Summer Snow

by Nicole Baart

  I pondered her question. “No,” I said finally. “I feel sorry for her.”

  “Me too.”

  We were quiet for a long time because, although there was much that could be said, most of our musings would be speculation only or, worse, raw hope. I figured I could come close to guessing at the myriad reasons Janice had left: guilt, inadequacy, fear, a desire for more. … And, probably most convincingly, the belief that Ben could meet the agonizing, indefinable need that gouged deep fissures in the earth of Janice’s soul.

  But while I thought I could look back and decipher why, I found it unbearable to look ahead and speculate about what would happen next. Would Janice come back? Would she send for Simon? Would she bring Ben into our lives? There simply wasn’t a perfect scenario no matter how I worked and reworked it in my mind. I couldn’t even claim to know what would be best for Simon, what would be best for me.

  Even though it was impossible to imagine how we would make this work, how we would bring Simon into our family and help him to understand that in her own broken, unfathomable way Janice loved him very much, I did know that the months, maybe years ahead would be hard ones. When Janice left me, I called her Janice. When she left Simon, he called her Mom. It took her ten years to come back to me. I didn’t know how long it would take her to come back to Simon.

  Maybe this time the split had been permanent.

  But these were things I couldn’t say out loud, even as I knew Grandma was carefully contemplating the exact same thoughts. Instead I murmured, “Do you think she’ll come back?”

  Grandma pursed her lips sadly, but she didn’t answer me. And then, with a heavy sigh and an almost dramatic flourish, she squeezed the back of my hand and, still clasping my fingers, lowered it to swing in the air between our lawn chairs. She looked me full in the face and smiled. “We—all of us, even Simon—are strong. We’ll make it no matter what. We get to rebuild.” Grandma’s eyes sparkled. “We get to be new.”

  I believed every word.

  As if on cue, Simon’s laughter rang out from the porch. Grandma and I looked up in time to see Michael squeeze the trigger on the long wand of the power washer and release a jet of cleansing water. We clapped and cheered.

  Stripping off the old paint turned out to be a deafening affair, replete with stinging droplets of water that Grandma and I could feel even at twenty feet away and debris that spun off the porch in a profusion of minihurricanes. Michael helped Simon hold the wand once or twice, but most of the time the dark-haired boy danced behind his new hero, protected by Michael’s frame, his mouth open in a shout that was drowned out by the sound of the earsplitting machine.

  It was over before too long, and the second Michael switched off the power washer, the air was filled with the happy noise of Simon’s hoots and Grandma’s and my laughter. The grass all around us was covered with the confetti of grayish white porch paint, as if someone had cried “Surprise!” and opened a trapdoor in the sky. The front porch itself was glistening and wet, the wood mostly bare, but waiting somehow and pretty, almost eager for change.

  “That was fun!” Simon yelped, dancing around the porch. “Let’s do it again!”

  “I think we’re done, buddy,” Michael said, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “But it was fun. Thanks for your help.”

  “Do we get to paint now?”

  Michael dropped the power washer on the sidewalk and led Simon over to where Grandma and I were sitting in the shade. He flopped on the grass, on the millions of flecks of paint, and Simon threw himself down beside him. “Sorry, Simon, but we can’t paint right away. The wood is wet now from all that water.”

  “But we’re supposed to paint the porch,” Simon complained, his voice taking on an uncharacteristic singsong quality.

  “How about if I come back tomorrow and we start painting then,” Michael offered, casting a raised eyebrow in the direction of Grandma and me. “Would that be okay?” he asked, addressing us directly. “I have to work until noon, but I can come after that.”

  Grandma consulted me with her eyes. I shrugged. She consented. “If you want to, Michael, we certainly wouldn’t turn down your help.”

  I considered giving Michael an out again, but then I loosened up and smiled at him. He wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t want to do it.

  “Can we look at the paint?” Simon asked, desperate to get started on the real project.

  “Why not?” Grandma pushed herself out of her chair and went to haul the bucket of paint back to our spot in the shade.

  Michael hopped off the ground and beat her to it, taking the bucket in one hand and giving Grandma the screwdriver with the other so she’d have something to carry too.

  “I’m not that old,” she reprimanded him, wagging the tool at Michael in mock disappointment.

  “Oh, I know. Just being a gentleman.”

  Michael and Grandma pried off the plastic tabs on the paint cover and then gently eased the top off. Long strands of white paint drew lines between the lid and the clean pool of paint below, and a soft, distinct scent filled the air. Simon sighed in approval. Even I had to admit that the porch would look very different swathed in all that shining white. It would make the whole house look different.

  “It’s lovely,” Simon said.

  I hid a smile behind my hand.

  “It’s white,” Grandma said, pretending to blink at the brightness of it.

  But it wasn’t too bright for Simon. As we watched, the glossy bucket of milky liquid lured him, and he reached out a tentative hand and touched the very tip of his index finger to the smooth surface of the paint. He pulled away immediately, almost shocked at what he had done, and gaped at the white on his finger. Casting around, he looked for somewhere to wipe it off. My leg was the closest thing. Something in his mind clicked. With a glimmer of trouble in his eye, Simon beamed at me and carefully, carefully placed his finger on my skin. There was an impish little hum, a tremble in his voice, and then he drew his finger from my ankle to my knee.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I howled, but I couldn’t disguise the laughter in my voice.

