After the Leaves Fall

by Nicole Baart

  “You too,” I said.

  I didn’t watch him drive away.

  Grandma met me on the porch with an old cake pan full of leftovers for the cats. She raised an eyebrow at me when she saw the Walkers’ Suburban pulling out of our driveway, but I touched her arm to say, “Later,” and she didn’t ask. I retreated into the stillness of the house and watched through the glass in the door as she descended the steps. I could hear her call loudly across the yard for the cats, and I traced their movements as they emerged like lithe, shadowy phantoms from every nook and cranny.

  When my coat was on the hook and my boots had been discarded on the drying rack, I stood in the kitchen and felt the tarnished little cross pull me down with a weight that was impossible for such a tiny object. It was as if those small, intersecting lines were etched with the story of my life, a tale so bent and burdened it seemed impossible to set it right—to straighten what was crooked, to smooth the rough places.

  I thought of Janice, and though it was unanticipated and unexplored, I gave myself over to the longing that I had for her even after all these years. When—if—she heard about my pregnancy, would I get another card? Would she sign it Yours truly? For a moment I imagined what it would be like to see her. Maybe I could write to her. Or e-mail or call. Maybe I could find a way to carve a different ending for at least that part of the story.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have the courage.

  When Grandma came into the house, she stomped her feet on the rug in the mudroom and yelled happily, “Julia, the sun broke through the clouds when you went into the house! You should see it out there—it’s bright and shining, and the snow is sparkling like diamonds! Come outside for—” She broke off when she saw me lying on the floor in the living room.

  I was on my stomach with my arms curled under my chest and the cross still clutched in my white-knuckled hand. My head was turned to the window. She came over to me and, without any prompting or fuss, lay down quietly with her head next to mine. Our noses were inches apart.

  “What’s going on?” she asked gently.

  I opened my mouth to speak, and my voice cracked around a sob. “Grandma, I can’t.” The words were less than a whisper. They hung like torn spiderwebs in the air between us.

  Her eyes softened, and she reached out to lay her palm on my cheek. “You can’t what, honey?”

  I closed my eyes. “I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m not good enough. I don’t know how to be a mother.”

  Grandma stroked my cheek as she lay beside me, our bodies stretched out like offerings on top of the green shag carpet. “Shhh … ,” she murmured. “I know it’s hard. I know you’re scared. It’s okay to be low.”

  My eyes flew open, and I squinted at her though my head ached with the effort of seeing. “Low? Grandma, I am so far down, there is nothing left beneath me. I am the bottom. I am what lies beneath. Where can I possibly go from here?”

  A tear slipped off her nose to match mine already darkening the carpet. “I don’t think you have to go anywhere, Julia,” she whispered. “You turn around. You look up.”

  I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Let the tears drip down my temples and into my hair. I wanted to hope. I wanted there to be something beyond waiting for the next closed door, empty promise, heartrending good-bye. “I’m looking up,” I said quietly.

  “There’s nothing else you can do.” Grandma rolled onto her side and tucked herself around me, curling an arm over my stomach and twisting her ankle through mine. She pulled me close and put her mouth beside my ear. She began to pray.

  Seeking

  SOME DAYS I IMAGINE I can feel my baby pirouette inside me. An arm sweeps across curious eyes, a leg arcs and stretches before curling close to a warm little body, and a heavy head nods in sleep. It is nothing more than a fantasy, for though I know she does that even now, I also know that I will not be able to feel her explorations, her very exhalations, for at least another month yet.

  I know that I should not treasure her so extravagantly as this. That every woman who has ever struggled to get pregnant within the encircling embrace of a loving marriage will soon find me obscene, will beg God or her doctor or her husband to tell her why an undeserving child like me should be blessed with life while her own arms—capable, mature, eager, stable, willing—go empty. Maybe they will look at me and hope against all hope that I will offer her to them—a gift so opulent and dear that we will both spend the rest of our lives loving and hating each other with an almost frantic, secret devotion that both blesses and grapples with envy and doubt. Two mothers sharing one child. Two mothers, wishing they could have been the one to do both—to give birth and to give the child a life.

  I will do both to the best of my ability.

  One morning over breakfast, it struck me with all the weight of a life-changing epiphany that I am a mother. Or at least an almost mother. I found it strange to imagine myself as such, and though I have spent my life trying to assemble and arrange all the parts that would form a whole me—a healthy, happy, honest representation of who I truly am—that one role seemed more foreign and somehow more real than any other part I have yet tried to play.

  “I am a mother,” I said out loud, listening to how the words filled the room with indefinable meaning.

  My grandma looked at me with a peculiar expression on her face.

