After the Leaves Fall Read online

  The back door slammed, and a moment later I could see her outlined in the laundry room window. She put a cigarette to her lips, lit it, and turned her face so I could see her blow the smoke out in profile. It was nowhere near glamorous.

  After that, she didn’t smoke at night anymore—she smoked all the time. Dad drew the line at letting her smoke in the house, and she obeyed him, but she made it seem like he was actually doing her a favor. Like when I got invited to a slumber party and didn’t want to go, so I got grounded instead and had an excuse to stay home. Janice took the phone outside with her when she smoked and talked to her waitress friend. She seemed to have more fun doing that than hanging out with Dad and me inside.

  I didn’t talk to her for a week and felt very sanctimonious in my innocence. I would never smoke. I was only nine but I knew better.

  Dad, for his part, didn’t ask what happened, and if Janice ever told him, he never let on. He most likely guessed, though; the haughty looks I shot Janice and her obvious disregard for me must have been revealing. It wasn’t until years later that I wondered how he weathered the animosity between his wife and his daughter. But then, maybe the passive-aggressive, just-below-the-surface scorn she had for him was more prominent in his mind.

  There had been a lot of power struggles like this between Janice and me but none that had such lasting repercussions. A few months later, when Dad assured me that it wasn’t my fault Janice had left us, my mind replayed the scene with almost garish clarity—the wicked little smile dancing on my face as I snipped each cigarette—and I knew that every word was a lie. It was exactly my fault. The cigarettes were the beginning of the end. They were the reason that the Sunday after I destroyed her pack, Janice didn’t go to church with Dad and me.

  Sundays were the only sacred day in our house, and even Janice in all her surly splendor took care to get her lipstick just right and sometimes joined us in the kitchen for a cup of coffee before we left. It was the one day we acted like a normal family and managed to pull it off, even if the normalcy wore off on the drive home. Our wood-paneled station wagon turned back into a pumpkin long before we pulled into the driveway.

  Sunday morning meant cinnamon rolls from the bakery, a knee-length pale pink dress paired with white leather shoes, and hymns on the local radio station as we got ready for the nine-thirty service. It did not mean strawberry Pop-Tarts in front of the TV in your pajamas, which was exactly how I found Janice when I emerged from the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” I asked quietly from behind the easy chair that marked the division between the family room and dining room.

  Janice made eye contact with me and shot me a look that said, Are you really asking me something so obvious?

  I rephrased my question when she turned her attention back to the TV. “Why aren’t you ready for church?”

  “Not in the mood,” she answered, licking her fingers as she stuck the last bite of Pop-Tart into her mouth. There was red filling under her fingernails, and she ran them over her eyetooth one at a time.

  I didn’t know what to say. There were lots of times when I wasn’t in the mood for church, but that didn’t mean I didn’t go. Weren’t you supposed to go whether you wanted to or not?

  “You have to,” I said eventually, unsure myself if what I said was true.

  “No, I don’t,” she countered, and again I was speechless.

  We remained like that for a minute, Janice watching something that I didn’t recognize on TV and me gaping at her from in between the dining room and the family room.

  Finally she hit Mute and flung an arm over the back of the sofa to study me. “You better hurry,” she said with concern. I couldn’t tell if she was sincere or not. “You don’t want to be late.”

  I walked slowly through the dining room and into our little kitchen, where Dad had already smeared butter all over an icing-topped cinnamon roll for me. “Dad … ?”

  He smiled sweetly at me and patted a stool. “She’s not feeling well today,” he offered, and the discussion was closed.

  He always did that. He always stuck up for Janice—or at least he didn’t speak ill of her even though she deserved every hateful word that was coming to her. Sometimes he even lied for her, and this morning was an example so heartbreakingly clear that I felt the burden of her sacrilege fall on my shoulders with a staggering weight. I had done this, and I had to make it right. Janice as an unwilling accessory in our family was one thing, but Janice as a willful outsider was a whole new world. It wasn’t right.

  Throughout the entire church service, I stood and sang and read when I was supposed to, but my mind was on autopilot. I’ve always been good at acting the appropriate part, and although my heart thumped crazily all morning and my hands were cold as ice, Dad never suspected a thing. Even when I stumbled over the words to the confessional litany, he didn’t glance at me.

  As Pastor Trenton delivered his standard twenty-five-minute sermon, I ran down a dozen rabbit trails and imagined each scenario with my mother. I could apologize and beg for her forgiveness. Nope. Been there, done that, and it just made her feel justified and possibly even more bitter. I could appeal to her sense of obligation to our family. That might work—I knew better than to play an emotional card, but a feeling of duty could potentially set her back in line.

  I could tell her how much I loved her and how much I needed her to be a part of my life. Not in a million years. She knew that wasn’t true—at least, not exactly true. I didn’t want a sappy reunion; we were too far past that. All I needed was for things to return to the pattern we’d established years ago: Janice with us but not of us.

  By the time I stood for the doxology, I had narrowed my options down to one practical choice. I was going to track down Lane Williams and ask him what to do.