  It spurred Simon on and he stuck his finger in the paint again. This time he went for my face.

  “Oh no, no, no you don’t!” I shrieked. But I only curled up deeper into the chair and let Simon approach me with a slow, deliberate step.

  “Get her!” Grandma urged him.

  I shot her a look of pretend horror and struggled feebly while Simon pinned my forehead back with one hand. Then he dragged his finger triumphantly across my cheek with the other. “Looks awesome,” he said, backing up to survey his handiwork. He doubled over in a fit of giggles.

  And it wasn’t enough to stop there. Simon went back for more. “Come on, Michael, help me!”

  Michael wavered for a moment, but Simon grabbed Michael’s thick wrist and pulled his arm over the bucket of paint. “Come on!” the little boy cajoled.

  Tossing a cheerful wink at me, Michael dipped a finger in the paint and walked on his knees to join Simon beside me.

  “Make me beautiful.” I closed my eyes and laid my head back, listening to Simon laugh as he touched my other cheek with his cool finger.

  On the opposite side, Michael took a deep breath. I felt him reach for me. “War paint,” he whispered, using his finger to dot a line of circles along my hairline.

  Not anymore, I thought.

  Hemmed between the heavens above and the earth below, I felt that in this moment, with the sun filtering through the leaves in a glancing touch of blessing, all was well beneath the endless sky. Not perfect. Not exactly the way it should be. But well.

  Humbled

  DANIEL PETER DESMIT was born on August 13, shortly after ten o’clock in the morning.

  I woke up a few hours before sunrise with contractions that were nothing like the ones I had experienced before, and I knew with an uncanny sense of peace, of acceptance: This is it. I stole down the stairs when they were five minutes apart an
d found Grandma waiting for me at the kitchen table. Her Bible was spread out before her, and there were two glasses of water on the long slats of oak. She sipped out of one and offered the other to me.

  “What are you doing up?” I asked incredulously.

  “I had a feeling about tonight.” Grandma smiled. And then she rose from her seat to help me into a chair as a contraction nearly sent me to my knees. “Did you know that I was six days overdue with your dad?”

  “And the date today is …,” I panted after the peak of the contraction had leveled off.

  “The thirteenth. You are six days overdue.”

  I narrowed my eyes at my grandmother. “That’s superstitious.”

  She laughed. “No, it’s not. It’s providential.”

  Though I wanted to talk, though I felt that there was an endless abyss of things that I needed to plumb, to say, I found that everything had turned inside. It was a solitary feeling but not sad. I felt like the world around me had paused in its rotation, checked itself for this brief moment in time so that everything could pull back, make room for me, for the baby. It was matchless and rare, something to be treasured: I was alone in this fold of eternity with my baby and the One who had knit him within.

  When I laid my head on my arms and closed my eyes, Grandma simply ran her fingers lightly over my back. She read to me from the book in front of her, and while I didn’t hear and didn’t understand, her voice was poetry. It was life.

  We waited until six o’clock to call Mrs. Walker, and by that time I was so lost inside myself, so anxious to get to the hospital that I wasn’t even afraid of childbirth anymore.

  “It’s happening!” Mrs. Walker shrieked when she bounded through the door moments later. Then she bobbed her head as if someone had smacked it from behind. “Oops! Sorry! Hope I didn’t wake up Simon.”

  “I’m awake,” Simon called from the hallway, still rubbing his eyes. His hair was plastered against both sides of his head and sticking up on the crown like a Mohawk. Blinking and yawning, he gazed from Grandma to Mrs. Walker to me, obviously bemused at the three of us bedraggled-looking women in his kitchen. His stare lingered on me. I was standing hunched over the kitchen table, my hands flat against the smooth surface and a grim smile plastered to my face. Finally it hit him. “You’re going to have the baby!” he yelled. “I’m going to be a big brother!”

  “Something like that,” I wheezed as another contraction began to crest over me.

  Grandma and Mrs. Walker hustled me out the door moments later.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Mrs. Walker reassured. “Simon and I will have a great day together.” She gently eased my car door closed as if shutting it too hard would harm me in some way. Crossing to Grandma’s open window, Mrs. Walker exclaimed a little louder than necessary, “Promise me you’ll call as soon as the baby is born.”

  “I promise,” Grandma said quickly; then she threw the car in reverse and sped all the way to the hospital. “I’m not nervous,” she explained as I eyed her speedometer. It was nearing sixty-five, an unheard of velocity for my docile grandmother. “I’m just excited.”

  But the note of anxiety that rang in the car was nothing more than a distant echo when I was settled into one of the prettily apportioned delivery rooms. After a quick exam, the nurse determined that I was close but not yet ready, and that settling in for a few hours of labor was the best thing I could do. They hooked me up to monitors and started an IV just in case, and when the room was finally quiet and relatively still but for the rustle of a long ribbon of paper slowly unwinding as it recorded my contractions, Grandma reached over the low rail of my bed and grabbed both of my hands in her own. Her fingers were strong, calm.

