John Henry

The snow was mostly gone by Friday as a warm front came into the area. The roads were still dangerous due to the large amount of water pooling around clogged storm drains. School was still canceled due to minor flooding, so Steve and the boys continued their D&D campaign. Bryan had asked his dad if he could go to the restaurant and help out, but Diego turned him down. Not only did Diego want to avoid a fine for violating the state's child labor laws, Diego wasn't planning to go in as early a

A joy to read but not even close....

I'll refer you to my previous comment. 😉

I will say, "Nope," and you're not even close.

I love D&D as well, and I'm glad I got a bit in this story, too...I also love cliffhangers....

It's probably worse than you could guess....

You're close....

December came in with a small blizzard. School had been canceled, which left everyone stuck at home. Caleb spent most of his time in his room, avoiding his father. Bryan tried talking to his little brother, but he couldn't find a way of explaining Diego's situation without talking about the sexual assault, which meant that Caleb wasn't accepting that their dad had his reasons. Steve decided to use the opportunity—and his captive audience—to convince the boys to try Dungeons and Dragons. Ken

I wouldn't say that Diego is easily enraged or volatile. He is reactionary for sure, but being someone who's father certainly was volatile and easily enraged (having literally ran me over TWICE with his car then blamed me for it each time despite having to drive out of his way to do it), I can say that Diego is neither of those things. Diego has let Calvin's presence get under his skin, but he hasn't been disproportionately upset with either child, even when they messed up, like Caleb in the mall or Bryan's texts with Caleb. I do agree that Steve has fewer stakes in the situation, but he can just walk away whenever he wants, which provides him the privilege of his "detachment." Diego can't do that and is also legally responsible for the boys, so it isn't an equal comparison. Steve is wanting to make it work and wants to have the same stakes as Diego, so he's trying the best he can without over stepping. There's still much more to the story that needs to be told before the conclusion, so we'll just have to wait to see what happens.

Thanks. I've been trying my best.

That's fair and a possibility.

There was time between scenes, which didn't get expressed well. The scene with Diego and Bryan was added towards the end and placed in the middle, and I hoped it would show the passage of time, which it doesn't seemed to have happened all that well. The scene was originally going to be a lot more dramatic, but it kept coming off as more melodramatic, causing me to take a softer route with it. I'll probably go into more details on that in the blog entry for this chapter.

I don't want to spoil things, but I'm trying to keep this as legally accurate as possible, which means Bryan can't testify to what Diego told him. Not only is it hearsay but also irrelevant to anything Bryan would have to testify to. Even if Bryan blurted it out, the opposition would object and any judge (good or bad) wouldn't allow the comments on the record. With that said, Diego could testify if what Calvin did could be backed up with evidence; otherwise, they'd be thrown out due to lack of foundation (aka evidence).

The scene was going to have a lot of interaction between Steve and Caleb, but I dialed it back for balancing, by adding the scene with Diego and Bryan. Diego does have a lot of explaining to do, especially with Caleb, but it's a matter of finding the right time to do some.

You're welcome. This was a bit difficult to write. I had to keep rethinking some of it, and then wrote the scene between Bryan and Diego to help balance things out, so I'm glad people like it.

The ride home from court was tense and made worse by the silence. Steve drove, quietly waiting for one of the Padillas to explode. He didn't like conflict if it could be avoided, but he couldn't see how a fight wasn't inevitable. Diego kept replaying the court proceeding over and over in his mind. Calvin had texts from his mother and from Diego wanting to have contact with the boys and plans to get them back. Billy's words echoed in his head: You better hope that he doctored some of th

You made some keen observation about Billy's accusation. No doubt ego played a part in it, but also lying by omission is pretty bad when deal with the court. Bryan being called to the sand may or may not happen. Bryan was only 5 when Calvin abandoned him, so any memory from that time may not be taken serious; however, the conversations they had over Facebook could be something he could testify to, so we'll just have to wait and see.

A very well-reasoned argument.

We'll just have to wait and see....

Nope. I haven't given any motivation yet.

No motivation has ever been mentioned.

Very true on both counts, especially since custodial interference can be a crime.

That is certainly a huge concern.

Diego was nervous. He didn't like going to court, not even for good reasons. His brothers, especially Luis, were in and out of the system a lot, and his mother always made him go to show that she had at least one good child. Though they turned their lives around, he blamed his brothers for his anxiety before judges. Billy said that the hearing shouldn't take long. His goal was to get the petition dismissed due to lack of grounds, since Calvin had his rights stripped by the court, which woul

