five of us stuffed in the back seat, dust spitting up through the cracks in the rusted floor, dicing one another with elbows, knobby knees thrusting for space. Until finally, entangled in one another’s hostilities, our sweaty faces grimy and downtrodden, the car came to a stop.

“A flat?” we cried, but no, not a flat. We had arrived. Scrambling to escape the back seat, we shoved and prodded, to erupt from the sinking carcass.

Dad, chewing a stalk of straw, moved off down the road, and surveyed the scene. Only now do I wonder whether each of those fields looked different to him. To us, they were the same: isolated, deserted, and unnamed.

We were city kids. Not right-in-town, high-rise buildings, public‑transportation-blasting-by-your-door city. Just, you-can-take-a-streetcar-to-work, stores-within-driving-distance, and only-two-vacant-lots-in-three-blocks city.

The idea of our family dropped on to a sunny open field to fend for ourselves was alarming to us. The first thought that came to our minds was food, Where was the store? And a toilet. Because by now, someone had to go. Mother suggested we find a bush. Pee here? What if someone comes?

No one ever did. Not a car passed by to churn up the dirt in a going-somewhere friendly way, to suggest that this road did connect to living communities, that other families, by choice, passed this way.

Dad stood down the way, so still that you’d think he’d fallen asleep standing up, and mom, once the baby was old enough to fend for herself, would walk down to stand by him. It was the only time they stood together, as if they belonged, and could survive without us asking questions and pushing at them.

Quick as the wind, we kids left the road and moved into the ditches. We ducked carefully under the barbed wire fence and burst into the field like pet rabbits released from a cage. Except for Sandy—the oldest—“but not the wisest,” we would shriek.  As soon as mom was out of sight, Sandy sank down in the back seat, and read love comics.

Mom hated comics, claimed they kept kids from learning to read. She would have disapproved of love comics even more than she did our regular Archies, had she known about them. As it was, honor kept us from squealing. Comics were the only thing we all agreed on, and the risk of losing our own bedraggled specimens prevented us from pointing a finger at our depraved sibling.

It was Granny who bought Sandy those comics. She didn’t read them herself, and I’m sure had no idea of the contents. Saturday, when she arrived, Granny handed out the candies, the games, and to Sandy, the love comics. I read one once, found hidden under my sister’s pillow. Once was enough. The tears—large triangular globules that stuck out of the heroine’s eyes like blue erasers—were disgusting. The girl was always sobbing about Billy or Johnny going off. The heroines were all as old as Aunt Freda, and more self-centered. They never had sisters or brothers.

So come Sunday afternoon, there we were. Mom and Dad down the road, stuck against the sky, forgotten; Sandy sunk down in the back seat of the car, and the rest of us scrambling around in the ditches or fields, ripping our clothes, fearless of the ferocious bulls. For bulls there were.

We all knew that every field—however inviting it might appear—held a vicious bull, tucked somewhere behind an innocent hedge or hiding over the hump of the hill.

Mom often warned us of this danger, and we passed on the wisdom. The trick was to make sure that the bull never came at you, never charged, until you were in the middle of the field, exposed. Then suddenly it was pounding towards you snorting like a tornado. Run, run for your life.

But what could spindly legs do against those fleshy thighs? What could a skinny chest do puffing and huffing, against a tank-sized bull, charging at you?

Jump the fence, scramble up, tear your hand on the barbed wire. Throw your legs over the wooden fence, ignoring the splinters and nails.

Bulls kill. The horns pierce your chest, which is clad bravely in a striped T Shirt purchased in quantity every spring: unisex; two colors. Thick as pirate’s swords, the horns plunge straight through you, and you’re tossed unto the fence to swing like jeans on the clothesline.

“I warned you about the bulls,” mother would say.

Dad, too late to do anything but transport the wounded, would carry the tyke (me, for pity’s sakes) along the road, the sun boiling the blood in the wound. The others, sorry now about being so mean, wishing they could have another chance to treat me right, pulling behind, tears pouring from their eyes. Even Sandy would hardly dare groan about getting blood on her new shirt. Even she would have to say, “She wasn’t such a bad kid,” or something like that.

This time I escaped. This time the bull stayed out of sight.

The afternoon progressed, until finally, after crawling in the buzzing tall grass, hiding in the ditches, making reed whistles, whining about the heat, we were herded back to the car. “We should have brought juice,” mom would say which didn’t help; we were thinking ice cream. We eyed one another slyly to see who would dare venture the suggestion first.