  Lane was the youth leader at Fellowship Community Church, and although I was still three years away from the youth group, I knew exactly who he was and had the same crush on him that every girl at Fellowship, no matter what age, indulged in. He was fresh out of college and so confident and idealistic that it was hard not to imagine that God Himself sat down for espresso and theological debate with Lane.

  Surely Lane with his longish brown hair and crystalline blue eyes would lean earnestly over the table and ask the Lord flat out every question that the rest of us hardly even dared to think. But for all his handsome intensity, Lane was also authentic and sincere, and he loved God with a passion that made everyone around him want to fall in love as deeply and genuinely.

  I didn’t understand his fervor or even how someone so beautiful could effectively point to God without becoming a god himself, but I did believe that if anyone knew how to get Janice to come back to church, it would be him. Janice would never respond to the boring, balding Pastor Trenton, but who wouldn’t respond to Lane?

  I found him hanging out in the hallway by the youth room. Sunday school was after church, and I had to get to my own classroom, but I was willing to be late if only Lane would give me a few minutes of his time. The hallway was full of teenagers, and they all high-fived Lane as they ducked past him into the couch-lined room. He spoke to each one by name, and I realized that if I didn’t know who he was, I would assume he was another high school student. Or a Gap model who just stepped away from a photo shoot. He was wearing khakis and a button-down, blue-striped shirt that he hadn’t tucked in. He was the only grown man at Fellowship who didn’t tuck his shirt in, and the effect was that he appeared even more approachable and handsome up close.

  I took a deep breath. “Pastor Lane?”

  His tousled head swiveled around, and he fixed his exquisite eyes on me. I’d say that he smiled at me, but his smile was as permanent a fixture on his face as his nose, so it wouldn’t be fair to say that I incited any such thing. “Hi!” he fairly shouted and extended his hand to me.

  Nobody had ever shaken my hand, so I placed mine in his tentatively. My fingers disappeared, and he gave my arm a few hearty pumps.

  “Are you
a new member at Fellowship?” he asked cheerfully, still holding my hand.

  “No, I was pretty much born here,” I said. His enthusiasm begged to be countered by some mediocrity. I found myself speaking quietly. “My name is Julia DeSmit.” I pulled my hand out of his, and he let go, giving one last squeeze as we broke contact.

  “What can I do for you, Julia DeSmit? You look a little too young for youth group.”

  “I just have a question for you, Pastor—”

  “Lane,” he interrupted. “Forget the pastor part—just call me Lane.”

  “Okay … Lane. Um, I have a question.” He was disarmingly difficult to talk to. I hadn’t asked him a single thing, and he was already nodding as if he knew the answer.

  “We all have questions, Julia. What we need to ask ourselves is if the true answer lies in the journey.” His smile radiated benevolence. What on earth was that supposed to mean? “My question is about my friend,” I continued, somewhat confused and a little concerned that he had some sort of spiritual power that would let him see right through my lie. I almost expected him to say, “Come now, Julia. We both know you’re talking about your mother.”

  But he was silent. He nodded for me to go on and arched an eyebrow.

  “My friend has stopped going to church, and I was wondering how I could convince her to come back,” I said. Even as the words slipped out of my mouth, I wondered if there was anything that could change what I knew was the end of my life as I knew it.

  Lane obviously felt differently. “Oh, Julia, of course, of course!” He beamed at me. “What a gentle heart you must have to want to save your friend.”

  I didn’t think I had a very gentle heart—more like a selfish, pragmatic heart—but he made me feel special, so I gave a little sigh.

  Lane misinterpreted it as a cry of the heart and slipped his arm around my shoulders in a friendly hug. “Don’t worry. God is using you to call her back. And it’s really quite simple.” He let go of me and fished in his back pocket for a moment. Taking out his wallet, he removed a little card and held it out to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, accepting it hesitantly. I didn’t think a business card would fix what was wrong in our house.

  “It’s a cheat sheet, but I’m going to tell you what it’s for and how to use it.” Lane was fairly hopping with excitement. “You’re going to be an evangelist, Julia. People respond to truth when they hear it, and you are going to put the truth front and center in your friend’s life. Ask me the first question on the card.”

  I stared down at the card and found that it was blank except for five numbered questions neatly typed in bold black print. Locating number one, I read, “‘Have you ever stolen anything?’” I paused. “Lane, what does this have to do with it?”

  “Just ask me the question—you’ll see.”

  “Okay. ‘Have you ever stolen anything?’”

  Lane screwed up his mouth as if thinking and then said, “Yes.” In a different voice he added, “Ask me the second question.”

  “‘Have you ever lied?’”

  “Yes,” he said emphatically.

  Tracing the third question, I continued. “‘Have you ever said anything hurtful to anyone?’”

  Again, Lane responded with a resounding “Yes.”

  I started to read the fourth question, but he stopped me. “Wait, after the third question you’re supposed to say something. When your friend has said yes to the first three questions, you say to her, ‘So, you’re telling me that you are a thief, a liar, and a murderer?’”

  I almost dropped the card. “I’m supposed to say that to her?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s what she’s saying. I mean, I can see how the murderer part is a bit hard to follow, but the Bible does say that we don’t have to physically murder someone to kill their spirit with our words.” He seemed altogether too pleased with himself.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t think I can insult her like that.”

