Beneath the Night Tree by Nicole Baart Read Free Book Online Page A

perspective.”
    I wasn’t much in the mood for a shift in perspective—I was more eager to wallow—but I forced a smile and let her go. The kitchen felt empty with her gone, dim and shadowy because dusk had fallen when we weren’t watching and we hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights. I flicked on the lone bulb above the stove and leaned against the counter to survey the whole of my domain.
    It had changed a little in the years since Daniel was born. When I got a bonus check after working at Value Foods during one particularly lucrative season, we put new flooring in the kitchen and living room. It was cheap laminate that was textured and colored to look like real wood, but it ate holes in all our socks and was cold in the wintertime. Though I swore I wouldn’t miss the outdated shag we hauled to the dump, I did. And there were different pictures on the walls now. Grandma had been a sucker for samplers, and while she never got into cross-stitch herself, many of her friends loved nothing more than to painstakingly sew Bible verses and trailing flowers that they framed and gifted. Where the poem “Footprints” once hung, Grandma had mounted one of my better portraits—a photo of Simon and Daniel when they were still little, holding hands as they walked down the gravel road near our house. Their backs were to the camera and their heads were bent together, the sunlight on their hair making them radiate as if from within.
    The other changes were more subtle. I could see a toy peeking out from beneath the buffet. One of Daniel’s Imaginext pirates, if I wasn’t mistaken. And Simon had left a paperback novel on the side table—a Hardy Boys mystery that looked dog-eared and much loved. Grandma’s Bible was still the single decoration on our kitchen table, and it had only become more filled and worn with time. She had given it to me all those years ago, but I still thought of it as Grandma’s Bible. The truth was, it was all of ours now. It belonged to our family. I knew that she was hoping I would pick it up when she went to bed, that I’d scour it for wisdom, comfort, and advice. I didn’t have the heart. Instead, I averted my eyes from the cracked leather cover and the many things I knew I should do.
    By the time Grandma was in her robe, false teeth in a pink melamine cup that had been a part of her bridal set, the kettle was whistling merrily. I took it off the stove, waving good night as my sweet grandmother closed the door to her bedroom, and realized that the last thing in the world I wanted was a cup of hot tea. Or to be surrounded by the thinly veiled disorder of our threadbare lives. What had been so dear to me only moments before, so quaint, suddenly seemed tarnished and shabby like a piece of elegant furniture that had been repaired with duct tape.
    For all intents and purposes, I was a prisoner in my own home.
    Trapped.
    I had never thought of it like that before, never allowed myself the luxury of examining my situation closely enough to see the truth. Instead of bemoaning the particulars of my life, for five years I had done everything in my power to rise to the occasion, to be an exemplary mother, sister, and granddaughter. After all, the circumstances of my existence were born of my own choosing. My mistakes—and the mistakes of others—had charted a path for me that I never imagined or hoped for.
    In the months and years after Daniel was born, Grandma spoke so earnestly about God’s design for my life that I couldn’t help but soak in every word as if her quiet proclamations were water for my parched soul. A plan for me. A good work that would surely be brought to completion. Hope and a future.
    Right now, those words rang false. Maybe for me, God meant something very different. Like despair and a holding pattern—my life was nothing more than an endless cycle of monotony.
    “I gotta get out of here,” I muttered to myself. Grabbing an ice-cold Coke from the fridge, I tiptoed to the bottom of