House of Fire: A Story of Love, Courage, and Transformation

By Elizabeth Di Grazia

House of Fire shows that thirty years of breaking free from a cycle of violence was not enough to prepare Elizabeth di Grazia for the trials of starting her own family. Growing up in the 1970s, she suffered repeated sexual abuse, incest, and neglect. Although in the Catholic church, she was forced to have a hushed-up abortion at the age of fourteen. Within a year she was pregnant again, by another brother. Di Grazia gave birth to a son who was quickly taken away and adopted into a family she never knew. Elizabeth's story traces her healing and the creation of an intentional family. She and her partner, Jody, adopted two Guatemalan babies. They learned that provision and protection were not enough, but refused to allow denial and secrets to go unexposed became critical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781682010402

Elizabeth Di Grazia

Elizabeth di Grazia graduated from Hamline University with an MFA in Writing in 2003. She has a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and volunteers with the Police Reserves. She lives with her family in Richfield, Minnesota.

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Additional praise for House of Fire:

House of Fire is a book of naked, sharp-edged truth, a journey into and through immense darkness. Yet it is also a profound testament to our deeply human ability to heal and transform.

– Scott Edelstein, author, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher

Truly, this is a story of love, courage, transformation and determination. Beautifully written. It really works well with the back and forth from present to past, and isn’t that how we all live our lives, clearing the past so we can fully arrive in the present the Real life, having learned from what has come before?

– Cindy Yasmine Libman, LICSW, LMFT, CAEH

Out of the ashes of her harrowing childhood, Elizabeth di Grazia has crafted a tale of hope and renewal. In unsentimental and forthright prose, di Grazia shares how she managed to break the chains of childhood incest and create a loving family from scratch—not by erasing her past but by absorbing its hard lessons. Her resilience and determination shine through every page. This book shows it is possible not only to survive the unimaginable, but also to thrive in spite of it.

– Pamela Schmid, editor, Sleet Magazine

House of Fire

A story of love, courage, and transformation

Elizabeth di Grazia

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

St. Cloud, Minnesota

Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth di Grazia

Cover photos © iStock/Getty Images

Author photo © Rosemary Ann Davis

Cover design by Elizabeth Dwyer

All rights reserved.

Print ISBN: 978-1-68201-028-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-68201-040-2

First edition: March 2016

Published by

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

P.O. Box 451

St. Cloud, MN 56302

northstarpress.com

To my family:

Jody, Antonio, and Crystel

Author’s note

I’ve changed the names of my brothers and sisters, except my youngest brother, John. He needs to be seen; I want everyone to see him. This is my story. No one can say that it didn’t happen.

Table of Contents

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Epilogue

Reading Guide Questions

Resources

Acknowledgements

Hope is the thing left to us in a bad time.

–Irish proverb

Mary Patricia Krantz    married    George Edward Smith

3/15/24–10/26/91     5/2/53     7/23/20–12/26/92

Simon       May 11, 1954

Patrick       April 12, 1955–December 19, 2012

David       July 6, 1956–April 29, 2015

Thomas       July 13, 1957

Ann       September 26, 1958

Mark       April 25, 1960

Michael       April 13, 1961

Paul       November 20, 1962

Catherine       June 20, 1964

Margaret       November 30, 1966

Patricia       July 31, 1968

John       November 14, 1969–May 29, 1999

Part One

Dragging our luggage to the international airline counter, I shortened my stride to stay behind Jody. Her trim runner’s body, a weather vane, was my directional. She was stressed. I could tell by the way she carried her five-foot, three-inch frame—taut spine and determined walk. I shortened my stride because I had to practice not being Jody’s partner.

Morning passengers were checking flight information or moving quickly to their terminals. Conversation was a low hum, mixed with the shuffling of gray plastic tubs and the rustle of coats, jackets, and shoes being removed at security.

The dark blue trailing suitcase tipped over again. It was unwieldy, bulging with everything two babies would need for a stay in a hotel. Bracing the baggage with my foot, I yanked it upright. I was overdressed because I didn’t like to be cold. I tugged at my layers, pulling them away from my clammy skin. Jody reached for one end of the large suitcase and helped me slide the baggage to the counter. She tucked her short brown hair behind her ears.

You gals traveling to Guatemala to adopt? asked the gate agent.

Yes we are, we answered in unison.

My eyes burned. The airline attendant saw us as partners, both moms-to-be. I set down my backpack and busied myself in locating our passports, burying my glee. I hoped Jody didn’t notice the inclusive language the attendant used. The previous night she had suggested we remove our matching rings. She was wound tighter than strands of cat hair in a grooming brush.

