Prologue

            The light of a lamp shines through the opened slat blinds out into the dark and heat of the Ft. Lauderdale night. Directly in the middle of the living room of that house off 18^th, a father stands staring down into the sleeping face of the infant son cradled to his chest. Out of sight, on the couch against the wall, the mother sprawls, yawning, placing the back of her hand against her forehead. Her face lights up every now and again from the glare of the muted war movie in front of her. Soldiers are calling and gesturing and crying out as shells and dirt and blood and limbs fly above them, but she’s more concerned with the man standing quietly next to her. The fringes of the room are outlines of black, with gray creeping up.

            “Honey,” the wife calls to the father, “It’s time for him to go to bed.”

            The father doesn’t respond, still looking at his child, still feeling the soft, light tufts of hair between his fingertips, still listening to the faint up and down of his son’s breathing.

            “Babe,” she says a little louder, “babe, get him into the crib before he wakes up.”

            The father looks up over at her, smiling and nodding his head. “Alright,” he whispers, “Okay little guy, time for sleep.”

            He turns around gently, trying to avoid the creaking spots of the floor, and walks through the hallway with the framed baby pictures towards the crib in the back of the house.

            A small lamp in the corner illuminates the baby’s room. The rocking crib sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by large boxes of diapers, a blue Lazy-boy recliner, a few wooden shelves with random toys and books, and a desk with a computer sitting on it. The father is standing next to the crib, holding the child, watching him sleep. He slowly lowers his son into the crib, watching the boy sink into the mounds of blanket.

            The crib starts to rock as the father surveys the room, his eyes landing on the Chicago White Sox poster pinned up over the desk. “Sox,” he whispers to himself, shaking his head.

            He looks again at his son. “You’re going to be a Cubs fan,” he says softly. “I don’t care what your grandpa says.”

He pauses. “Maybe you’ll be the one,” he says, more to himself. “Maybe you’ll be okay.”

The father takes his hand off the crib and walks over to the corner. He picks up the dragon-shaped nightlight sitting on the ground and plugs it in. When he turns off the lamp, the room is colored a mellow green. He stops at the crib once more, looking down, and whispers, “Goodnight, little fire-breather,” before leaving the room.

“Honey, someone called,” his wife says when he plops down next to her. “Your phone vibrated against the coffee table and woke me up. Oh, which reminds me, your dad called earlier making sure about the service on Friday.”

“That’s right,” he says to himself, picking up the cell phone and flipping it open. He is looking at the familiar number, trying to make a decision.

“Do we really have to go to that?”

“Are you serious?” she asks.

He sighs, letting his arm drop.

“It’ll be fine. Anyway, I’m going to go to bed now, babe,” his wife says, pulling herself up. She pats his leg. “Make sure everything’s locked when you come to bed.”

“Actually,” he says, flipping the phone and pocketing it, “I’m going to go to the office for a little bit, try to finish up some work.”

“Why can’t you do it here?”

He stands up and stretches. “I left some of the paperwork in the office and the presentation is tomorrow. I just want to be completely prepared.”

She tilts her head and looks him in the eyes for a moment. “Whatever happened to that book?” she finally asks.

“Book?”

“Your big epic book that you said was all pent up in you,” she says. “You couldn’t stop talking about it a few months ago. You remember? You said it was like a ‘hurricane in your soul.’”

She smiles. “Funny,” he says, poking her ribs. “But, you ready? I finished it.”

“When?”

“Last night,” he says. “I didn’t want to tell you until I had everything revised and edited, but the manuscript is finished.”

“So when can I look at it?”

“It’s on the desktop computer in the baby’s room. You can look at it whenever you want. I gotta go now, hon.”

“Alright,” she says. “But don’t you forget to come back.”

Author's Note

Is dialogue realistic? Are there cliches?

Reviews

[cloister]

The dialogue is actually better than most. You do a good job of constructing dialogue that leaves a lot un-said, which is totally realistic for a married couple that, obviously, knows each other very well.

The one suggestion I would make is to shorten it. Not to cut the number of lines each character has, but rather, to cut the number of words in each line. Leave more un-said. Here and there you've padded a line with more than is really necessary. Also, watch out for interpreting the characters' actions on behalf of the reader. Any time you feel like you need to tell the reader what something means, it is a clue that yo uneed to make the description of the thing stronger instead.

Let's look at this little passage for a minute:

"That's right," he says to himself, picking up the cell phone and flipping it open. He is looking at the familiar number, trying to make a decision.

In that line, "trying to make a decision" is an interpretation of the man's actions. It's a "tell" in the "show, don't tell" sense. Instead, you probably want something like this:

"That's right," he mutters, flipping open his cell phone. He stares at his father's familiar number, then snaps the phone shut.

By his manner and actions, we can infer that he has mixed feelings about calling his father back and/or going to the thing on Friday. You don't need to tell us. Readers are smart, they can figure those things out without being told, and that's half the fun of fiction. That's what "reading between the lines" means. That is the soul of "show, don't tell."

"Do we really have to go to that?"
"Are you serious?" she asks.
He sighs, letting his arm drop.

Those three lines are pure awesome. That says so much. Great job.

"It'll be fine. Anyway, I'm going to go to bed now, babe," his wife says, pulling herself up. She pats his leg. "Make sure everything's locked when you come to bed."

This is the second time she has called him 'babe' in a short period of time. If you listen to how people really talk, you'll notice they don't actually use each other's names very often. The same goes for nicknames. A hallmark of writers who are still learning their craft is that they over-use the characters' names in dialogue. I know I certainly had to learn that lesson the hard way.

"Make sure everything's locked when you come to bed." is a line where you can make the line more effective by shortening it. Partly this is because of the preceeding context, in which the wife announces her own bed-ward intentions. The action of her getting up and patting his leg, in between her two sentences of dialogue, could also be tightened up:

"It'll be fine. Anyway, I'm going to go to bed now." She pats his leg and pulls herself up off the couch. "Make sure everything's locked up, ok?"

I felt that her actions were a little out of order. It's hard to pat someone's leg after you get up. The fact that she's heading to bed and he isn't implies that she wants him to lock up before coming to bed. So she doesn't need to say "before you come to bed."

As Stephen King said in "On Writing," almost any piece of writing can be made both shorter and better.

Other than that, it's a good piece. As a piece of atmosphere, it's wonderful. You have totally captured that late-night, sleepy/exhausted new parent feeling that I know all too well. Any actual parent will recognize and empathize with these people.

[Gabriela]

Well, there's not really much I can say. Cloister pretty much said it all for me, he's an amazing reviewer.
And I have to agree with what he said, the shorter, the better. I still haven't learned that but I'm working on it.
The feel of the story is very realistic and your dialogues have gotten way better over the past times.
Though I find they were always smooth and not forced. Great job.