  “You are going to be fine,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I whispered slowly. “I think I am.”

  “You are going to make a great mother.”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Your dad would be so proud of you.”

  “He would?” I choked.

  “I am so proud of you.” Her eyes were clear and bright and happy as she said it. There was not even a trace of a tear or any lingering tang of the bittersweet nature of our lives up until this point. Instead, there was hope burning there. A hope that was far more certainty, more expectation, than a simple, improbable wish.

  “Thank you,” I said, because there was nothing else to say. Of course I could tell her “I love you,” but she already knew that. It was written all over my face and seeping through my fingers as I held on to her with all of my strength. I had said those words to her every day of my life. But had I ever really thanked her for everything that mattered? Grandma had heard my appreciation for the little things, but did she know that the debt of gratitude I owed her was more than I could ever repay? “Thank you,” I said again, willing her to understand what I meant by it.

  “Julia,” she whispered back, “thank you.”

  Grandma was an exceptional birth coach, and she never stopped murmuring to me through the contractions, the pushing, the inevitable fear. She rubbed my back and talked me out of panic. She pushed away the little hairs that clung to my neck.

  We labored together for over three hours, and when Daniel was only minutes from the world, Grandma kissed my head and laughed. “This is it!” she cheered. “He’s almost here!”

  And then she began to cry.

  After Dr. Morales had cut the umbilical cord, he reached up and gently, gently laid my baby boy on my chest. The nurses hadn’t weighed or measured him yet—he was only seconds new—and when I felt the weight of him over my heart, something raw and holy passed over me. I gasped. I struggled for air. Almost involuntarily I put my hands over him, and his little body was so soft and fragile as to be a dream hidden in my palms.

  “Daniel Peter,” I breathed.

  I knew him. This child was mine, a part of me, and yet somehow wholly other. We were intertwined, woven together, but only because He had chosen to braid the strands of our lives. I realized even as I pressed Daniel to me that his presence in my arms was an unexpected gift. Something that I could never claim to deserve. Something that would cause me to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of what I had been given.

  I was humbled.

  I was laid low. Spent as a sacrifice burning beneath His glory.

  But in the depths blew the sacred wind of freedom, of letting go. I drank it in joyful mouthfuls, swallowing my tears and letting it fill me. It was beautiful. Because I was finally ready. Ready for the imprint of grace like His signature beneath my skin. Ready for all there was to come, knowing that the light only shone bright because of the shadows around it. Ready. Ready and open, willing to receive the immensity of heaven spread wide as a blessing and unfurling above me.

  Discussion Questions

  1. At the end of After the Leaves Fall, Julia’s faith in God seemed to be maturing. Where is she at the beginning of this story? Has your faith journey ever mimicked hers?

  2. Nellie warns Julia about the danger of holding on to a bitter root on p. 126. Have you ever been in a situation like Julia’s where you needed to forgive someone? What effect did it have on your life?

  3. Why do you think Janice behaves the way she does throughout the novel? What is motivating her? Is it the same need that is motivating Julia?

  4. On p. 231, Nellie says to Julia: “You’re not nearly as lost as you sometimes think you are.” Do you think that’s true? What did Nellie mean by that?

  5. Nellie tells Julia on p. 234 that seeds planted among thorns don’t necessarily die but are choked. What are some of the “thorns” in your life that threaten to choke out God’s grace?

  6. On p. 293, Julia calls Janice and herself a “group of Simons.” What does she mean by that? What does she mean when she observes that they are “not enough, not enough, not enough”?

  7. Why do you think Julia was finally able to forgive Janice?

  8. How has Julia changed by the end of this story? What was the biggest catalys
t for that change?

  9. Do you think Julia makes the right decision regarding her future at the end of the story? Why or why not?

  10. What was your favorite metaphor, line, or scene from the story? Why?

  About the Author

  NICOLE BAART was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. After lifeguarding, waitressing, working in a retail store, and even being a ranch hand on a dairy farm, she changed her major four times in college before finally settling on degrees in English, Spanish, English as a second language, and secondary education. She taught and developed curriculum in three different school districts over the course of seven years.

  Teaching and living in Vancouver, British Columbia, cultivated a deep love in Nicole for both education and the culturally inexplicable use of the word eh. She became a Canadian citizen for the sole purpose of earning the right to use the quirky utterance.

  Nicole wrote and published her first complete novel, After the Leaves Fall, while taking a break from teaching to be a full-time mom. Summer Snow is the sequel. She is also the author of hundreds of poems, dozens of short stories, a handful of articles, and various unfinished novels.

  The mother of two young sons and the wife of a pastor, Nicole writes when she can: in bed, in the shower, as she is making supper, and occasionally sitting down at her computer. As the adoptive mother of an Ethiopian-born son, she is passionate about global issues and works to promote awareness of topics such as world hunger, poverty, AIDS, and the plight of widows and orphans.

  Nicole and her family live in Iowa.