Jody would be the legal mother. She was adopting Antonio and Crystel, seven– and eight-month-olds. In Guatemala, it was illegal for same-sex couples to adopt. Even in 2003, there were efforts in at least sixteen U.S. states to establish laws requiring that children be adopted or fostered only by heterosexual couples and singles. The adopting mother could easily have been me. However, we gambled that Jody’s job would be the most secure. A year earlier, when we started the adoption process, unemployment jumped to an eight-year high. If we chose wrong and the single parent was laid off and lost her income, we would lose our possibility of a family. For us to be successful in adopting, I had to agree to not exist on paper. This went against everything I believed in. I was now disposable, just like I was in my birth family. Wounds I carried from being unseen were again ripped open.

It wasn’t that my mother never saw me. While in my twenties, I gave the eulogy for my maternal grandmother to a standing-room-only crowd in a Catholic church. After the service, my mother asked me for the tribute and had seventy-five copies made for the reception. Though surprised, I was happy. She was obviously proud of her daughter. She worked the room until her hands were empty.

It was déjà vu at my boyfriend’s funeral. She called asking for the address to the funeral home. Again, I was taken aback. I could not reconcile this mother who abandoned me in my childhood and teens with the mother who now, sometimes, wanted to be a part of my life. On this occasion, her attention unsettled me. I didn’t know where to sit—with the boyfriend’s mother, my parents, or friends? I had this extra problem to deal with. My dad, who was also there, didn’t register in my mind. He was absent even when he was present. Mother made him come. She always made him show up for the things she didn’t want to do alone. I could picture her shooing him to the sink to shave, the shaving cream left behind his ears, and the suit that he was now wearing that she would had laid out on the bed.

Suddenly, the boyfriend’s mother, who wasn’t much different from mine, put her henlike arms around me and pulled me to the front row, seating me next to her. I sobbed throughout the service for what wasn’t and what could never be and for reasons that I didn’t even know.

A couple years later, my mother was there at my college graduation. I was thirty years old. It took me thirteen years to cobble together tuition reimbursement, vocational rehabilitation grants, and money to walk onto the stage and receive my bachelor’s degree. After the ceremony, she took me out for dinner. I was surprised she had even wanted to be a part of the celebration. My first thoughts were that I’d just receive my diploma in the mail and skip the hullabaloo until she inserted herself into my life and said that she wanted to come. Dad, silent and unseen, was with her. He never seemed to get his due. It was he who gave me a ring as a graduation present, which I would soon lose. I would never find it, though I looked and looked. My dad was a chemical dependency counselor by then. The Chippewa Herald-Telegram had recently written an article about him.

Recovering alcoholic works for Alcohol, Drug Abuse Council: A counselor from the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation office says, George can move into a family situation and immediately know the problems. He has an uncanny knack for communication. People relate to him quickly because of that. He is highly respected in the field. He is in homes and treatment centers all hours of the day. If you need something, call George.

I knew the man, my dad, who was depicted in the story. I also knew the man who was scared, vulnerable, beaten down, and who fondled my breasts. Dad was well liked, respected, and generous. It was his family who struggled. His family who treated him as if he was a nothing. Maybe we were just trying to find him.

Next, I received a letter from my mother that said she was making plans to visit me in Tonga, where I was stationed in the Peace Corps. She would bring gifts for my homestay family. She never came. It could have been my anger that kept her away. By then, I had her figured out. She showed up when I made her look better. She wanted to take credit for who I was, who I had become.

My eight brothers got the worst of it. She didn’t pay them any attention. If I was disposable, they were trash in the burn barrel. Maybe it was because they didn’t make anything of themselves. In my early twenties, my Aunt Flora told me, You are a self-made woman.

The adoption agency knew Jody and I were partners. They cushioned my feelings, the unseen partner, by saying that they would write the home study report as a composite of us. Visiting our home, the social worker affirmed our relationship by using eye contact, including me in the discussion, and assuring us of a successful adoption. Still, I couldn’t help my anger. When the home study report came for us to proofread, not existing on paper scalded me. For ten years, I worked so hard to heal, and being visible in the world was a large part of that. Now, to have these babies, I had to erase myself all over again. This time it was my doing. I wanted a family that much. By now, my mother was dead. I was happy that she was dead. My life was easier. Now, I was focusing on creating my own family. My dad was dead, too. Both, a pile of ashes in a box, buried side by side.

The home study said that Jody moved into her story-and-a-half-style house two years ago, in a safe, quiet neighborhood next to a school with a playground, softball field, hockey rink, and tennis courts. The house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, kitchen, a living room with a fireplace, a three-season porch, an exercise room, and another bedroom, laundry room, and storage in the basement. The report said the entire house was open, comfortable, attractively furnished, and reflected her interests and tastes. The fenced backyard was beautifully landscaped, with a swimming pool. It had plenty of room for children to play.

