[Jeff]

Mary Anne’s fingers stretched out across the top of his leg as a weary yet comfortable yawn filled the air inside his small, affordable Mitsubishi and whipped out one of the two open windows. He sent a smile to her, but that too flew out the window and never touched her eyes. She had done her best to cheer him up, but the unavoidable facts remained, making such efforts seem almost like heresy. His father was dying. Of course Mr. Fisher had made mistakes raising Jared, but Jared was not the kind to hate his dying father, no matter how demanding or controlling he had been.
“I love you Jared,” she spoke softly, but he either didn’t hear over the roar of wind and road, or he just didn’t acknowledge. “I know that this is hard, but I want you to know I am here for you,” she spoke louder. This time he looked up, and sent another such half smile, but held it longer, like a burden held off the back of a wounded comrade when the whole company is cripple. Silently, he took the exit into Monroe Country for which they had been watching for several hundred miles of southern interstate. She wondered for a split second why he bypassed the hotel. They had to check-in in less than an hour to keep their reservations, but then she understood. She kept quiet.
The hospital was small, and the parking lot was relatively empty. This was nothing like the city, where she could remember having a panic attack from the ubiquitous stench of feces and sterilizing fluid and the crowds of white coats and robed stab and gunshot victims that swam through her brother’s ward. How long had it been since he died? She could remember it was almost two years ago that she had struggled to deal with the daunting task of burying her tower of strength without being swallowed into the muck of despair herself. She didn’t blame him for not being able to smile. Times like this drained a person.
He cut the engine in a parking space close to the front doors, but for a moment he hesitated and stared into the glass of his stained windshield, the mangled bodies of love bugs staring back at him. After a deep inhalation, he looked over at her and gave that look that was responsible for her falling in love with him. It was that kind of courage, that honesty that made her so sure that he was the one she would marry. He looked away for another moment, then back at her face, exhaling, rising, stepping, entering with determination. She followed. He politely asked the receptionist for the room number, then made his way up the stairs and to the outside of the room, keeping her close to him by way of that favorite spot in the small of her back.
With this the silence was broken with a precipitation of precipitation tap tapping on the roof above them. Jared didn’t notice at first, because he was caught up in doubts. Would his father recognize him? Would he want to see him? This was all too much. He needed to put up the windows on the car. He needed to turn around and walk back down the stairs then he needed to go outside and roll the windows up. Then he needed to take the elevator back up and sit in it at the second floor with the door close button held down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. For a moment, he almost opened the door, almost took that leap, but then the tap tapping got louder. He was distracted for just long enough to give in. He tried to send a half smile to Mary Anne, but this time it came out almost perverse.
She didn’t argue when he decided to go down and roll up the windows. The irony of skipping the hotel only to go back for windows only dully knocked her, as she found it completely understandable that he would have such last minute nervousness. It wasn’t abnormal to be off balance at a time like this. She decided to go in and try to break the tension a little. The room brought back the smell of hospital in her mind, but she kept this thought as far from her mind as possible as she walked around the end of the bed to the side closest to the window, opposite the food tray, where a lone chair sat, looking as uncomfortable as ever. Mr. Fisher seemed asleep. He looked precious, lying there, like the child within him was shining through to the outside. She shuddered softly when she thought of what Jared would think to see him like this. Before she had a second chance to think kindly of Mr. Fisher, he opened his eyes. His reaction to her presence was passive at first, and then suspicious.
“Who are you? “ He demanded of her. She wasn’t caught off guard. She was prepared to deal with this kind of treatment from him. She expected it even, and didn’t hold it against him. He was simply a small man, hardened by his own years of hurt. She was simply reminded how vital it was that she never become callous, that she never give in to a negative mentality.
“My name is Mary Anne Kelly. I am your son’s fiancée. He will be up soon; I just thought I would come in and say hello,” She spoke to him softly and sweetly.
His reaction didn’t change. “Fiancée eh? So the kid is getting married and he doesn’t tell me. “
“He was going to tell . . . “
“Though I don’t suppose he need to.” He cut her off mid sentence “The kid stopped being mine a long time ago. Never did respect authority” He coughed weakly, and then more violently. As his breathing returned to normal, he looked back up, his face looking much weaker, his age and health showing. “I could have done something with that boy. He could have been the most respectable lawyer in all the South.” His face softened again as he struggled for another breath.
She looked at him with benevolent sympathy, her hand idly floating down towards him. His reaction was violent. Still struggling for breath, his face regained is scowl with renewed vigor. His hand grasped her wrist tightly, painfully, and he stared up into her eyes, smoldering with hatred “You want to steal my son away?! He is all I have left in this world and- gasp- you, you little whore, you want to . . . “ he didn’t finish his sentence, but he let out a guttural noise of hatred as he pulled himself upright, his other hand gripping her collar tightly, his eyes smoldering.
She panicked. Her breath was restricted. She was held up close to his face by an alarming burst of strength. His cold breath was that foul air from the city hospital two years ago. She was going to die. She was going to pass out or he was going to kill her. What to do? She never answered the question, for she had already pushed him back with all her strength to his bed below him when she came back to her senses. This fall took the strength out of him, but it wasn’t until he went into cardiac arrest that he no longer looked angry. The look of hatred was replaced by the strange resemblance to a wounded deer as he clutched his chest.
“ You . . . you . . . What did you do to me . . . .” he said weakly. The flat-line on his heart monitor drowned out the emphasis on his last syllable, so that these last words took on an awkward, unnatural feeling. This was not the way it was meant to end. This was not right. This was not the way the world works. Her immediate reaction was only a cold pit of sickness in her stomach as the nurses rushed into the room one after the other after a five or ten seconds that seemed like eternity. As reality swept back to her, she only wept softly, stepping back to the wall dazed as the nurses and doctor pushed her out of the way, rushing to his bedside to save his life.
The first words Jared would hear as he walked into the room were “ Call it. “ and then the time. He could see her shuddering and sucking up her tears against the wall, and then as he came around the corner, the crowd of nurses that surrounded his deceased father parted, giving him a parting shot of the sickly pale, double chinned face of Mr. Fisher.
“We couldn’t save him,” the doctor said with sympathy to Jared, but he didn’t respond. He only stood dazed at the corner of his father’s bed, half wondering if he was in the right room.
No one ever suspected Mary Anne was at fault. She did her best to help ease Jared’s despair, all too poignantly reminding him that it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t until the next morning, just before she found his wrist-bled body in the shower, that she came up with the strength to tell him the truth of what happened. She sat on the hotel toilet, miles from home, staring at the little caulked cracks between the shower tiles, a double murder suicide, and still breathing.

[CaughtBetween]

very very nice stuff dood....you gots the talent

[meatfinger]

Very nice, Mr. Creel. Once again, you blow me away with your amazing talent. As far as content, it is good. It works as a short story, that's the most important thing. The character of Mary Anne could probably have been developed a little more. All I really knew about her is that she was in love with Jared, and that she had an experience with a dying father in the past. So maybe she could be developed a tad bit more. Otherwise, some of the sentences come out a bit stilted. Here's an example:

After a deep inhalation, he looked over at her and gave that look that was responsible for her falling in love with him.

Just a few too many personal pronouns there. But other than those very minor things, it is an excellent story, and a good piece of literature.

-chris