A Short Story from Another Time…
So I thought I’d share some writing I’ve saved over the past few years…the short story below is one I wrote for the Sigma Tau Delta (an English Lit fraternity I belong to) convention held during my senior year of college. Reading it now is interesting because I remember how very tentative I used to be about writing things that were vulnerable. I remember standing up in front of a room of strangers and a few friends in Kansas City and just crying my way through as I read “Parents.” It was among the most difficult things I’ve ever done, to bleed on paper and offer it up as a way to connect, to explain. But it was a valuable experience and one that provided the first few stepping stones to writing other things that needed to be written.
Nothing has come easy, nothing has been a simple decision, the writing–as it always does–has had a cost. In my case the writing has cost me the pain of revisiting some heartbreak, and many difficult conversations with my family. But it also cost the shield of anger and bitterness I used to drag around, and that has made it worthwhile.
So here it is, an early attempt at exploring the feelings that lead me to write “Sweet Tea for Frankenstein.” As always, I welcome any feedback. 
Parents
“When do you miss them most?”
David and I were sitting by the pond at the edge of the campground, watching the flicker on water as day melted into evening. He was thoughtful awhile, before responding, “I miss them at important times, like when I graduated from college, whenever I’m conducting in a big concert, things like that, when they would have been proud.”
“Oh,” I said, at an awkward loss for words.
David looked far off into the distance, took a deep breath, and said “And at 11:35, when Jay Leno comes on. I always used to watch that with her.” He paused. “I can’t anymore, I just watch…something else.”
I nodded, trying to picture what he saw when he looked way off, way back. He turned to me, his rivet to the world of the living.
“What about you?” he said. “Do you ever wish things had been different?”
I paused, becoming only momentarily distracted by a swarm of geese overwhelming a three-year-old with only one piece of bread, who promptly ran screaming into her young mother’s waiting arms. I decided against the usual acceptable answer of “No, everything that’s happened has made me who I am, and I like my life.”
I decided to tell David a story.
“Remember yesterday, when you guys were all playing softball and I sat on those benches with all those church ladies?” I began.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling as he poked at my sunburn and picked a leaf out of my hair.
I swatted his hand away and started to tell him about the little black boy I had seen, all alone. He was maybe only six or seven, but he had caught my eye because while all of the other church kids at camp looked well-kept and boasted the newest, most expensive bikes and water guns, this boy had on ratty shorts and a stained, too-big shirt, and dragged in one hand a half-deflated balloon. He had seemed perfectly happy with that until another little boy strutted by with a water gun so nice it made Balloon Boy’s jaw drop.
I had watched as Balloon Boy scampered to catch up, before shouting breathlessly “Hey, can I play with that?”
The other boy turned around, confused, and made Balloon Boy repeat his request before he shook his head ‘no,’ face expressionless, and ran off. As I had watched Balloon Boy, pained, I’d wanted so much to shake that other little boy, and say “What would it have hurt you to share, just for a little while?”
I had expected somebody to come looking for Balloon Boy soon, to right this injustice with a big, sweeping hug. I wanted somebody to wipe the goo off the side of his face, give him a toy, and tell him that what the other little boy did was wrong, but nobody did. When I finally tore my eyes away from the awkwardness I had witnessed, I saw why.
A thin, middle-aged black woman was up to bat. The gossip sitting next to me leaned over my head and said to the ladies on my other side “She has eleven children! The youngest are twins, and the older ones usually look after the rest, but some just run wild.”
I looked over my shoulder at Balloon Boy, humming sadly to himself a short distance away as he poked at the dirt. I was pretty sure he was one of the eleven, since everyone else I had seen so far at David’s church camp was white, many of them affluent and driving up in elaborately equipped campers for a weekend of luxury in the great outdoors. I was pretty sure Balloon Boy was not going home to such a campsite tonight, and I wondered if anyone would notice if he wasn’t there at all.
By this time in the story, I had to wipe away the tears that had crept up unnoticed. David looked at me, and started to say something before I spoke up again.
“I knew how he felt. You think you’re fine, that you can manage on your own, but then you notice other parents: how mothers show off their babies and how fathers play catch, and you remember that you’re the one on the outside, without the cool toys, or the privilege, or the affection.”
David nodded, his eyes sad, and we sat in silence.
“When you were really little, before your brother and the tumor, you had all that,” he said. Not as a question, but as a statement. He knew the story by now.
I nodded.
“In my jewelry box at home, there are just little things. A note she put on my pillow before I left for summer camp one year, it says ‘Mommy loves you’ and has a smiley face with glasses.”
David smiled.
“Or this crappy valentine she gave me back when she was my Sunday school teacher, on the back, ‘Jesus loves you and so do I.’ She probably wrote the same thing on everybody’s, but I don’t care because it’s proof.”
Proof that she loves me, I thought to myself. Proof that I could show her those words she wrote, and say “Look! Remember? Love ME again.”
“I clutch at these scraps of paper like they’ll bring back something that’s lost.”
David pulled me close, kissing me softly on the forehead.
“I had proof, which is now buried in a cemetery in East L.A.”
That night in my tent, I listened to the sounds of the campground falling asleep and thought about parents. I wondered if Balloon Boy knew the feeling of a parent’s pride and 100 percent of their attention, and if at any time this weekend he’d have anything better to play with than a half-deflated balloon. I wondered, too, about David’s proof and mine–wondered if he carried anything tangible or if just the memory of that love was enough. Above all the echoes though, I knew that true love—true care—didn’t need any proof at all.