Student Example of Narrative

Sally Student

Professor Whitington

English 1010

September 7, 2016

                                                            Broken Places

            It hadn’t been two weeks since we’d lost everything. Our home, our TV, my little sisters’ toys and all of our books, most of our clothes and our swing set.  We lost my father’s business too.  They came early in the morning with a truck. I sat on the sidewalk across the street and watched them haul it all away. Everything. Gone. We lost my mom and my sisters too. They left not long after the bank foreclosed, drove away with my aunt and a suitcase. Gone.

            We lost everything except each other. “You’re always stronger at the broken places,” he told me.

Daddy and I moved into a single-wide trailer, up on cement blocks. It listed to the left. “It’s like camping on a slope, that’s not so bad,” my dad said— and he was right. We settled in, my dad and I. He did odd jobs. I was a junior in high school and worked at the public library. We did ok, finding our rhythm—school, work, reading at night.  I propped myself on the couch with a book while daddy sat at the tiny table that was our dining room table, kitchen counter and desk.  Daddy was plotting his next attack.  Ever the optimist he said, “ask any successful business man how many failed businesses lie in his wake.  Well, I have one now.  You make some mistakes along the way. That’s how you learn.”

            My aunt called regularly once we had the phone installed.  “You can’t stay with that man.  You can’t! your mother needs you…” She was drunk whenever she called.  “Three sheets,” dad would say.  My aunt was drunk and mean, always had been.  I didn’t want to hear her diatribe against my father.  And besides, she wasn’t my mother.  My mother never called.

            At night, once I was in bed, I could see my father awake, smoking a cigarette, sitting at the tiny table.  I knew he was writing love letters to my mother, though we never talked about it.  Into each one he put whatever money he could.  He mailed them each morning. Like a prayer, I thought.  Every evening we would pick up the mail at the entrance to the trailer park. Each day my father opened our mailbox. We both silently waited for a letter, and each day was a disappointment.  As we walked back to the trailer one day, my father threw his arms over my shoulder.  “Don’t worry honey.  I’ll get her back. I know I will.”

            My father quit drinking after my mother left.  “I can’t afford beer and cigarettes,” he scoffed with a wink. I suspected my mother had committed to both habits with more vigor than ever.

            We hit our stride within a month or so.  He was running a car repair shop downtown, and my school was going well.  My father’s eternal optimism stirred in me a sense of adventure and hope.  “A clean slate— anything is possible sweetheart—with a clean slate.” I began to believe him.

            **********************************************************

I was at work, shelving books in the children’s book section of our small library, when I heard a familiar voice asking the librarian for me.  Ronny Martinez looked out of place in the library. At 6’5 he towered over me, but we probably weighed close to the same.  His hair, black and always a little greasy, hung to the middle of his back in a pony tail with a slight wave.   He looked like a teenager up to no good. He worked for my father as a mechanic.  Ronny lived, ate, and breathed automotive engines.  My father said that he was a mechanical genius.  My father’s stipulation for all of his employees was that they stayed in school no matter how meaningless it seemed to them.  Thanks to this policy Ronny would graduate at the end of the year.  Ronny was not used to talking to anyone. He was uncomfortable around anyone but gearheads.  He was agitated and looked frightened.  “Your dad’s in ICU.” I stood dumbfounded, staring at a smudge of black on his forehead.  “It took five of us… me and Gilbert and Carlos.. them two cops.. five of us to get him in the fucking ambulance.  Shit!  He’s in ICU.. you need to go to him.”

            I didn’t know what ICU was.  Daddy had to be OK, I thought, but I could feel our world bottoming out. Again.

It was then that I noticed Chris standing in the doorway.  She was an old woman, like Aunt Bee on Andy Griffith almost exactly.  She had been the town’s librarian forever.  I could see she had been frightened by Ronny and his obvious state.  “Is everythin’ OK, sweetheart?”

“Daddy’s in ICU.”

“Oh, Honey, no.” She came to me then.

Ronny sat in one of the child sized chairs and began to cry, his head in his hands, “IC fuckin’ U.  Shit.  He ain’t gonna make it.” I could see the flagpole through the big picture window.  I could hear the metal of the flag’s grommets as the bounced off the pole in the wind.  I could feel myself lowering into a small chair. I could feel the adventure turning badly.  All I could think was, clean slate, clean slate…

Chris stroked my hair and calmly lowered my head to her lap. I began to cry for the first time since my mother had driven away. I cried as Chris asked Ronny to call someone who could drive, to tell them to come immediately and take me to the hospital.  It was obvious to Chris that neither Ronny nor I were able to drive and she had never learned how.

