Fall Up
by Jeannette Leopold

In a sunlit field, light streaming around intermittant stalks of corn and reflecting off blades of yellowing grass, Maggie danced. She raised her arms to the heavens and tilted her head back so it pulled and hung on her neck. She sawthe sky, so clear pale blue it looked like a miracle, she saw the clouds so white fluffy bunchy like a careful little drawing. She moved through stalks like a puppet pulled along on strings. Effortless. 

***

When her dad died, Maggie had sunk. The day she found out, she’d come home from choir practice at school, seventh grade. Mark had been standing behind her on the risers and he smiled at her before she left. Asked her if she had plans for the dance that Friday. Eyes wide, Maggie had stuttered and smiled. All the way home, long walk, she’d thought about dancing with Mark. All the way home, feet padding along the sidewalk light breeze swirling around her making her feel like part of a painting, leaves kicking up before her feet, white white houses with green shutters to her left and there, far ahead, to her right, it all seemed so beautiful. 

And when she found out she sank sank sank into the ground, dirt, puddled, nothing, white house green shutters mocked her saying, “Don’t you think we’re beautiful, Maggie? Don’t you think so, now?”
 
She did she did she did they were brilliant and bright but the leaves didn’t kick up around her feet because she couldn’t walk, puddles can’t walk they trickle down the sidewalk to school, to the school dance on Friday, and leaves fall trapped into the puddles and get soggy and tear apart. 
 
At the dance at the dance she stood there in her new yellow dress in her pretty white shoes and her hair hung down, limp, straggly, unwashed uncombed unbrushed unappealing understandably so, but that didn’t make Mark think to ask her to dance, not once, not once. 

***

One of Maggie’s favorite things to do with her mom was build a fire outside in a little fire pit they’d dug and filled with wood they collected from the trees out back. Branches that fell to the ground, twigs that littered the dirt. One day, early spring, it was chilly outside and Maggie and her mom spent an hour collecting wood and dry leaves and twigs. They filled up that fire pit and Maggie’s mom lit a match and stuck it under the tinder. 
 
Maggie wore jeans and a sweatshirt, always. Converse. She sat with mom on a log and pulled her knees close to herself and hugged her arms around them. The fire started, whoosh the flames licked at the air and Maggie felt a rush of joy and excitement, the thrill, the fire hadn’t been there before and now it was, it existed, she and mom had created! She ran a hand back over her hair, buzzed off now, so short under her fingers. Her friends at school--why’d you do that, Magz? Your pretty hair and the odd kids, the ones who laughed a lot in class and smoked cigarettes outside the school--looking good, right on, wanna join? But she didn’t want to join. She pulled her sweatshirt hood up over her head and went on in to class. 
 
Now her mom sat next to her and pulled Maggie close, arm around her
shoulder. They watched the fire. 

***

“Tell us about a challenge you’ve faced.” 
 
Maggie tried to smile. College. Great. Interview: required. She had fine grades, good scores, nice essays. Writing style? Weird. Undeniably. But they liked that at these liberal arts places. 
 
Maggie tried to smile. The man tried to smile back. He flicked his pen against his notebook. Discretely checked his phone. 
 
“One time,” Maggie began. 

“Yes…?”

Her head filled with fog, thick. Dense, hard to move through. Thoughts tried to travel from one side to the other and got stuck in the middle, thought crash with ones coming from the other side and jumbled, obscured too thick can’t think senses fail what what what she should be over this over over over it that’s what they said. They said. 
 
“That’s what they said,” Maggie said, “They said it obscure middle. That’s what—over.” 

***

Sometimes life it pressed her down. Like a weight—like a huge weight of bricks, rocks, books, sticks, thoughts? One night snow fell thick fast. She stood face pressed to the glass of the living room window, nose pushed right up flat against it. She could only see the snow where it fell under the street lamp so that’s where she watched. So thick, snow, it could turn the whole world white if the world just held on and let it fall. No need to drive through walk through kick up the dirt splash make a mess. No need. Just let the snow fall and cover everything and create create create beauty. 
 
She stood by the window in a dark room with a fire in the hearth to her right side. The fire flickered light into the room and created warmth. It was cozy, nice. Outside the world was white and soft and in here there was the warming comfort of darkness. Outside she could lie in the pillow snow and let it fall over her until it buried her deep, deep and she could lay there surrounded by that gentle smothering blanket, she could lay and lay there forever.

In here it was warm, though, and comforting, and there was Nathan in the bedroom down the hall softly sleeping, sleeping softer than the snow fell. There was Nathan and he was a nice man, so kind, big heart, softly sleeping gently snoring big chest rising falling but the snow only fell it didn’t rise. 
 
Maggie leaned against the wall beside the window and felt the heat from the fire against her right side. She watched the snow fall gently down. 

***

When she held her first child it was as though God himself were speaking to her. Beside her, the baby’s father put his hand on her arm.

***

Christmastime! Her grandchildren sprinted around her living room trying to catch each other, grabbing cookies from the kitchen, ignoring their mothers’ yells of “Watch out for the fire!” or their exasperated, “Would you leave Billy alone, please?” The children ran out the back door to play in the snow.

Christmastime! The table covered in the nice white cloth, laden with food the big roast and the pumpkin soup and buttered asparagus, big meatballs that broke apart under your fork and crusty bread, steaming when you broke the loaf and that risotto that Gemma always brought, Gemma who couldn’t keep a secret and wore too-bright sequinny shirts and went outside to play with the children, coming back in her cheeks ruddy and laughter dancing in her eyes. 
 
Crying, crying! One of the boys came running inside, looked around for a second then ran over to Maggie and buried his face in her belly. Maggie ran a hand over his hair and pressed him to her.“There there, sweetheart,” she said. She sat down in her chair by the fire and pulled him onto her lap. Through the window they could see the boys and girls pushing each other into the snow and throwing back their heads with laughter. Billy sniffled and wiped a hand under his nose. 

“Look at the fire, sweet pea,”Maggie told him, and he did. “Doesn’t it look nice? You can’t tell where it’s gonna go. It never tells you, it just moves where it wants.” They watched the flames flicker and spin and dance, the logs fall, sparks fling upwards, heard the crackle and snap. 
 
“I’m going back outside!” said Billy, and he wriggled out of grandma’s lap and headed for the door. He reached for the doorknob and paused, and looked back at her. “I love you grandma!” he said. And he was out.

***

Maggie Maggie, the years flew by! Twirling through stalks of corn under a big bright sun. Blades of grass are yellowing green, the color of that old soccer ball they used to kick around. Maybe it’s her fading memory but that old soccer ball and maybe a smile, a fleeting image, possibly invented, of him watching her at a ballet concert are all she remembers. All all all that’s left. Maybe maybe Maggie Maggie someday he’ll be there waiting you’ll see him. Today today, alive here now, she twirls and dances in that field. She raises her arms to the blue and white, she lets pure joy sweep her up and she rises rises rises to the sky.