  “I am a daughter and a granddaughter,” I continued. “A high school graduate, a college dropout, a lover of all things green. I am a bookworm, a poor conversationalist, and a bit of a card shark.” Grandma smiled at that one, and I grinned back. “I think I am a poet at heart. A hard worker and a recent realist. I am … I am …” I stuck a fingernail between my teeth, trying to capture the essence. Trying to think of more.

  Grandma pulled my hand out of my mouth and held it. “You are a new creation,” she said with conviction.

  The words were full and brimming with anticipation—mysteriously striking, even exotic. I held them as tenderly as an extraordinary treasure that I could not yet fully appreciate and rolled them around in my heart and mind before trying them over my tongue.

  New creation.

  I am a new creation.

  There is a little contract tucked in the front cover of my Bible where I keep a growing list of the things I will commit myself to do, a list that collects and names what I always wanted my mother to be and that I promise my child I will try to be for her. It’s the “how to” of my endeavor to be a new creation, to be more than I ever imagined I would be.

  The first thing I wrote down is a good cook. Since penning the phrase I have devoted myself to becoming my grandmother’s apprentice in the kitchen. Only two weeks after cleaning and chopping every vegetable, stirring pots of soups and sauces she had already created, and shadowing her every move between the fridge, stove, and sink, I made my very first beef stew while Grandma read in the living room. It was a pretty near approximation to the perfection she achieves. A little too bland maybe. A little too thick. I figure I have years to get better.

  Somewhere near the top of the list I have also written fun. Jumping in puddles after a spring rain sort of fun. Remembering and repeating every silly knock-knock joke from the inside of Laffy Taffy wrappers sort of fun. Once, shortly after Janice left, Dad made pancakes for us on a Saturday morning and fashioned a smiley face out of chocolate chips on top of mine. I was probably too old for that sort of thing, but I remember it fondly anyway. It was a game to try to capture a mini kiss of chocolate in every bite. I look forward to having that kind of fun. To making her laugh.

  Grandma cringes a bit when I refer to the baby using the feminine pronoun. She says I shouldn’t set my heart on having a girl, that it’s not a good idea to call the child she until I know for sure that that’s what the baby is.

  It’s not so much an expectation as it is a feeling. I can’t claim to know anything about the baby inside me, but I can’t help the fact that I just know deep down that I will have—that I already
do have—a daughter. I won’t be disappointed if the doctor pronounces some day in August, “It’s a boy!” But I will be very surprised. I already feel like I know her.

  And the thought—or hope—that she is in fact a she has prompted another thing on my growing contract: encouraging. One more trait that I wish had been used to bless me when I was a little girl. And, being honest with myself, an attribute that I still wish I could be the beneficiary of today.

  My dad was an amazing cheerleader, my advocate, ally, and friend, and my grandmother should be sainted for the depth of her patience and love, but there is a part of me that always wished for the confirmation of a mother. Not just someone to tell me that I was pretty—though I intend to tell my daughter every day of her life that she is absolutely, unequivocally beautiful—but someone to recognize my worth as a daughter, a young woman, a someday mother, a person. Someone with whom to feel a part of that never-ending bond of almost immortality—you go on from me and she goes on from you and on and on and again and again until God comes back to complete the round.

  He is on my list too.

  I wrote Godly with a capital G, though I hardly know what it means. Like God was my first attempt at a definition, but Grandma informed me that no one is like God. I had chained myself to an unattainable goal. Becoming like God, she instructed, is a slightly more realistic pursuit. It implies a long road, a journey alongside a friend who becomes more dear and beloved with each step taken together. It is the expedition of a lifetime, not a four-hour flight. A two steps forward, one step back dance that allows me to make mistakes as I learn His moves, His will, and His direction for my—until now—achingly directionless life.

  The thought stirs me.

  Janice left, my father died, and Grandma will follow. Who is my constant? Who will walk with me when everyone else has faded to the background, to a place where they exist in little more than carefully preserved memories? There is something inside me that knows beyond every rational and irrational doubt that I was not meant to walk alone. That He longs to stand beside me.

  There is a verse in Matthew that says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I wrote that verse on a piece of paper, and I taped it to the mirror in my bedroom. I read it every day, and believe me, I am seeking. I don’t know yet if it’s true, if everyone who seeks finds what they are looking for—finds that He will walk beside them—but I do know that seeking is better than waiting. I can feel Him just around the corner.

  It’s a different kind of longing.

  Discussion Questions

  1. What’s the significance of the first line of the book (“Waiting is a complicated longing”)? In what way does waiting become a large part of Julia’s life? Have you ever felt this way in your life?

  2. How would you describe Julia at the beginning of the story? How do you think she changes by the end?

  3. Which character did you most relate to? Which character did you like the most? Why?

  4. Do you think Julia was really in love with Thomas? What do you think she loved about him? What was different about Parker that attracted Julia to him?

