Did you catch Monday's blog featuring Luc's novella What Might Have Been? There's a banner there if you want to download it and share it in your signature, maybe along with a link and promo to help fellow readers find the story? You never know what sort of gems the older stories are hiding! Clearly this emotional story fits in with the CSR story, Willpower, and that's what I chose to share this month because holding on to your memories and never knowing where life will take you and what choices will create which forks in your path... well, What Might Have Been was a perfect of a bittersweetly poignant tale. 

I picked this section of the story because of a few reasons. It shows the method the author used, sharing two different yet parallel stories with flashbacks, which is really hard to do. It also brought back in the theme in so many ways. We have a memory, an analogy, a disconnection... and that analogy and family disconnection is so immediately apt. It's subtle, but there all through the story... what happens when the people we are so lost in our memories that we create that situation in real life with those around us, because we're so caught up in 'What Might Have Been'. So many thoughts and words!

Quote

 

I could almost see him thinking, considering. It was different from the look he usually had, the one that I couldn’t read, the one that seemed to just be waiting for something. It was more like it had been in the movies, like everything he thought or felt played across his face.

“My dad always says my mom is watching out for me and that she is always right by me. And I always thought that was pretty cool, to have my mom still there—because I miss her, you know?” He glanced at me and then away.

“But I don’t know now. I’m not so sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe it would hurt more, like in the movie. To see someone you love and not be able to even touch them.” He held his hands out in front of him, palms outward, fingers spread. “Like putting your fingers against a glass, when all you want to do more than anything is to feel their hands.”

And it was like it had been in the movies, like I felt that, through him. My throat tightened and I couldn’t think of any words to say. So I slid closer to him and put my arm around his shoulders. He sighed and leaned against me. It didn’t feel strange.

***

“You going to eat that piece of chicken?” Jared asked, his hand already reaching for the piece of chicken in question.

I blinked and almost shook my head to clear my thoughts, but I answered him automatically. “Yeah, I am. You’ve already eaten most of my fries, little pig.”

I didn’t really have to be aware to know that. He always ate most of my fries. And he always asked for one of my chicken strips. Jared was completely predictable when it came to McDonald’s.

“Come on, Dad, you know you never finish your chicken,” he whined, his fingers ignoring my claim on the chicken.

“Yeah, because you always finish it for me,” I said with a scowl that I couldn’t quite keep from turning into a laugh. Completely predictable—probably both of us were.

“Ok, come on, you two. Let’s get going before it gets dark,” Ellen said, starting to gather up the wrappers and bags and napkins. “Really, your dad with a map…dangerous even in daylight. Do youreally want to chance it in the dark?”

“Un uh, no way!” Jared exclaimed, making an exaggerated effort to pick things up in a hurry.

 

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