“It’s not like The Old Farm,” mom would say when we settled back. “The Old Farm was speckled in flowers, wild flowers, even this time of year. This earth is too dry.”

She was right. The Old Farm had flowers all summer: hollyhocks, brown-eyed Susan’s, daisies, probably even roses. And a creek—just in the spring, mind you, that flowed along the back: Mr. O’Neil’s property, but he never got out there.

Best of all, The Old Farm had Peter—a raggle taggle German shepherd, that, like all the family was a mongrel but as handsome as ever a dog hoped to be. That made all the difference, having Peter.  It was Peter who held the thief at bay up Mr. O’Neil’s apple tree. The thief was a local boy who couldn’t get work, and had tried to steal some apples.

We didn’t have Peter. We didn’t have any dog; we didn’t even have a cat. Bobby had a hamster once, but it died. Mom said it died of neglect, but dad said it was of old age. Sandy went through about fifty goldfish but they don’t count. Goldfish have no fur. As far as I’m concerned, a dog is the only animal that counts as a pet.

“Where would we keep a dog?” mom would ask, not looking for an answer because it wasn’t one of those questions. “He can sleep under my bed,” or “I’ll fix a place under the back stoop.” We would pipe up.

“And what kind of life is that, for a dog?” mom would argue. “A dog can’t be cooped up under the stoop. A dog needs space. If we lived in the country, it’d be different.”

We knew that; knew that life would be different if we lived in the country. The weather wouldn’t be hot and muggy in the summer, but fresh and sunny.  There’d be no chores. We’d pass our days playing in the creek or climbing the apple tree. We wouldn’t fight and shove at one another if we lived in the country. And when I say country, I mean The Old Farm.

Our front yard in Ottawa was two somersaults from the sidewalk. Mom complained that our back yard wasn’t even big enough to grow carrots.  As usual, she exaggerated. A carrot would only take a couple of inches, even fully grown, and the yard was bigger than that. But it sure didn’t have flowers all summer. Best that it could do was a couple of marigolds or snapdragons in the spring, and dandelions—a sea of dandelions—until the snow came. Dad threatened to dig them all out, but never did. I guess he figured that once the weeds were gone, there would only be dirt left. At least dandelions were green.

Those Sundays, driving home, an uneasy alliance developed in the cramped back seat. The goal was ice cream; the risk was being identified as the troublemaker, who started the campaign. The tactic was to put into the littlest head the idea of delicious chocolate ice cream trickling down a parched throat. Little heads are one track. When Tommy heard the word ice cream, he would brighten up. Even a whisper from us, “Don’t ask for ice cream” was enough.  Immediately, he’d start asking, demanding, whining, and then crying for ice cream. We kids kept saying, “Tommy, you know you can’t have ice cream” and the more we said it, the more he went on.

Finally, dad would holler, “Shut up, or I’ll stop the car and you’ll have all the ice cream, you need” which actually meant he’d give us all a wallop. The littlest head was beyond understanding this; Tommy’s mind was now stuck on the idea of ice cream, like a bloodsucker latched onto a leg. Then one of two things would happen. Sometimes mom pulled out her change purse, counted her money and found enough. Those were good Sundays. Sometimes, she opened her purse, counted the coins and told us flat out, “I don’t have money. We’ll have Freshie when we get home. Now shut up.” This Tommy understood.

On the Old Farm, the family made their own ice cream. You put in hot ice or something and churned it. I never could understand how hot ice made cold ice cream but mom said you had to stir it for hours, so maybe that explains it.

On the Old farm, on a Sunday—they never had to go anywhere. No long sweaty rides with bony brothers and sisters hissing at you and making you want to throw up. No one yanking your comics and popping bubbles in your ear. At The Old Farm, parents just sat on the porch in rocking chairs fanning themselves and drinking lemonade while kids ran across the fields, with Peter trailing behind. Best of all, on the Old Farm, the summers were longer than a dream.

At mother’s funeral I asked my sister if she pictured mom back at the Old Farm. She laughed and said, “If there ever was such a place.”

I know there is. I’ve been searching for it all my life. It’s a place called home.

© Melodie Corrigall

Melodie Corrigall is an eclectic Canadian writer whose work has appeared in Foliate Oak, Litro UK, Halfway Down the Stairs, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, Scarlet Leaf Review, Blue Lake Review, Subtle Fiction, Emerald Bolts and The Write Place at the Write Time (www.melodiecorrigall.com). 

 This story was published in Papercuts, Vol.14. Spring 2015.