  5. What do you think Julia was hoping to find when she went to college? Why do you think she chose engineering as her major?

  6. What is the importance of the chick story? What do you think Julia finally takes away from it?

  7. Even though she doesn’t always know it, Julia is on a spiritual journey throughout most of the book. Have you ever felt far from God? What brought you back to Him?

  8. What do you think ultimately turned Julia’s heart toward God?

  9. This story is rich with metaphors. For instance, on p. 112, Julia says her life became “a cautious mosaic, slowly taking the form of a shabby mixed media.” When Julia returns home for Christmas, she describes her grandmother’s farmhouse as “a lighthouse on the whitecapped sea of a prairie” (p. 290). In the final chapter, Julia describes her fledgling faith as “a two steps forward, one step back dance” (p. 337). How does each metaphor apply to Julia’s life at the time?

  10. Both the setting and season play a large part in the story. How are they metaphors for Julia’s life?

  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 her first complete novel while taking a break from teaching to be a full-time mom. 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.

  Turn the page for an exciting preview of the sequel to

  VISIT WWW.TYNDALEFICTION.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION

  Humility

  IT’S NOT THAT I EVER had delusions of grandeur or even that I think I’m better than anyone else, but there is something about donning a tag that says, “Please be patient; I’m a trainee” and asking, “Would you like paper or plastic?” that is uniquely—even brutally—humbling.

  Paired with a blue canvas apron cinched tight across my expanding waist, the plastic name tag positively screamed from my chest and made me frighteningly conspicuous at a time in my life when I longed for anonymity like parched earth wants for rain. Cover me, I thought the first time I dressed in the awful ensemble. Standing alone in my room in front of a mirror too honest to disguise the profound hideousness of it, I felt more exposed than if I had been wearing a skirt that barely covered my floral-print panties. “Oh, God, if You love me at all,” I breathed, “cover me.”

  “You look cute,” Grandma commented diplomatically when I sulked into the kitchen moments later. But by the glint of a smile in her eye I knew that cute was a euphemism for ridiculous. “Just don’t tuck your shirt in, Julia. It won’t … you know … look too …” She fluffed her fingers around her midsection, and flour poofed in little clouds about her hands like smoke from somewhere up a magician’s sleeve. She cautiously, encouragingly, raised an eyebrow at me.

  I looked down to see the petite crescent curve of my belly pressing against the knotted apron strings. Startled by what I saw, I sucked in impulsively. It disappeared—the growing evidence of her disappeared—a flat shadow beneath a fold of cerulean. “That’s the best I can do,” I said dolefully. “We have to tuck our shirts in. It’s part of the dress code. And—” I reached into the front pocket of the apron and produced a thin, mustard yellow tie—“we have to wear this.”

  Grandma almost burst out laughing but allowed herself only a restrained little chuckle. “You know, I see those kids in Value Foods every week, but I never really noticed the uniform. Is that a clip-on?”

  I nodded bleakly and snapped the clip at her, alligator style, before affixing it to my starched collar.

  “It’s crooked, honey.” She wiped her fingertips on a towel and left the bread dough that she had been kneading to circle around the worn oak table and face me. She tugged at the obscene bit of fabric, pulling it this way and that before tucking it under the top of my apron and stepping back. “There.” The word sounded almost portentous to me—defin
itive.

  “I’m going to be late,” I croaked, clearing my throat self-consciously. “Don’t wait up for me. I’m helping out with a restock tonight. They’re going to train me how to record inventory. …”

  Grandma pursed her lips at me knowingly and spread her arms in understanding. I walked heavily into her embrace. “I’m proud of you, Julia,” she murmured into my hair. “It’s really not that bad, is it?”

  I didn’t want to be melodramatic, but I couldn’t drown the sick feeling that was rising past my chest and into my throat, where it sat threateningly at the back of my tongue. They’ll see me, I thought. They’ll judge me. But I said, “You’re right—it’s not so bad. It’s just that all the high school kids work there. I’ll be the oldest person besides the manager. . . .”

  “You only graduated last year,” Grandma reminded, trying to cheer me up. “You’ll probably even know some of the employees!”

  Great, I thought.

  But she was doing her best to be helpful, and I managed a wry smile because at the very least she hadn’t said, “You’ll have so much in common with them!” The disappearing smoothness beneath the straight line of my apron guaranteed that I would have absolutely nothing in common with my coworkers.

  “Well,” I said, pressing my palms together and trying to force a little enthusiasm into my voice, “I’d better go or I’ll be late.”

  “Wouldn’t want that your first day on the job!” Grandma followed me into the mudroom and gave my back a little pat when my coat was zipped up and my hand was on the door. “It’s going to be just fine.”