What the home study didn’t state was that this was my home for eight years before I met Jody. It didn’t say that at one point I had three renters to help with the mortgage during a period of unemployment. Jody and I refinanced the house when she moved in and she became a joint owner. Months later, even though it wasn’t legal or recognized by the State of Minnesota, we married in the backyard.

Passports, please?

I pushed aside two paperbacks to reach the passports. I was the holder of important, irreplaceable papers. I had learned about Jody’s propensity for misplacing items on our first vacation, a three-week backpacking trek in New Zealand. It became customary for us to hunt for her valuables by backtracking from one scenic location to the next. Before our holiday was over, she handed me her passport, her return flight ticket home, and her car and house keys. I loved that she had decided to travel overseas with me. I’d come up with the adventure and she’d agreed to accompany me, was thrilled, even. Toward the end of a trip, when I no longer had any money, she would treat me. Even from the very beginning, it was clear she wanted to be with me.

Most people treat the stroller as a carry-on, the attendant said. Then, they can make sure it reaches their destination.

I kept my gaze inside the backpack. I’d do anything to not respond. Unlike me, Jody usually processed information before she talked. I gained understanding as the words flowed. The more I talked, the more I knew. I wished people like her had taxi meters for eyeballs, indicating that they were thinking and they’d be responding soon. It would be my signal to remain silent. Instead, I lived in this not-knowing place. I had no idea where Jody was on the continuum of being verbal. It jarred her when I spoke too soon and she didn’t have the length of time she needed for her thoughts.

Okay, Jody said after a minute. We’ll bring it with us.

Burnt jet fuel and the smell of fresh coffee were in the air. My stomach was growling.

Jody took possession of the stroller, but later, as we sliced through the current of people, we heard, Would the person who left a child’s stroller at security please return to the area?

Jody was gripping a carry-on in one hand and a backpack in the other.

I stopped mid-stride.

I forgot, she argued. They wouldn’t let the stroller go through the scanner.

Jeez, I hope we don’t forget the babies someplace. I gripped my backpack tight, comforted by its bulk.

Shssh! She took three quick steps back to security. There it is, leaning against the wall!

I shifted my pack to carry the full weight on my back and held out my hand. Here, let me take it.

Her face was flushed. No, I have it!

She was juggling her bags and the umbrella stroller. Her right shoulder couldn’t contain the weight of her carry-on. The bag slid to her elbow, causing her to lose her grip on the stroller. The stroller flopped to the ground.

Let me help.

No! she said again. I have it!

She flung the carry-on strap over her neck, leaned, and grabbed the stroller’s handle. The stroller wasn’t worth much. It still had a sticker from a garage sale: five dollars.

It’s not like losing a baby, I wanted to say. I now wondered if that was a possibility.

The sun was setting when the plane circled over Guatemala City. I studied volcano peaks out the window. There were thirty-three volcanoes in Guatemala, some very active, ­regularly covering the surrounding towns and villages in thick ash. Nineteen miles southwest of Guatemala City was Pacaya, an active complex volcano. Pacaya erupted violently in 1965, and had been erupting continuously since then. My babies were born here. I was born near unpredictable fire, as well.

Three other large volcanoes were masses on the horizon out the airplane window. One of them, Volcano de Fuego (Volcano of Fire), remained constantly active at a low level; steam and gas issued from its top daily. Once, in October of 1974, Fuego erupted. An ash cloud shot more than four miles high. Glowing avalanches moved down the slopes of the Volcano of Fire at thirty-five miles per hour. In 1974, I was fifteen years old. I lived far from here, but like the Guatemalans, I was running from fire.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of my seat window while the memory stalked me.

It was mid-morning on our Wisconsin farm. Fifty dairy cows, milked hours ago, were grazing in the pasture. A nip still hung in the air, but I burned.

It was a breezy September morning. Warming my back against the trash barrel, the flames must have caught the synthetic lettering on my shirt. It wasn’t even mine. It was a wrestling top, a brother stole from a rival school. When my mother found out that the athletic garb wasn’t flame resistant she wanted to sue the school, but how was she going to explain how he got the shirt? I was surprised I had it on. I was risking a pounding, wearing his shirt. But if he stole it, it was anybody’s, right?

The trash barrel had been moved to the front of the garage. The garage had been lined with beds for my brothers when our house burnt down. That was three years earlier. Today, we were burning rubbish from the yard, the basement, and the garage. Everything disappeared in the flames, a leftover shoe, sock, cardboard, wood, paper. Even clothes. Now the fire wanted me.

