Big House on the Prairie

My house looked foreign to me as I drove slowly down the long gravel driveway. The massive brick hulk stood stark against the gray March sky and the brown winter ground. It looked as lost as I felt, and I sighed deeply as I realized that I could actually count the number of times I would lay eyes on it again. This was more than just a house to me. It represented a life that was beginning to feel like someone's other than my own.

The ex and I had spent more than two years working with an architect on the design of the house. We both figured it would be the place we would live until our cold, dead bodies were carried out of it, so it had to be perfect. I had been a renter all of my adult life and as such, I still had the original boxes of many of my possessions. Even when I moved into my ex's house after we were married, I had to store most of my things in the attic. I promised myself that once I unpacked them in the new house, I would throw away every box I had.

Before we started this project of a lifetime, we would drive out to the hayfield and spread a blanket on the ground between the two huge, old oak trees in the center, sip a glass of wine and talk about our future. The trees were all that remained of the fence row that once separated two fields. When my father-in-law had purchased both properties and cleaned out the fence row, he left the oaks because he thought they were too beautiful to cut down. Decades later, they would frame our home on the prairie. I imagined sitting in their shade on cool, green grass, watching the children I would have pumping their fat little legs, chubby hands gripping rope, moving a wooden swing to and fro, their unabated laughter tickling the peaceful silence.

We had decided to be our own general contractors. We worked on bid lists, interviewed subcontractors, obtained the construction loan and broke ground. I was there with a camera that day and throughout the entire construction process, documenting progress and carefully placing each photo into an album and writing captions beneath them. I also kept a daily journal of the project. The house was truly a labor of love. Every evening, we would drive out to see what work had been accomplished that day and to check the supply of building materials to make sure the crew would have everything they needed to continue work the next day. We had agreed that we didn't want to pay carpenters $25 an hour to sweep up sawdust so we would also clean the site during our evening visits. In the rain, in the snow, in the wind, we would pick up nails and pieces of lumber and sweep the plywood floors.  Somehow, it didn't seem like work. It was magic under the stars.

Once the house was nearly enclosed, I left my job and reopened my marketing agency. My time would be far more flexible and I could work from home where I could oversee the subcontractors and immediately answer questions like, "Which way do you want this door to open?" and "Do you want this light switch to be a two-way or three?" Our house in town had sold practically before we put it on the market so we'd spent a year living in one of our small rental properties. Our plan was to move into the unfinished basement of the house as construction continued. But when the time arrived for the new tenant to move into the rental house, the basement wasn't yet livable and wouldn't be for at least two more weeks. Not wanting to incur the expense of living in a motel we had to get creative. 

My parents and one of my sisters and her husband were co-owners of a small, old RV. My parents hadn't used it for awhile and my sister's family only used it for their annual excursion to the Missouri State Fair. She and I agreed to meet at a Pizza Hut in a small town about halfway between our homes to pick up the RV. We drove it back and found a relatively flat spot in the field next to our construction site, parked it and set up house. Literally. We ran a heavy-duty extension cord from the RV to the utility pole, unfurled the awning and moved in. To cut down on the amount of water in the vehicle's septic tank, we would often use the outhouse we'd rented for the construction crew. I can still see the image of my ex, dressed in suit and tie for work, walking to the outhouse with newspaper in hand. 

My office was the little dining booth where I could get a Diet Coke from the tiny fridge without standing up. The "living room" consisted of padded benches which were strewn with brick and tile samples, paint chips and the file folders filled with pages we'd torn from magazines for the past three years -- ideas for the house. RV life was tight and downright dangerous at times. I tried to sit down on the bench one morning and sliced the side of my thigh wide open on a broken piece of sample tile. "Great," I thought while spurting blood on my way to grab a handful of paper towels to press over the wound. I realized that the bleeding wasn't going to stop and actually considered driving to my doctor's office in case I needed stitches. Instead, I held the towels over the cut and hobbled into the three-car garage. In the garage was everything we owned, stacked to the ceiling with little paths here and there for access. Clothing hung from an iron pipe held up by huge hooks screwed into the ceiling joists. Dressers and armoires filled with clothes and shoes sat next to the push mower and bicycles. I wondered where in the hell we'd put the box containing Band-Aids, peroxide and Neosporin. I started searching, shifting boxes with one hand to read their contents while keeping pressure on the wound with the other. That's how one of the construction crew found me -- bleeding and cursing. "Geez," he said. "Should I take you to the E.R.?" 

