One thing she’s unable to do is pray. Not in a direct, God-you-better-listen-now way. Even the corporate prayer time at church panics her, and she leaves the sanctuary shaking because certain phrases remind her of the prophet. Nazih says prayer is a conversation. If she’s not ready yet to talk, she can try listening. So she does. Every morning before rising from bed, she stills herself and strains to hear God. She wants his voice in her spirit so desperately, needs it like bread, but it doesn’t come, not like that morning in the Jeep when he told her to trust him.
And then it does, not in the silence of the morning, but as she hurries out to the women’s Bible study. Her hand touches the knob of her front door and it sparks with static electricity.
Stay.
Unmistakably him. She doesn’t understand it, but she stays in the brownstone. Pacing at first. Then snacking while half-entertaining herself with the computer. Then scrubbing the bathtub because it needs it and she hates doing it, taking a toothbrush to the grout, shining the basin with cut lemons and baking soda. Even using a toothpick to scrape out the black buildup in the crevice where the faucet meets the wall. And when she rinses it all away and thinks, I could have been to the church and back twice over by now, she hears a car door slam beneath her. Shaking off her rubber gloves, she runs to the next room and looks out the window.
A taxicab waits at the curb, and two people stand on the sidewalk, holding hands, faces tight with uncertainty, overwhelmed by the competing gangsta rap blaring from at least four different stoops, the shirtless teens with dark skin, the tattoos from neck to navel, the ladies in shorts smaller than underwear. The young man wears jeans and a button-down shirt, long-sleeved despite the August heat, though he’s rolled the cuffs to the elbows. The woman can’t be more than eighteen, her hair thick and long in a ponytail past her waist, her skirt covering her tennis shoes.
“Judith,” Ada shouts, and the woman looks up.
“Ada?”
“Just wait right there. I’ll be right down. I’ll be right there.”
Trust me.
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. With which character did you most identify—Ada or Katherine? Why?
2. Was there a particular scene in Still Life that proved emotionally powerful for you? How did this scene make you feel, and why was it moving?
3. If Still Life’s story line were actually to happen to you, how would you react? Have you ever felt guilty because a choice you made had consequences beyond what you could have imagined?
4. When listening to the news after Julian’s last photographs are published, Ada considers the following: “As death closes in, all is stripped away until each individual’s purpose on this earth remains, and their authentic self is laid bare. No more lies. No more façade . . . For Julian, it was more than clicking off photographs. He was a truth-shower. In the end, he could be no other.” What do you believe your “authentic self” would be shown to be?
5. Why do photographs speak to people so deeply?
6. Still Life could be characterized as a story about damaged people having to deal with the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy. Have you faced unexpected situations in your life that moved you to change something about your circumstances? How do these pivotal moments force us to look more deeply into ourselves?
7. Why does grief have such transformative power? How has God used grief to draw you closer to him?
8. Would you recommend Still Life to a friend? What would be your most compelling reason for why someone should read this story?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, to those who made Still Life possible:
Everyone one at Thomas Nelson Publishing who has worked on my behalf, and especially my encourager and editor, Amanda Bostic;
Bill Jensen, my agent, without whom my career would be nonexistent, since most days this introvert won’t answer the phone, let alone think about attempting to manage the ins and outs of the publishing world;
Rachelle Gardner, who line edited both Still Life and Stones for Bread and made the whole process mostly painless;
Ashley Matthews, who to my shame I’ve forgotten to mention in two previous acknowledgements, and whose willingness to “play marbles” with Claire for hours on end enabled me to have precious time to write. Also our family’s current mother’s helpers, Sadie Clements and Sara LaGue—you both are such blessings to us;
J.M., who graciously shared her own experience of being born without hands so I could authentically write Hortense’s character;
Laura Combs, MS, LMHC, who gave clinical insights and advice for situations in the novel;
My parents, the best “Papa and Grandma” my children could have;
Gray, Jacob, Claire, and Noah—you are my heart;
And Chris: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
AN EXCERPT FROM STONES FOR BREAD
ONE
I’m young, four, home from nursery school because of snow. Young enough to think my mother is most beautiful when she wears her apron; the pink and brown flowered cotton flares at the waist and ruffles around the shoulders. I wish I had an apron, but instead she ties a tea towel around my neck. The knot captures a strand of my hair, pinching my scalp. I scratch until the captive hair breaks in half. Mother pushes a chair to the counter and I stand on it, sturdy pine, rubbed shiny with age.
Our home is wood—floors, furniture, spoons, bowls, boards, frames—some painted, some naked, every piece protective around us. Wood is warm, my mother says, because it once was living. I feel nothing but coolness in the paneling, the top of the long farm table, the rolling pin, all soaked in January.
At the counter, the smooth butcher block edge meets my abdomen, still a potbellied preschooler’s stomach, though my limbs are sticks. Mother adds flour and yeast to the antique dough trough. Salt. Water. Stirs with a wooden spoon.
I want to help, I say.
You will, she tells me, stirring, stirring. Finally, she smoothes olive oil on the counter and turns the viscous mound out in front of her. Give me your hands. I hold them out to her. She covers her own in flour, takes each one of mine between them, and rubs. Then, tightening her thumb and forefinger around a corner of dough, she chokes off an apple-sized piece and sets it before me. Here.
I poke it. It sucks my fingers in. Too sticky, I complain. She sprinkles more flour over it and says, Watch. Like this.
She stretches and folds and turns. The sleeves of her sweater are pushed up past her elbow. I watch the muscles in her forearms expand and contract, like lungs breathing airiness into the dough. She stretches and folds and turns. A section of hair comes free from the elastic band at the back of her head, drifting into her face. She blows at it and, using her shoulder, pushes it behind her right ear. It doesn’t stay.
She stretches and folds and turns.
I grow bored of watching and play with my own dough, flattening it, leaving handprints. Peel it off the counter and hold it up; it oozes back down, holes forming. I ball it up like clay, rolling it under my palm. Wipe my hands on the back pockets of my red corduroy pants.
My mother finishes, returns her dough gently to the trough. She places my ball next to her own and covers both with a clean white tea towel.
I jump off the chair. When do we cook it?
Bake it. Mother wipes the counter with a damp sponge. But not yet. It must rise.
To the sky?
Only to the top of the bowl.
I’m disappointed. I want to see the dough swell and grow, like a hot air balloon. My mother unties the towel from my neck, dampens it beneath the faucet. Let me see your hands. I offer them to her, and she scrubs away the dried-on dough, so like paste, flaky and near-white between my fingers. Then she kisses my palms and says, Go play.
The kitchen is stuffy with our labor an
d the preheating oven. The neighbor children laugh outside; I can see one of them in a navy blue snowsuit, dragging a plastic toboggan up the embankment made by the snow plow. But I stay. I want to be kissed again and washed with warm water. I want my mother’s hands on me, tender and strong at the same time, shaping me as she does the bread.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christa Parrish is the author of five novels, including the 2009 ECPA Book of the Year Watch Over Me and the Christy Award-winning Stones for Bread. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, writer and pastor Chris Coppernoll. They have four children in their blended family.
Visit her website at christaparrish.com
Facebook: Christa-Parrish
Twitter: @breakingthesea
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