Broken

*

 

BROKEN

 

A Short Story

 

 

1.

 

When Doc walked into the kitchen he was equally surprised, alarmed and bewildered to find his wife sobbing. In the eight years they had been married he had only seen Annie cry twice. The first time was when she had broken her hand on a camping trip. The second time was when she heard her father had suffered a massive stroke. Doc understood these reasons and shared, at least emotionally, the pain she was going through. But this morning something was different and he found himself clueless as to how to respond.

 

So his watched silently as Annie and Gina, their four year old daughter, sat at the breakfast table trying to fit together all of the fragments of a supper dish that had been broken into dozen of odd-shaped pieces.

 

The dish had been part of a wedding gift, a complete set of fine china that, except for certain holiday occasions and favored guests, was rarely used. While Doc could certainly understand being a little upset by the untimely demise of a piece of china he could not possibly imagine how such an occurrence could warrant the shedding of tears, much less the deep, soul-shaking sobbing he was witnessing. So he listened and waited for a clue to respond to.

 

2.

 

With her delicate, childish hands little Gina matched two of the larger fragments and glowed with pride as she grinned triumphantly at her mother.

 

"See, Mommy, it can be fixed. Daddy can fix it for us. He can fix anything."

 

With tears still tickling down her cheeks Annie suddenly looked up, as if knowing her husband had been watching all along.

 

"Can you, Honey? Can you fix it?" she asked.

 

"Maybe. Sure," he replied. "I can glue it back together."

 

"See, I told you so, Mommy," Gina boasted.

 

"But even if I did it would never look right," Doc added cautiously. "And it would always look and feel out of place and everyone would know it was a broken dish and that it’s been glued back together."

 

"I suppose you’re right," Annie admitted, unable to conceal the pain of acknowledgment.

 

"Honey, it’s not worth getting upset over," Doc offered her as his concept of comfort. "We’ll just call your Mom and find out what store it was bought at, then call the manufacturer and order a replacement. They always keep replacements in stock."

 

"Yeah, you’re right," she replied with a half-hearted smile. "It’s silly to get upset over."

 

Doc glanced at the clock on then wall, then gave Annie a gentle squeeze on the arm.

 

"Honey, I’ve got to go get dressed or we’ll be late. Are you okay now?" She nodded yes and waived him away. But as Doc reached the door he turned back towards her. "It you’re not up to it I’ll call the hospital and cancel the Chemo today."

 

"No, no, I’m fine now," she declared, pushing the broken fragments aside to demonstrate how the silly crises was past tense.

 

3.

 

"What’s a repiecement?" Gina asked moments after her father had left the room.

 

"You mean replacement," Annie replied with a chuckle. "It means a new dish that looks like the old one so we can throw the broken one away."

 

"And it would be a set again?"

 

"Sure. A complete set again. I guess you can get replacement parts for just about anything these days," Annie added as she pushed her chair away from the table. "Now come give your Mommy a big hug."

 

Gina hopped off her chair and scampered towards her mother’s arms. With a stifled, though still audible, cry of physical pain Annie pulled her daughter up into her lap.

 

"What’s wrong, Mommy?"

 

"Your Mommy gets tired easy these days," Annie admitted tenderly. "I suppose you could say I’ve gotten a little broken myself."

 

"But people can be fixed. People ain’t dishes. Doctors fix people all the time, don’t they?"

 

"Let’s hope so, baby. Let’s hope so."

Reviews

[JHN]

I really appreciate this short story because it shows how relationships change throughout our lifetimes, especially in times of crisis. I also appreciate that you do not explicitly tell us what is going on but instead give the reader hints and clues. One suggestion that I would make is that you should not split it into 3 parts because they are too short. It is easy enough to read all at once so you could leave it all as one because that is probably easiest. Also, if you leave it as one complete story it feels more complete. However, this is completely my opinion and to each artist his own! Great writing! I really enjoyed reading your story.
JHN

[Willys Watson]

Thank you, JHN. The numbered breaks weren’t in the original story. But because this is such a short short story an editor suggested using something to have the story carry over into a third printed page. He suggested using the (*) but I thought that ploy a little too Kurt Vonnegut for this.