Leaves (22 page)

I hope you enjoyed
Leaves
. It's the first of a series of novels I'm going to be writing about the Gold family. There's plenty to explore here, as all the Gold siblings are at the start of something new. Maria needs to find out where her music will take her. Maxwell has a campaign to run and a marriage to save. Deborah has her new business and the first serious romance of her life. Corrina must confront widowhood with a boy who has made it clear that she isn't his mother. And Tyler needs to find his way in a place that is very different from home.

There's more, of course, as the lives of these siblings diverge and intertwine. Bethany's pronouncement at the end of the party will prove prophetic on numerous occasions, though.

This is by far the largest cast of characters I've ever had in a novel, and I feel as though I'm just starting to get to know all of them. Because of this, I'm sure their exploits will surprise me as I develop them. Toward that end, I'd be very interested in what you'd like to see me explore with the siblings as well as Doug, Annie, Sage, Olivia, Ryan, and even Joey. If you'd like to share your questions or ideas, please drop me a note at
[email protected]
.

Thanks.

Warmest regards,

Michael

We hope you enjoyed Michael Baron's
Leaves
. Michael has six other works of fiction, and we thought you might be interested in having a little sample of each, accompanied by a comment by the author.

When You Went Away
was my first novel after several works of nonfiction and it was both a joy and a bit of a nightmare to write like this for the first time. I knew I wanted to write about being a father and I knew I wanted to write a love story, and the novel grew organically out of that. I'd heard novelists talk about falling in love with their characters, but I didn't truly understand what they meant until I wrote
When You Went Away.
These characters still pop up in my head regularly, especially Gerry and little Reese, who manages to upstage all the other characters in every scene in which he appears.

I dreamt of us in springtime. Maureen and I walked hand in hand through Washington Square Park, an acoustic guitarist playing an Indigo Girls song on one side, a guy throwing a Frisbee to his dog on the other. As we walked, Maureen's sleeveless arm rested against mine, giving me one more reason to be thankful for the dawning of this new season. A teenaged girl and boy ran past laughing carelessly, transforming as we watched them into Tanya at age five, and Eric, her best friend at the time. The park became our backyard. I chuckled as they rumbled by and Maureen leaned into me. She kissed me on the cheek and tittered into my ear, causing the fine hairs on my neck to rise.

Then she pushed me on the shoulder, calling out, “You're it!” and running away laughing like the little girl I always wished I could have known. I chased them both (Eric had disappeared), sweeping Tanya up and carrying her, squealing delightedly and wriggling, under my arm while I sought Maureen, who somehow ducked out of sight. While I looked in one direction, she jumped on my back from the other, causing the three of us to tumble to the ground, Tanya leaping free to pounce on both of us. We wrestled together for a few moments, kissing, tickling, until we lay in the grass, a tangle of arms and legs, gazing up at the impossibly blue sky. I could stay here like this, I thought. I could very easily stay right here and never want for anything.

A musical tinkling came from somewhere in the near distance, and Tanya gathered her feet under her faster than any little kid should be able to. “Ice cream truck,” she said with a joy that was singularly hers, sprinting to the front of the house, knowing that the man in the truck had already slowed in anticipation of her approach and that Maureen and I would soon be behind her with the money necessary for an ice pop or a Dove Bar or whatever else she might want.

Maureen kissed me again at that point, softly this time, warmly, enveloping me with her spring smell. “Do you think the ice cream man will put this one on her tab?” she said, understanding how completely I wanted to remain here and kiss her like this indefinitely.

And then Tanya sat next to us again, her feet tucked under her nine-year-old bottom. “Do the two of you always have to kiss?” she said, pretending to be repulsed but at the same time bearing just enough of a glint in her eye to let us know that this was at least moderately okay with her.

“Yes, always,” I said and I kissed Maureen again to underscore the point.

She frowned at me, but her mother reached out to grab her and she tumbled toward us, kissing Maureen's hair and settling into her embrace. I rested my head against the two of them, not knowing where one ended and the other began and not caring in the least. And in the languor of this late March day, with the afternoon sun making the air feel warmer than it actually was, I fell asleep on a bed infinitely more important to me than my own life.

The first thing I noticed when I came awake was early morning birds chirping, the sound slipping through the slim opening I left in the window the night before. Then the smell of the daffodils that Maureen planted in ridiculous quantities all around the perimeter of the house. It really was spring. I hadn't dreamed that. And for just a second – that instant between dreaming and being awake when almost anything still seems possible – I believed that everything else about my dream was true as well. My wife was next to me. My daughter, five or nine or seventeen, was two doors down the hall, about to protest that it was too early to go to school.

But the moment receded. And again, Maureen was gone forever, gone from this earth with a suddenness I promised I would never understand. And again, Tanya disappeared from my life, not knowing that her mother wouldn't be here for her if she ever chose to return. I felt each loss as if it just happened, realizing that the one thing I might have in unlimited quantity was sorrow.

In the past few months, there had been so many dreams. So many moments when they were right here where I could touch them and let them know that they were the absolute essence of my life. Where I could lay my forehead against Maureen's and we could allow our eyes to have hours of conversation for us. Where I could stop time before I floundered with Tanya and give her something of me without taking away any of her. Where I could have said to them, “I'll gladly accept the worst possible moments with either of you over any moment without you.”

