by Anthony Cardellini ...................................................................................
Autumn arrived, and Cassandra Clay’s little stucco house filled with deep reds and creamy whites. False leaves sprung up around the signs she was always hanging from the worn walls. Young Damian had no idea where his mother bought the little signs, but he liked the way they gave the house a worldly feel, even if they weren’t entirely accurate in their advertising––“this way to the lake,” “on sale: roses, daisies, tulips, sunflowers,” “watch out for flying baseballs.” In one kitchen corner his mother had hung arrows pointing north and south and east and west with cities and distances, each one bought separately, so the sizes were all different and Florence, Italy was 200 miles away as Paris, France was 3500.
Damian recalled one summer day when his mother had brought home a beautiful globe for him and all the world was squeezed down to a small sphere. Taking it from her with a brilliant smile, Damian proudly put it on his desk before running back and forth from the kitchen to his new treasure, trying to work out how many miles were represented with each tick mark on his ruler by measuring his home’s distance from Juneau, Alaska––500 miles north.
––Honey, all of those numbers are just approximations, his mother had told him.
But that was a big word and he didn’t know what it meant so he continued his little game until it was time to go to bed. His mother came in and walked over to the globe. Turning it over delicately, in her soft hands that still tied his shoelaces, she flicked a small switch and the world was lit up, all the continents traced in fluorescent yellow, the oceans glowing blue. For hours he stayed up spinning it and staring at its majesty. Finally his eyelids grew heavy and he collapsed on his bed, not to be woken until late morning.
Now he was older than he was then. When she had brought out the plastic leaves for decorating, soon after flipping the calendar to August (for his mother was always early), she told him it was time for him to help. He had grown too heavy for her to lift so she brought one of her wooden chairs with flower patterns on the back and she let him stand on it and tuck the leaves into the slits of space between the signs and the walls. For some of them he had to stand on his tiptoes and once he almost fell, had cried out and leaned backwards, only to feel his mother’s hand against his back.
––I’ve got you, she said, I’ve got you.
He wanted to sleep in her bed that night but he felt himself growing older and he thought laying down with his mother would slow down that process. He had seen the boys in fourth grade teasing each other for loving their mothers and he was afraid of that because school was starting soon so he slept in his own bed but didn’t forget to light up the globe.
The next day, after the sun had gone down and they had eaten, his mother looked up at him and said:
––Let’s go to the living room to talk about your father.
She led him with her hand to the red couch and he copied her in putting his feet on the glass coffee table, sitting on the edge of the cushion and stretching out his legs to reach the table’s surface with the tips of his heels.
He knew very little about his father. He remembered career day in second grade, when Jimmy Dalton’s dad had come in and talked about being a firefighter. Over lunch the boys discussed Mr. Dalton and what their own fathers did and when it came to Damien he did not know what to say.
––I am not allowed to say what my dad does, he said. The other boys thought that a very strange thing to say and one of them suggested maybe Mr. Clay worked for the government.
––Yes, Damien said, he works for the government.
––Come on, said Kyle Johnston, tell us what he does.
––I will not, Damien said. I don’t even know, and I’m his son.
And that was true which made Damien feel a little better about lying.
But maybe here and now, with his legs outstretched, he would find out. His mother was looking at the ceiling but thinking about the past and Damian could sense this as he waited for her to speak.
––The first thing you need to know about your father, she said slowly, is that he would be immensely proud of you. Perhaps even more proud than me. That is the first thing.
Damian was confused by the prospect of someone being more proud than his mother, who cried at the dinner table when she got home from her parent teacher conference. But Damian knew he did not want to hear this right now. He wanted to know who his dad was, not what he would have thought of his son.
His mother must have sensed this and she drew a deep breath in.
––But you want more than that, she said. He nodded.
Next to the couch was a lamp held by a wooden lamp stand with two drawers. Damien had opened them once before, when his mother was out shopping, but the pictures inside were of people he did not know. Now, as he watched his mother reach into the top one and pull out a bundle of photos, he remembered that day of rain and grainy photos and confusion.
He sat in silence as she took the top photo from the bundle and handed it to him. He disliked the way the glossy surface felt against his thumb and so he held it by its corners and examined the man in the foreground: tall, with a sharp jawline and blue eyes, a shock against his dark hair.
––This is your father, his mother said. She did not come out of character when she said this.
She was a mother talking to her young child and there was no hint of sadness or anger or despair. This is your father. This is a globe I got you. This is a blueberry scone. Damian heard her say it and was at once surprised and unaffected and proud.
