Terrible Mother: Work in Progress

(This is from a story called "A Familiar Place," a piece that I've been working with, on and off, for two years. In the story, Becky is leaving Nathaniel and taking their son Joshua with her. It's a difficult story to manage because it's third person point of view, but each section alternates from Nathaniel to Becky, the main characters, as the point-of-view character. As the story goes on, each section gets shorter, resulting in a final very short scene that is omniscient. It's not really working yet, though, and I'm struggling to figure out why.)

Becky zipped up the suitcases, then buckled them. The bus to Seattle left in two hours, and she still had to pack up Joshua’s clothes and toys. She carried each suitcase, one at a time, to the hallway and the landing above the stairs. Her hair curled in sweaty threads around her face, and she thought about packing up Joshua’s room, how it would be cooler on the main floor out of the rising heat. She looked down the stairs, ran a hand over her forehead. She picked up the larger suitcase, better to get the worst over with, and started to lug it down. It was heavy. Impossibly heavy, and after a few stairs, she set it down. She opened her mouth to call for Nathaniel and then stopped. She couldn’t expect him to carry her bags out to the truck, load them up like a gentleman. She closed her eyes, reached down, and picked up the suitcase again. For a moment, she stood on the stairs, hands trembling with the weight of what she was taking. Then she let the suitcase go.

In the moment when she let go, she realized she felt relieved. Relieved to let things happen. To stand by and watch them. She thought the suitcase would tumble down, maybe hit the sideboard at the bottom, make the cobalt blue vase on top wobble.

But the suitcase just dropped and didn’t slide down. Becky kicked it. When it didn’t go she kicked it again. It still didn’t move. Finally she bent down low and pushed with her shoulders, and this time it slid down the staircase, bumping along until it hit bottom where it tumbled, end over end, and crashed into the sideboard. The vase rocked back and forth, then slowly tipped and fell. For a second, Becky hoped that it might not break. But then it hit the floor, and Becky heard it shatter as it broke into pieces of thick, ocean-colored glass. She ran down the stairs.

In the yard, Nathaniel watched Joshua build a mountain out of mud and cedar bark, then stack his army men on top. He stood up and looked east. He could just make out the barn of the Dailey farm, and he wondered when it would come down. Tom hadn’t moved out yet, but it was only a matter time. Tom Dailey was made an offer, like Nathaniel was, even though he farmed raspberries, Nathaniel blueberries. It didn’t matter. They were going to plow most of it over (along with the four other farms they’d bought out), re-irrigate, build a processing shed. It’ll be an eyesore, he thought, but he couldn’t blame Tom for selling. His wife had cancer, they had bills.

The night Tom had come over to break the news, the two men had sat on the front porch steps drinking cans of Hamm’s and looking out into the front yard. They talked about the drought of ’87, bee mites, the new insecticides, before they talked about the specifics of the sale, the dates and prices and costs. Midway through his third beer, Tom said, “And it’s not like there’s anyone else to take over.” He pushed the bill of his hat up and looked out into the front yard. “Davey is at State, but I know he’s not coming back to Sisters, and Jessica is talking about moving to California.” He took a pull from the beer. “Better to get out now, anyways,” he said. “It’ll be good for me to retire a little early.”

Nathaniel nodded. “You’ll finally be able to take Sylvia on that cruise now.”

Tom took a drink from his beer, then held it out at an angle and peered into it, as though he were trying to measure how much was left. He stretched his lips into a thin smile. “Won’t she be glad,” he finally said.

What Nathaniel remembered now, as he memorized the roofline of the barn, was how they had sat on the porch until dark, until Becky moved from room to room turning on lamps, until they were cubed by the shadow and light cast from the window panes behind them.

*tm

Comments

It’s infinitely better than the previous draft I read.

However, I think you’re coming into the story too early. Would you lose anything you couldn’t live without if she were already on the stairs with the suitcase at the beginning?

The paragraph that begins, “In the yard, Nathaniel…” is awkward. Is it Nathaniel or Joshua who stood up and faced east? I can see where the Tom Dalley story fits in thematically (the whole of Nathaniel’s life is changing), and contains a great gem (the inspection of the beer before answering) but your transition back to Nathaniel and Becky is jarring in its attempt to be subtle. Bulldozers are threatening to roll over this guy from both inside and outside of his home, and you’re working too hard to turn it in to poetry.

Of course, I am too literal-minded for poetry, so take that for what you will.

LYMI

Posted by: badfreak | August 23, 2006 at 12:09 AM