  “You’re not insulting her. You’re opening her eyes to the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts, but we’re better people when we accept it and change our lives accordingly,” Lane argued. “Seriously, it works. I once converted a guy on a flight from Minneapolis to Seattle. We talked the whole way, and he gave his life to Christ before we landed at Sea-Tac.”

  Miraculous airplane conversion or no, I didn’t want to use this method on Janice. My sharp tongue had already gotten me into enough trouble with her, and the last thing I wanted to do was make matters worse. “I don’t think this is going to work for me, but thanks anyway,” I said and tried to hand his card back to him.

  He held his palm up and refused to accept it. “Julia, it’ll work. I know it sounds harsh, but sometimes the only way to get people to see the light is to show them how truly dark their world has become.”

  He was so persuasive. I tried to imagine if he asked me the questions. What would I say? I wouldn’t run away from him. I couldn’t imagine anyone running away from Lane. But would I be insulted? Probably. More importantly, if I were asking the questions, would Janice run away? Would she be insulted? Definitely. The thought of asking her those questions—and worse, accusing her of those things—made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t do it. Absolutely no way.

  I couldn’t hold the card a second longer. Just having it in my hand made me fear Janice’s reaction. Lane’s fingers were still poised as if in salute, and I tried to place the card in them, but it slipped and drifted slowly to the floor.

  “No, thank you.” My voice was small as I backed away. I was angry at myself for not faking it, for not staying and listening to the rest of what he had to say. Just because I listened it didn’t mean I had to follow through with what he told me to do. I could have hidden the paper in my palm until I was out of sight, then dropped it in the nearest garbage can. Why didn’t I do that? I begged myself, but the card with its five insidious questions was already lying on the floor between us.

  Lane was looking at it with a mixture of confusion and hurt on his face. He looked different without the smile. “Julia, just—”

  “Thank you very much,” I said again. “I’m going to figure it out for myself.” I slipped around the corner and he was gone.

  I never spoke to Lane Williams again, and the following year he fell in love with the new church secretary. Apparently they did nothing wrong—they waited to officially date until after his contract with Fellowship ran out—but it was scandalous all the same. He stopped showing up at youth functions and gave lame excuses like he was in the middle of “Kingdom work” and couldn’t get away. He was nearly nonexistent at anything church related. People started grumbling that he was no longer doing his job, and indeed, when I saw him for the last time at a church service in June, he did not even appear to be the same person. Their relationship was public, and Samantha sat still and solemn, staring straight ahead next to him in the pew while he gazed at her with a slightly sick and longing look on his face. It was obvious she consumed him even more than God had. He wasn’t smiling.

  I heard much later that they were married by early fall and moved to Florida to start over. I couldn’t help but hope that things went well for them, although the yearning ache in Lane’s eyes as he studied her seemed like too high a cost for any earthly love. Even Samantha’s charcoal curls would fade to gray. And then what?

  For some reason, when I discovered that Lane was human, no more, no less, I finally felt at peace with dropping his evangelism card on the day my mother left us. Before he ran off with Samantha, I always wondered if things would have gone differently if I had been as forward as he prodded me to be. Would Janice have stayed if I’d called her a thief, a liar, and a murderess? Maybe I should have thrown in deserter.

  As it was, I called Janice a different name altogether.

  When Dad and I returned from church around lunchtime, she was still in front of the TV. Her pajamas were rumpled, and her hair looked greasy. She was watching an old Western with one foot on the coffe
e table as she painted her toenails fuchsia. Nail art was all the rage, and as she finished each toe, she carefully placed a tiny silver rhinestone in the center of the wet polish. An open bag of devastated cheese curls announced that she had already eaten lunch, but she didn’t say anything about that to us.

  Not breaking the silence, Dad went into the bedroom they shared to change clothes. He emerged minutes later to find the two of us in exactly the same positions—Janice finishing her pinky toe and me on the arm of the couch, alternating between staring at her and the TV.

  Dad touched my head as he passed and asked quietly, “Pea soup or chicken noodle?”

  “Pea,” I responded, although he wasn’t actually waiting for an answer. He knew.

  “Ten minutes,” he informed me, and suddenly the countdown began. I had ten minutes, minus the time it would take to change out of my Sunday dress, to make everything all right with Janice. To convince her to come and have a bowl of canned soup instead of continuing to take up space in front of the TV. It was excruciating. I didn’t know what to say or where to begin, and all the while Lane’s questions were burning in my mind. Maybe I should try one, test the waters?

  I opened my mouth, and the words stuck fast to my tongue. The only one that would come out was one that I hadn’t used in a very long time. “Mom?”

  She looked up immediately, and I knew the word had touched a nerve somewhere, but when her eyes caught mine, they were cool and blank, and I understood there was nothing I could say that she wanted to hear. I wanted to repeat the word so she would know that I hadn’t said something else, hadn’t made a mistake, but once it was out of my mouth, it flew out of reach and I couldn’t form it again. “You may smoke if you want to,” I finally said. It was the best I could come up with, and a small shiver ran down my spine when I realized its insignificance.