After the Leaves Fall

by Nicole Baart

  She smiled at me optimistically.

  “I don’t know him very well yet, but he’s nice and handsome and very, very intelligent,” I said, trying to offer just enough information without eliciting questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

  “He sounds nice,” Grandma mused.

  “He is,” I stated. “He’s in engineering also.”

  I watched her struggle to find something else she could say or ask that wouldn’t be considered too nosy or intrusive. I didn’t want her to worry or think that it was more than it actually was, so I promptly added, “We’re not really dating or anything. We’re just getting to know each other.”

  Grandma looked me straight in the eye. “I’m glad,” she said. Then, because she was my grandma and because there was no one else to say it, she included, “Be careful.”

  I returned her gaze very sincerely and said, for her benefit only, “Don’t worry. I will.”

  The rest of the night flew by as Grandma and I laughed and talked in the living room, having so much fun remembering that we actually took out the old Reebok shoe box that contained the photographs of my youth. There were hundreds of pictures inside—so many that Grandma had knotted an old tie around the box in order to stop photos from spilling out. We had to pull at the knot for what seemed like forever before it finally gave, and when the pressure of the tightly wrapped cloth was no longer holding the lid in place, a handful of photographs did indeed slip lightly to the floor.

  Grandma reached for the one nearest her. “Oh! Look at this. … ”

  It was a snapshot of me and a half dozen or so kittens that populated the farm every spring. There was one perched on my shoulder and one in each of my hands. Two more were climbing over my crossed legs, and a little orange tail poked out from behind my back. They were lovely multicolored barn cats, the kind of litter that makes you marvel at how one mother could produce a coal black, a snowy white, and a variety of calico and striped offspring all at the same time. I used to pretend that at the very least they had to rub off on each other inside the womb. Surely the white kitten’s paws were gray from being curled against her charcoal-colored brother.

  “They’re so cute,” I cooed, a smile in my voice. “Do you remember Butter?” I asked, pointing to the suede kitten that could have passed for Siamese.

  “Of course. How old were you in this picture?”

  I took it from her and studied it for a moment. “Eight?” I guessed. “Nine? It was before I got glasses but after I broke my arm,” I said, indicating the scars along my elbow that marked where the pins had gone.

  We must have remembered at the same time because Grandma reached for another picture without a word, and I laid the photo with the kittens aside. It had been taken the week after Janice left, during the time when everyone still tried to console me with unexpected ice cream cones, carry-out pizza picnics in the park, and lapfuls of adorable kittens. It hadn’t worked but not because I didn’t appreciate their efforts. Instead, all the attention and fuss made me feel guilty that I didn’t actually need consoling. I didn’t miss Janice all that much. My heart broke a little with the remembering because I realized that it had been too much to ask of a nine-year-old.

  “Here,” Grandma said, handing me another.

  I found myself peering at my dad and grandpa standing next to the antique John Deere tractor that they had spent years restoring. There was an undisguised pride in Grandpa’s shoulders as he stood with one arm resting against the tall, deeply treaded wheels. Dad, standing beside him with his hand on Grandpa’s other arm and looking very young and attractive, had a boyish grin on his face.

  I laughed. “They look so handsome,” I commented, tracing the line of my father’s form in the picture.

  “I remember when they finished it,” Grandma murmured. “They were like little boys with a new toy.”

  “Where is the tractor?” I asked, returning the photo to her.

  “We donated it to the county historical society when your grandpa passed away. They drive it in the local parades and use it during Heritage Days when everyone dresses up like pioneers.” Grandma shrugged. “A part of me would have loved to keep it, but after Abram died, what would I have done with it?”

  I suppressed a little sigh of disappointment, reminding myself that it was just a tractor.

  “Don’t worry,” Grandma consoled. “There’s a brass plaque on it that reads ‘Restored by Abram and Daniel DeSmit.’”

  Hours passed as we sat on the floor and sifted through all those dusty memories. Some of them were unfamiliar, even though I saw my own fawn-blonde head and too-big eyes staring out at me. It was as if a different little girl had taken my place and lived my life for a while, and I was surprised on more than one occasion to see myself in surroundings that I simply couldn’t recall.

  “Where is this?” I asked, holding up a photo that had Dad and me centered in front of desolate, rolling hills with horizontal tones of pink, green, and purple.

  “The Badlands,” Grandma said after glancing at the picture. “The three of us went there on our way to the Black Hills one year. Don’t you remember?”

  I shook my head. “I remember the Black Hills but not the Badlands.”

  “Come on, Julia,” Grandma said encouragingly. “We were driving down Interstate 90, and your dad saw the turnoff for the Badlands and he just took it. We didn’t plan on going, and we both complained all the way. … You really don’t remember?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “It was the best part of the trip. We all said so.”

  I wondered how many other “best parts” of my life I had forgotten.

  All evening we filled the farmhouse with our laughter and blinked back reflective tears—sweet, welcome tears that made me feel full and happy—on more than one occasion. We shared a beautiful night talking and smiling and remembering.

  There was only one photo that made me feel anything other than contemplative and able to accept who I was and where I had been. I turned that picture facedown beside me as soon as I recognized it.