I ran. The fire followed. I fell to the grass, slapping at my shoulders, my back, my side. I screamed. Digging my teenage shoulders into the ground, I pitched back and forth, back and forth.

My ten-year-old sister screeched for our brother. Mark! Ann’s on fire!

Flames reached for my hair. My hands slapping, slapping, always slapping, but heat scorched me everywhere. I was inside the fire. I struggled for the earth, using the grass, the dirt to snuff the fire that was burning me alive.

Mark finally reached me. He tore off what was left of my shirt, threw the burning scrap into the rusty trash barrel. Flames and black smoke swirled in the cylinder. I was naked from the waist up. I crossed my arms in front of me, hiding my breasts, and ran into the basement of our home.

Mother was in the basement putting clothes in the washer. Get in the shower!

I stood under the spray, my body shaking, shivering. I touched my hair. The ends were brittle. My back was a mouth-full of nerves, Pop Rocks, crackling, fizzing, and popping.

All right, get out here.

She handed me a button-down, washed-out plaid shirt of Dad’s. I smelled it, sniffing for cow shit. Did she get it from the rack or pick it out of the pile on the floor? I studied the mound of dirty clothes below my feet. Still doubtful, I swung the shirt on my back and quickly put my arms through the short sleeves. I was drowning in his shirt. Pinching the sides of the cloth, I held it away from my burnt skin so the fabric wouldn’t touch me. I didn’t want anything of my dad’s touching me. Hunched over, trembling, I drew in short, quick breaths. I had a problem. I couldn’t get out of my wet shorts without letting go of the shirt. If I let go of the shirt, it would touch my skin. Still, I couldn’t help it. I quickly dropped my hands, pawed out of my pants, and left them in a puddle on the concrete floor. When the shirt touched my skin, it felt like hot grease jumping from a pan.

The three bedrooms in the basement were quiet. My younger brothers and sisters were scattered into hiding, afraid to be involved in the commotion. I wanted to find them and tell them that it would be all right. Instead, I walked upstairs to the kitchen. The smell of fried potatoes and onions permeated the house.

George, goddamn it, why can’t you take her! I heard my mother yelling. Jesus Christ, can’t you see I’m busy cooking? Can’t you do a goddamn thing? Why is it always me? You take her! Mother stabbed at the insides of the cast-iron frying pan to loosen stuck potatoes.

My dad shook his head back and forth. His beefy face was drained of color. I’m… I’m… not going to take her!

George, goddamn it! You drive her!

I stood for a moment staring. She wanted Dad, the Nothing, to take me to the doctor? My back was burnt to shit. I hadn’t stopped shaking. Forget it! I yelled from the doorway, my hand already on the knob. I’ll fucking walk! My voice stopped them. It was four miles to the doctor’s office.

You son of a bitch! Mother said to Dad, throwing the metal spatula at him. Call the doctor. Tell him to wait.

Mother and I didn’t speak during the five-minute drive into town. Leaning forward in the car, I grabbed at the shirt to fan it away from my skin. My attempts were futile. A whistling sound came in and out between my clenched teeth. I tasted smoke. My heart was pounding. Would the doctor ask me about the baby? Is that why Mother didn’t want to take me? Mother signaled a right turn at the Ellsworth East End Bank. There were two doctors in our town of three thousand: the Catholic doctor, Dr. Klaas, and the other one, Dr. Jonas. Dr. Klaas had his office on the east end of town and Dr. Jonas on the west end. That’s how the town was divided: Catholic and other. Dr. Klaas and his family attended High Mass on Sundays. They sat in the third pew from the front. My brothers were altar boys, my mother a lector, my father converted.

The last time I saw Dr. Klaas as a patient was a year earlier. I was fourteen. I went in with severe stomach pains. Dr. Klaas diagnosed my pregnancy. But it was Dr. Jonas, the doctor on the other side of town, who referred my parents to an abortion clinic in the Twin Cities.

Even though it was just after noon on Saturday, and the sign in the window said the office was closed, a nurse met us at the door and motioned us in. Dr. Klaas will examine you in the first room.

Take your shirt off, Dr. Klaas said gently. Lay down.

After giving me a shot in the butt, he reached for the tweezers. Moving to my back, he began pulling off skin, strip by strip. The smell of charred skin and singed hairs filled the room. I was horror-struck that the doctor was peeling me. A potato is peeled. I spasmed on the white paper.

How did this happen?

I mumbled into the table, trash barrel… warming back… caught… on fire.

Did he believe me? Did he believe me when I told him it wasn’t my