When I first envisioned Jefferson as a town, the fictional city of Charming, CA from Sons of Anarchy came to mind, but certainly smaller. Thoughts of a rustic, desert town, with pine trees and scrub brush lining the streets instead of lush foliage and bushy oaks. The town could fit anywhere along Highway 97 from Central Washington to Central California. The motel they stayed in based on an experience a friend of mine had at some crap, roadside place. Unless the situation calls for it, I usually avoid over describing a scene. Being a table top gamer, I find that letting others form these places in their mind better than trying to translate what's in my head. Sure, it might be lazy, but it also allows the reader to create their own version of the world. Some may not have seen Jefferson as a high desert town but a shabby logging town or English country village. What Jefferson looks like doesn't matter to the overall plot of the story, in the end. I also take this stance when it comes to character descriptions. Unless the character is important to the story, I like to give just enough important detail to make the character rememberable, but not so much that I'm imposing my image of the person onto the reader. For more important characters, I'll give more details, such as physical descriptions, but I still won't give a lot or try to be vague enough to allow the reader to keep what they've already envisioned with some adjustments. An example of this is when I describe Bryan and Caleb in this chapter. I don't recall giving a lot of physical description of them prior, so the readers have already had an idea of what they thought the boys looked like. I was aware of that I hadn't properly described them, so when I did, I wanted to be sure that it was minimal with detail to get what I wanted to across. Bryan needed to look like Donna, with Caleb looking like Calvin. The real life counter part to Bryan does look like his mother, and neither boy looks like the real Calvin, fortunately. However, I gave the description I did, since he'd be looking for people who looked like Donna. At the time, I wasn't sure if Donna's mother or other relatives would be at the funeral. I think I planned to have a brother, her mother or some other relative there, but ultimately decided that Donna's addiction caused her to die alone. Pastor Dave is from the same story series that Ry, Billy and Charlie are from. In fact, David Williams was one of Charlie's best friends from elementary school. His father was also a pastor. The reason he didn't bat an eye when Diego referred to Steve as his boyfriend was because David was around when Charlie was figuring out his own sexuality. David didn't have many friends, so seeing how kind and carrying Charlie was had an impact on David that lasted into adulthood. David was the one who performed the wedding of Ry and Charlie, which Steve was going to ask when Calvin arrived. At this point in the story, I still wasn't sure how connected I wanted my stories to be, so adding David was a little tricky for me. Again, those are not stories that would be allowed on his website due to the nature of the stories, as they violate several guidelines; however, I had decided to make a connected a universe with the potential of full crossover series set in Washington High School. The details to those stories are not necessary to the overall story I'm telling here, at least of the writing of this blog post. Any necessary details will be given context, so I wouldn't be throwing in subtle jokes or hints that nobody would get and not make sense. Anyway.... I used this as another opportunity to show the bond between Bryan and Caleb. Bryan helping Caleb with his tie, offering support and holding his little brother at the funeral...those are all things we want our children to be to each other, while the reality isn't close to this at all for the most part. I like to think that Bryan cultivated this relationship, with Diego encouraging it. Caleb is the only person in Bryan's life who has been there for almost all of it and hasn't left, and I like to think that Bryan acknowledges this and tries to make sure that it never changes. At the diner when Diego goes to the parking lot, he saw Calvin. He wasn't 100% certain at the time, but he went out to confront him, but Calvin drove away before Diego could get a proper look. It's a bit of foreshadowing I hoped people would pick up on later. Not being religious, I didn't want to spend time with David quoting scripture. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they want, but I certainly don't want to seen promoting any particular religious views. I originally planned to have the service be more detailed when the idea of Donna's family being there, but once I came to the conclusion that Donna's family wasn't showing up, I figured David would've gathered some people from the church and Donna's closest friends. Being an active drug user who lost her kids, I made Donna homeless, which is inline with the real Donna when she lost the boys to the real Calvin. Speaking of Calvin, when I envisioned this chapter, I didn't originally plan on Calvin being there. I planned to save him for the later in the story, with Diego getting into an argument with Donna's brother or mother. They were going to accuse Diego of keeping the kids from them, but Bryan was going to clap back about why they hadn't adopted him and Caleb. There was going to be some weak excuse that showed they were pieces of shit, similar to Donna. In the end, I decided to cut them all out. Their presence would've only muddied the plot I wanted to tell and serve no real purpose. The story is about Diego raising two boys that his former friend abandoned and wants back for some unknown reason. Adding a third or fourth party just seemed unneeded. And the cliffhanger.... I love writing cliffhangers. I know I've talked about them before, so I won't go into again. However, this one took a couple of rewrites. I had Bryan noticing Calvin and saying something, then Caleb asking who the person was watching them, but settled on Diego noticing Calvin. I think it was the most impactful, and I rewrote the part at the diner to line up with this moment. As I mentioned in the comments to this chapter, the physical description I gave to Calvin the story was passive-aggressive. The real Calvin is rather vain about his appearance, despite it not being deserved. The real Calvin has severe resting bitch face, going bald, and has a perpetual homeless look about him, even when housed. There are also other descriptions about his appearance that aren't necessary to the discussion, but needless to say, that the real Calvin would be annoyed that I described a character based on him as I did. The comment section highlighted a few key notes to the themes of this chapter and story: Caleb's emotional state and what Calvin his really up to. As mentioned in earlier in this chapter and Caleb's bedwetting, Caleb has emotional issues and is emotionally sensitive. He never really knew Donna but grew an attachment to her. The impact of Calvin showing at Donna's funeral could have an impact on Caleb that has yet to be addressed. As for Calvin's motives, we're on Chapter 28 and no motive has been established. There are motives, but since it's a key part of the overall plot, I won't be discussing it/them here; however, most of the guesses in the comments were wrong. This was a relatively short chapter for this story, and it was almost part of Chapter 10; however, I like the cliffhanger too much to have be a mid-chapter break. It did make writing Chapter 10 more difficult, but that's for the next installment, so I'll see you in the next one....