  We were cleaning up the box of photographs when my hand brushed the back side of the picture I had tried to ignore. Grandma was busy struggling to make neat stacks, and she didn’t notice when I palmed the snapshot and slid it deftly into the back pocket of my jeans. It was a perfect fit, and I could feel the stiff and smooth reminder of its presence when I stood up. I decided Grandma would never miss it, and if she did, she would assume it had been misplaced in one of our many long and messy strolls down memory lane.

  “Good night, Grandma,” I said, giving her a hug and a kiss when the pictures were back on their overlooked shelf. She was on her way to her room, and the lights were off for bed save the little bulb above the stove.

  “’Night, honey.” She hugged me back. “Sleep well in your own bed.”

  “Oh, I will,” I assured her and mounted the steps to my room, feeling at peace with the world. My heart and head, never mind my stomach, were full, and I felt strong and capable of facing Thomas in a day. I felt grounded in myself, and though Parker wasn’t with me, I wore his words about me and tried to remind myself of what I looked like, of who I was, when seen through his eyes. It made everything seem different.

  As I slipped out of my clothes for bed, my thumb hooked around the back of my jeans and felt the firmness of the photograph I had taken. I hadn’t forgotten about it, and I pulled it out expectantly and sat down on the edge of the bed. Tucking one bare leg beneath me, I hunched over the picture so I could study it.

  The photograph showed Janice standing next to a hospital bed wearing a red floral print dress and white sandals. Her hair was short and bobbed and perfectly done, and she was clutching a small bundle wrapped in a mint green blanket. You couldn’t see my face— the soft white cap I was wearing had fallen over my eyes—but you could see four of my tiny baby fingers wrapped around the edge of the blanket.

  Homecoming was written on the back of the photo in black ink, and the pen had raised
the picture on the other side so that I could run my thumb over the indentation and read it written backward. There were no other notations—no dates, no explanations, no list of the people in the picture or even my name. It was almost as if the event depicted had been momentous enough that it needed no further clarification.

  On the surface it was a pretty picture. Dad had focused it just right, and the lighting was soft and complimentary to the tones in my mother’s hair. The colors had once been bright and vivid, though faded now, and I knew that in most baby books it would have made a stunning memento of a day that goes down in a family’s personal history as one of the most unforgettable.

  It was frighteningly ugly.

  Janice looked like she could have stepped from the pages of a parenting magazine with that sweet little bundle lying in her arms, a slim figure that hardly revealed the baby was even hers and a broad, sparkling smile on her face. Never mind that her smile reached no further than the upturned corners of her mouth. Her eyes were dull, blank, and weary, but there was something in them that also smacked of fear and desperation. Even with her arms wrapped around me, there was something in the intensity of her look that begged someone just beyond the camera to free her from this burden, to stop making her hold this wiggly baby that her eyes revealed she didn’t want.

  I lay down on my side on the bed and held the picture above me. Searching for hate or resentment or anger inside myself, I studied her face until I could see it etched on the back of my eyelids when I closed them. I found I felt none of those things for her. Instead, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by pity for the young woman in the picture. She had failed in so many ways.

  But what could I expect? She had been only nineteen.

  Great Expectation

  THE NEXT DAY was filled with baking and comfortable silence. Grandma and I had said all there was to say to each other in the rushing landslide of conversation on Friday, and by Saturday we were content to simply be in each other’s presence.

  I helped her roll out piecrusts and knead bread as her radio played soft music in the background. It was old-time gospel from a local AM station, but I didn’t mind the twang and vibrato because it sounded like my childhood. I remembered the words to more songs than I cared to admit, and I marveled at the fact that I had a hard time recalling a formula for statics but could remember with startling accuracy a song that I hadn’t sung or even heard in years. It made my mind seem a little foreign, a bit wild and unexplored. What else hid in the depths?

  I got up early for church on Sunday because I knew Grandma hoped that I would go with her. Still yawning, I pulled a dress from the stash of clothes that had been left behind when I went to college and descended the stairs determinedly. Grandma was already having a cup of coffee in the kitchen when I walked through on my way to the shower. I murmured a sleepy good morning and kept going so I would have time to prepare answers for a few questions I knew would come up today.

  We hadn’t talked once about my church attendance now that I was no longer living at home, but I knew my grandma was aching to know that I was continuing in the faith she and my father had tried to lay as a firm foundation beneath me. I was thankful for their efforts—I knew they were only trying to do what they believed was best for their daughter and granddaughter—but I was unconvinced as to the merit of their belief. God Himself had been alarmingly absent in my complicated life, and I felt that I owed Him nothing. I suddenly smiled thinking of Brandon and our many religious conversations. It had been a very long time since he had crossed my mind, and as I allowed myself a moment to reminisce, I couldn’t help but conclude that we would be better suited for each other now. But I loved my grandmother too much to communicate all that angst and discontent to her so bluntly. There had to be something I could say that would be in between a flat-out lie and the potentially hurtful truth.