"No," I growled. "I just have to find the damn box of bathroom crap." Not exactly eloquent speech from a university graduate with an English degree, but I had no time to use my expansive vocabulary now. I was slowly bleeding to death.

I found the box and the guy picked it up, set it on the ground and ripped it open violently. I shuffled through it with my free hand, grabbed the gauze, tape and peroxide and plopped down on a plastic patio chair, propping up my wounded leg on a stack of boxes. I pulled the towels away and poured the peroxide over the cut, watching it bubble on contact. Although it continued to bleed, I dabbed at the wound, slapped a stack of gauze squares over it and applied multiple pieces of tape. I thanked my assistant and walked back to the RV. I picked up the offending piece of broken, bloodied tile and tossed it outside on the ground. Although I never used that tile in the house, I still remember exactly what it looked like and think of it every time I notice the scar that remains.

For 10 days, the RV was home and we made the best of it. We bought a remnant of bright green plastic outdoor carpeting -- astroturf -- and laid it over the hayfield stubble, creating a patio under the awning. We stuck the Weber charcoal grill and our resin table and chairs on it. I added two large terracotta pots, planted with ivy and blooming flowers. It looked like some sort of bizarre oasis that gave our friends something to laugh at when they visited.

My sister called me to find out when we were returning the RV. I told her the room in the basement wasn't habitable yet. "Well, we leave for the fair on Friday," she said. Not having a roof over my head was apparently not as important as this year's tractor pull competition. So, we hired an extra crew to throw the sheetrock on the walls and ceiling of the bedroom and bathroom in the basement, tossed some rugs on the concrete floor and moved in.

My office above the garage was the first room we finished in the house. That's because I had started acting a little crazy from the stress of working, sleeping, eating and watching television in the same little room. The bathroom had a toilet and tub/shower but no sink. We used the huge utility sink in the corner of what was supposed to be the workshop. That was our kitchen, complete with one of those heavy, wood-grain laminate-covered eight-foot folding tables for storage and counter space, a microwave, refrigerator, electric skillet, coffeemaker and Crockpot. We used a lot of paper plates and ate a lot of takeout that year. But it wasn't all bad. Our room had a set of French doors from which we could see the oak trees and the hayfield. I often opened my eyes in the morning, put on my glasses (because I'm blind) and from my bed absorbed the beauty of the land as the dark gave way to the pinks and oranges of the rising sun. Occasionally, the view was marred by the sight of one of the construction crew sitting in his pickup, sipping coffee and waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Between the workmen and the curious who would simply walk right into the house without knocking, probably assuming no one would be crazy enough to be living in a house with a plywood front door, I had learned that the bathroom was the only safe place to be scantily clad. But at times, our life was very private. We spent most evenings just outside those French doors where we had relocated the astroturf and all of its accessories. We might have looked a little like the Beverly Hillbillies but we felt lucky to be in such a beautiful, quiet place under the open sky, building our dream house. Life was good and we were blessed.

I left behind my construction photo albums and journals. They weren't mentioned on the list of items I got in the divorce or on his, but I knew I would never be able to look at them again. They documented the project of two people I could barely remember, if I ever knew them at all. I had put everything I had into that big house on the prairie and loved it. But now, I realized, it was just a house. It hadn't been a home for a very, very long time. Just a box filled with promises as broken as the tile that had cut me and leaving a scar not as noticeable to the eye but far, far deeper.