Barry

I am looking at Karen across the kitchen table. We are both sipping on coffees, and she is looking out at the backyard.

I ask her if she thinks today will be the day. She shrugs and looks away from the window and into her coffee cup, for answers she doesn’t have.

He was lucid and eating yesterday wasn’t he, a bit brighter and happier? I ask again. She nods and brightens a bit and tells me that he ate most of his strained food, despite his grimaces and complaints that it wasn’t steak. We both laugh at that. I remember briefly how he used to make steak at the barbeques for all of us, always remembering how each person liked theirs cooked.

I tell her the story of how one time, Barry helped my son with his go-kart for the Boy Scout races, spending most of the day in the garage, looking at diagrams with my husband and occasionally hitting his thumb with a hammer as he nailed the pieces together. Even then, she remarks that he was tiring quickly, dealing with frequent headaches.

We had no idea, did we? I state bitterly. She wonders to me how we could have missed the signs. I tell her that they weren’t really out of the ordinary problems for a 30-something man. Headaches don’t usually mean tumors.

She sighs and asks me when I think it’s going to happen. I am turning my coffee cup in my hands and thinking about the exact same thing. I don’t know either, it’s a day-by-day thing, I reflect. She reaches out for my hand and I grab it softly.

I think that whatever the Lord has planned, it is for the best, and he will take care of you and your daughter, I say.

She smiles soberly, but I know that she doesn’t believe it.

This was a small piece I wrote for a workshop that was to use implied language, with no actual dialogue, from one persons perspective. I posted it because I wanted the opinion on whether the implied dialogue worked, or if it would be better as a regular back and forth between Karen and the narrarator.

This is my first post, and I am hopeful.

Cardeia