  As I scrubbed berry-scented shampoo into a foamy crown, I determined to tell Grandma that I was extremely busy and had not yet found a church home in Garret. Brighton was not a religiously affiliated school, but Garret was a distinctly Christian town peppered with churches that ranged from mainstream to eccentric. I could have worshipped in a modern building with theater seating and a band that rivaled any secular group with their shaggy hair, ripped jeans, and advertisement-worthy T-shirts. Or I could have pinned my hair in a bun beneath a little white handkerchief and sat on the women’s side of a congregation that looked as if it had stepped right out of the late 1800s. I had seen both groups getting out of their cars in the parking lots of their respective churches as I drove past on my way to Starbucks every Sunday morning. It was hard to imagine finding a place in either extreme. I prepared myself to tell Grandma that I was still searching for the right fit.

  But I never had the chance to defend myself.

  In spite of the fastidiously constructed expression that I donned as I marched to the bathroom, something in my face must have alerted Grandma to the struggle that it was for me to look even marginally excited about joining her at church. She’d had half an hour to construct her response, and it was delivered with down-to-earth straightforwardness.

  “You don’t have to come to church with me, Julia,” Grandma said when I emerged from the bathroom all primped and ready. She was pouring me a cup of coffee and didn’t look up when she continued, “God is seeking you out, and I’m willing to trust His timing. I don’t need to have you beside me in the pew today.”

  I wasn’t ready for this approach, and it threw me way off-kilter. A part of me was thankful that the pressure was off, but another part of me wavered between feeling abandoned (Grandma was willing to let me go?) and uneasy (God was seeking me out?).

  But I couldn’t let Grandma see my agitation, so I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m going with you.” I almost said, I love church, but thankfully the words stuck in my throat, and I never had the opportunity to pollute the air with such an obvious lie. Instead I said, “I want to be with you as much as I can this weekend.”

  “Well, honey, you’re always welcome. I just don’t want you to feel obligated.” She offered me the coffee and laid her hand against mine when I took the mug. “I gave you to God a long time ago.”

  As if I were a possession to be passed from hand to hand. But Grandma meant it sweetly, and I knew that in her mind I could receive no higher compliment. I tried to take solace in that knowledge, and because she was so sincere, I even muttered a little comment to her God. “Maybe I could believe in You if only You weren’t so distant.”

  I didn’t get a reply. I didn’t expect one.

  Church was more or less boring. I held the hymnal for Grandma and myself and stared at the navy blazer of the man in front of me as we passed from verse to verse. I found that I remembered the hymns as well as I recalled the gospel songs from the radio, and the words came as easily as if I had repeated them only yesterday.

  I wondered at what point I had gone from a little girl with unquestioning belief in something I had never felt or seen to an almost grown woman who saw God as just another in a long list of seemingly harmless deceptions that parents use to keep their children in line. How was He any different from Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, or the tooth fairy? Be good, brush your teeth, do as you’re told, and be rewarded with something temporary and breakable and trite. I could only remember the odd Christmas present, the rabbit I got for Easter one year, and a quarter was hardly a good exchange for the tooth that left me with a gaping hole in my mouth for months. I didn’t expect anything from God but equally disappointing party favors.

  When the offering plate was being passed and the somber stillness of the room eased, I allowed myself to look around. There were faces that I recognized, but most people had slid into obscurity in the years following my dad’s death and become relative strangers. They still spoke to and adored my grandmother, but a moody, perplexing teenager was a slightly less inviting acquaintance to maintain.

  No one who caught me looking at them bothered to smile, though a
few whispered something to their significant others, and I knew that at the very least I was a peripheral object of mild interest. I couldn’t be too upset that it seemed as if they had forgotten me as easily as I had put them out of my own life, but I was still a little disappointed. I reminded myself that teary, insincere reunions would have only made me bitter, but it didn’t stop me from looking for a friendly face.

  The offering plate had reached me, and I passed it on to Grandma, watching her slip a check into it that I was sure had been written out for more than she could afford. I couldn’t help but feel a little resentful, and I looked beyond her down the aisle to muse that I hoped everyone else was stretching themselves as far as I knew she was.

  The Walker family was sitting across the center aisle at the very end of the bench. Maggie was the only one who had seen me, and she was waving with just her fingers. They bounced up and down excitedly, and I smiled when I saw her mouth form an exaggerated Hi.

  I mouthed it back and gave her a wink.

  Next to Maggie sat Emily and then Mr. and Mrs. Walker followed by the three boys. Thomas was on the end.

  My heart caught just a little when I saw him, and I had to remind myself that whatever he wanted to talk to me about would have no effect on our newfound friendship. I was happy now and at the beginning of a relationship that seemed very worth my time, and there was nothing—nothing—Thomas could say that would change any of that. Even as I tried to convince myself, my heart registered that he looked sad, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I looked away shakily, half wanting to tell him to leave me alone.

  As we stood to sing the doxology, I couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t right. I tried to glance back at the Walkers, but the arc of the pews as the congregation stood shielded them from my view. Only if I leaned over the bench in front of me could I catch sight of them again. I wasn’t willing to do that. Mentally, I walked down the aisle and tried to remember how they sat, what they wore. I counted seven people and it hit me. Francesca was not beside Thomas.