I wanted to hold onto this dream, but I couldn't any more than I could hold on to the dozens of others I had before. All I could hold onto was the increasing depth of understanding of everything I had lost. Like the insistent repetition of the chorus at the end of an epic song, with every new visit from Maureen and Tanya in my dreams, I came to feel what I had with them just a little bit more – and by extension feel what I could no longer ever have again.

Neither the birds nor the daffodils or any of the other harbingers of the season I loved most could elevate me. Spring was nearly here. And the thought that I would live it without Maureen and Tanya was heartbreaking.

I closed my eyes. Let me dream again. Let me visit with them for just a little longer. It never happened before and it didn't happen now. Sleep didn't come easily for me these days and it wouldn't possibly come this way. No matter how much I wanted it.

Reese made his first morning sounds. He never cried right away when he got up. For the first couple of minutes of every day, it was as though the world was just so fascinating to him, so absolutely new to his eyes, that his rediscovery of it took precedence over his hunger. Then the crying would come. Crying that always reminded me, perhaps would always remind me, of the sound of his crying the night I came home to find Maureen.

I didn't want him to have to cry today. And so before his empty stomach imposed its will upon him, I went to his room, picked him up, and held him to my chest. After a moment, we walked toward the kitchen. Past the framed painting of a hobbyhorse, posted outside Reese's door, that Maureen found at the last antique store we visited together. Past Tanya's empty room. Down the staircase lined with photographs of my wife and daughter and even a couple of the new baby.

As we got downstairs, Reese started to fuss a little. We were probably a minute from full-blown bawling. I heated the bottle quickly, using the microwave though I knew that wasn't the best thing to do, rubbing his back, and humming to him in the time this took. I tested the temperature on my arm and brought him into the family room. Almost immediately, he sucked contentedly.

While he drank, I lost myself in the image of the antique quilt on the opposite wall. Maureen and I bought it a month before we were married. It was an extravagant expense at the time, but she wanted it so much. “It will hang prominently in every home we ever have,” she said. And it did. From the drafty walk-up in Coram to the needy starter three-bedroom in St. James to this, our family home for the past twelve years in Port Jefferson. “This quilt is you and me, Gerry. Woven from separate parts and joined together forever.”

Reese stopped sucking and I glanced down at him. He looked at me with fascination in his eyes, maybe even a bit of confusion, and his hand reached up toward my face. I bent toward him, kissing his hand and rubbing my cheek against it. It was only then that I realized I was crying. I let Reese's hand stray over my face, drawing the line of tears down toward my chin. He had no idea what I was going through, just as he had no idea how much his touch meant to me.

I pulled the baby closer and adjusted the bottle. He began to suck again, secure in the simplicity and wonder of his world.

A new season was coming. A new day was beginning. I held fast to the only thing that made it possible for me to face either.

Crossing the Bridge
is a novel that leapt into my head all in one piece. I had the idea of writing about two brothers in love with the same woman with the added complication that one of the brothers had died tragically ten years earlier. It added all kinds of nuance to the present-day story and gave me a great opportunity to write about both family relationships and the weight of desire. Chase is probably the darkest protagonist I've created, but I hope you'll find that he's worth getting to know.

Russet Avenue is designed for foot traffic and browsers. There's parallel parking on the street and a couple of municipal lots around back. Among other things, there's an inn, a craft shop, a print gallery, a few restaurants, a jewelry designer, and a chocolatier for the tourists, and a bank, a drug store, and my father's store for the locals. I'm not sure which category of consumer I fit into at this point, though I certainly hadn't returned to Amber for its quaint New England flavor. As the morning turned into afternoon, I spent a lot of time watching pedestrians out the window from behind the counter. I remembered quiet afternoons such as this when I felt shackled to the store and believed that every other teenager in Amber had something more interesting going on.

It was while daydreaming that I saw Iris entering the gourmet food shop across the street. As I watched, my thoughts ranged from wondering if it was actually her, to how I would respond if she walked in here, to considering going to the stockroom until the moment passed.

When I saw Iris come out of the shop and head down the street, I decided it was foolish to pretend (or even wish) that I hadn't seen her. I told Tyler I'd be back in a few minutes and went out the door. I was crossing the street and she was about to walk into the bakery when I called out her name. She turned in my general direction, but didn't make eye contact for several seconds. When she did, she seemed stupefied by the sight, as though we were standing on a street in Bali rather than in the town where we both grew up.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as I walked up to her. I noticed her eyes scanning me from head to toe. She didn't seem to be appraising me; it was as though she was taking inventory.

“I read about this place in a guidebook and decided to check it out,” I said.

“You look good. You seem – taller.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” She looked stunning to me. I was surprised at how my memory had failed to do her justice. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, but her eyes seemed even more cobalt, her skin smoother, her posture even more approachable.

“So what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were off wandering the globe.”

“Yeah, moving from suburb to suburb in search of thrills. I finally got tired of the fast lane and decided to stop by for a little small town calm.” As I said this, I rolled my eyes to make sure that she understood was being ironic. “Actually, my dad's sick and I'm here to check up on him.”

Concern darkened her expression. “Is he okay?”

“I think so. I'm gonna watch the store for him for a few days.”

“Wow, things have changed.”

“Well I guess you can do anything for a few days, huh? So what are you doing here? You haven't moved back, have you?”

“God, no. I live in Lenox now. I come down every month or so to see my mom. My dad died a few years ago.”