The hospital was easy to find.  I was the only one allowed in, being next of kin.  Ronny tried to convince them he was my brother to no avail.

The ICU floor was empty, dark, and cool. There were around a dozen beds, five of which were occupied.  Daddy was in the corner, a dim light behind him.  I was about to tgo to him when I was stopped by a nurse.  She was startled as I came into the light.  I knew she was expecting me, but I was obviously not what she expected.  I might have been 16, but even as tall as I was I still looked barely 14.  “Is your mother with you honey,” she was almost whispering.

“No. Just me.”

“Well, let’s go see Dr. Simon, he’s waiting to talk with you.”

I jerked my arm out of her gentle grasp. “No. I don’t need to talk to a doctor, I need  my daddy.” I went to him, as the nurse frantically tried to contact someone on the phone.

My father was surrounded by dozens of machines and he seemed to be hooked to each one by tubes or wires. The light was dim, but I could make out his blond hair, wild against the white of the pillow. As I came closer, I could see that he was held to the bed with white straps. It was then that I saw his face, white, skeletal almost.  His blue eyes were barely visible behind the drooping  lids.  I needed to catch my breath, to regroup.  I needed that clean slate that I had this morning. “Daddy.” He couldn’t hear me.

Chris’s voice came to  me from across the room—she was talking to the nurse, her wool coat buttoned to the top, her purse just so on her arm. 

“How did you…” I started to say.

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s OK. Grandma is here,” she said with a knowing look. I went to her. I went to her, my arms reaching around her slight frame.  I’d never loved anyone quite like this before. “So, Dr. Simon, my granddaughter needs to know what has happened.” Chris, the matronly model of morality, sat me down on a chair as she lied as naturally as breathing.

The doctor sat across from me. “Your father is critically ill and medically unstable.  We are closely monitoring him. He is in a life-threatening situation.  Earlier we did an emergency laparotomy.  He complicated matters by trying to pull his tubes and leave after the anesthesia wore off. We’re hoping for the best.” Hoping for the best. Hoping for the best is writing love letters to mom.  Hoping for the best is what we were doing this morning. “No,” I said, “I don’t believe that. I think you are planning for the worst.”

Dr. Simon stared at me, silent.  Chris said, “please. Tell us what the outlook is.  She needs to know.”

The doctor looked my way and then averted his eyes.  “We don’t expect him to make it through the night.”

“Thank you,” Chris whispered.  She shook hands with the doctor, and then led me to the corner where they had daddy tethered. She held me as I caught my breath.  He looked so small, so weak. Tears came freely. I could see him in the light, so dim, emanating from the machines, monitoring his hear, his lungs, his brain. You can’t monitor his chances.

I looked forever into my father’s face. His eyes were closed. He was so still. I put my hand on his.  His eyes fluttered open. It took him but a second to come to with a smile and wink. “Ahh honey, don’t cry now,” he said weakly. “Temporary setback is all.” His voice was so quiet, each word took great effort.  “Don’t listen to them honey.  These people in hospitals only look at half the truth.  The most important half is beyond their ken.”

“Daddy… daddy… don’t go.” I sobbed, kneeling at his bedside, my face in his hands still strapped to the bed.

“Honey, listen to me and listen carefully.” I rose a looked into my father’s eyes.  “I am going to walk out of here.  I’m going to get your mother back.  We will be together again.  I promise you that, we will be a family again.  I am not giving up and neither can you.” He winced as the pain worsened.  I couldn’t see beyond his physical condition.  His words, though strong, seemed the words of a dying man. “This heart monitor is faulty.  It’s missing some serious machinery.  You go back to that doctor, that young man, and tell him that his years in med school will be wasted on me.” His eyes were bright and blue against the pale of his skin.

“I need you to write the letter tonight.” He squeezed my hand with all his might.

I carefully laid my head on his chest. His fingers were in a fist and I saw his eyes clench tight.  The machines were surrounding us, the gauges measuring and calculating how much life, how much longer.  I could hear my father’s heart beating. I realized then that these machines were useless in measuring this man’s heart. My father clenched again in pain.  You’re always stronger at the broken places.