She handed him another photo and this time there was a woman in it and he knew it was his mother, although on that rainy day which seemed long ago he had looked at that same photo and known it was a woman he had never met.
––That’s you, he said.
He disliked the way she smiled in the photo, happy and unaware. There was a sour taste in his mouth and he squeezed his own blue eyes shut.
––That’s me, and that’s John, and that’s when I believed.
And she broke character, forgot her son, stared at the photo, tried to draw something out of it. But her eyes grew misty and she had to look away.
Damian did not ask what it was she believed in. He looked in his lap and tapped his heels on the glass to feel something hard in the room with the soft couch, the soft gloss of the photos, his mother’s soft hands.
––I’m sorry Damian, I’m so sorry, we’ll try again tomorrow.
Years later, when he is much older, his mother will sit him down on the same couch and tell him that she met John and fell in love and that he was in love with her but in hate, or maybe more accurately in fear, with him, Damian, a son, a child to raise. He will nod, say he was sorry, say it was okay, it is okay, it will be okay. And he will remember that day with her and think about it sometimes. But much more frequently, almost every day, he will think about the time he set his feet upon the glass and saw his father’s eyes for the first time and watched his mother transform from someone who cared for others into someone who needed to be cared for.
Critique
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I want to start off by saying this is a beautiful story! You have an incredibly strong voice and a gift of writing setting. The small details you included (the globe, the signs with the directions, the hard glass on the coffee table) were excellent. Your dialogue is also very well-written. Particularly, Damien’s conversation with the boys in his class about his father stood out to me.
Before I get into some general critique, I want to point out a few nitpick-y things I caught as I read through the story.
First paragraph: “…she was always hanging from the worn walls.” This is the only time you did this so I don’t think it’s a major problem, but be careful using “was” + a gerund. It can clog up your writing and make reading it aloud slightly awkward. Try “kept adding to the worn walls”. Or maybe even a more vivid verb: “dangled”, “hammered in on spindly nails”, etc.
Tiny typo at the end of the first paragraph—“…200 miles away as Paris, France…” I believe “as” should be “and”.
One of the things that makes your writing stand out so much is your unique orchestration of sentences. You tend to lean towards longer, more flowy phrases, and it really works with the story. But in the second paragraph, “Damian proudly put it on his desk before…” runs on a little too long. I’d break it up (maybe after “put it on his desk”?)
Beginning of fifth paragraph: “Now he was older than he was then.” It kind of does fit your voice, but “than we was then” seems a bit too redundant.
Paragraph 11: “…when it came to Damien…” You started spelling Damian with an “en” here. It continues in a few more places throughout the story.
Paragraph 16: “But Damian knew he did not want to hear this right now.” I was confused what “this” meant. That he mother cried at the dinner table?
Paragraph 22: “She was a mother talking to her young child…” This brings up an interesting question of perspective. Who’s narrating? Until now, it’s seemed like Damian is narrating, even if his voice seems a little reserved. What fourth grade boy refers to himself as a “young child”? Don’t they want to think they’re grown up? Mature? It’s a tiny point, but it can either add or detract from your characterization. I’d delete “young”.
Last paragraph: “He will nod, say he was sorry…” I had to reread this to understand who was nodding, since John was the subject of the last phrase. I thought it was John nodding. This can be fixed by just adding “Damian will nod, say he was sorry…”
I know these points may seem minor or even a little nitpick-y, but your writing is so masterful that I wanted to work with it to polish it a little more. Now that we’ve gotten the smaller points out of the way, here are a few bigger thoughts I have:
Your story (other than the pieces in the future tense) shifts between past tense and past perfect tense. Obviously your use of tense is entirely up to you, but I wanted to bring it to your attention so you can be very deliberate about it. For example, at the beginning of the second paragraph, you say, “Damian recalled one summer day when his mother had brought home a beautiful globe for him…” Why isn’t it “his mother brought home a beautiful globe…”? We understand that it happened before now because Damian already said he recalled it. Where this is concerned I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong—it’s just food for thought.
The globe is such a strong, beautiful image at the beginning of the story. Your descriptions were on-point—it felt absolutely magnificent. I would have loved to see the globe thread continue. I kept waiting for it to return at the end of the story, even if it was just as a symbol. Again—your story, your choice. As a reader, though, I was really itching to see it all tied up.
What a gorgeous piece! I got such a strong image of Damian, his mother, and the world you created in just a few pages. Thank you so much for sharing it. Hopefully, these thoughts will get you started on some tweaks or any edits you want to make.
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