Short Story: A Surprise for Garret

      I'm killing two birds with one stone this week, which is probably a breach in some law of blogging etiquette stored up somewhere in cyberspace, but what can I do? I've decided to participate in the Friday writing prompt sponsored by Westbow Press. After all, they've named my novel a finalist in their writing contest. The least I can do is join their Friday fun, right?

    But I've also really enjoyed participating in Hidden Valley Simplicity's word of the week blog hop, and I'm already about to miss the linkup deadline.

    So here's the skinny. Westbow Press wants me to write a story about a celebration. Melissa wants me to throw the word adumbrate in my post ... so here it is! My vocabulary-enriched short story about a celebration that just might go terribly wrong.

Word of the Week: adumbrate: 
                              1. to foreshadow vaguely
                              2. to suggest, disclose, or outline partially
                              3. overshadow; obscure

    It was the first time that Sadie, the poster puppy of canine ADD, didn't come bounding out to greet Garret when he came home from work. Garret was busy laughing into his hands-free headset to actually miss the beagle's enthusiastic drool. Nor did he pause to wonder if Sadie's absence might adumbrate what was waiting for him on the eve of his birthday.

     "No, Chelsea's not home." Garret walked with something of a swagger as he spoke, tossing his shoes in the entryway. "I can talk a little longer." Sadie whined from the office.

     "Yeah, that's the dog," he continued. "Stupid mutt. Got herself stuck." He chuckled and threw his overcoat over the couch. "I'll go let her out before she wets the carpet or something." Garret smiled and strode down the hallway. He stopped as he went by the laundry room.

     "Oh, I forgot to tell you at lunch today." He leaned against the laundry room door frame and loosened his tie. "I told Chelsea I was out of work shirts this morning. We got into this big fight, because she told me she washed everything in the hamper yesterday and I told her if that was the case I'd have something clean to wear to work. So she's scurrying to do a quick load of laundry, and I realize I actually left my shirt in your car last weekend after our little outing." Garret's laugh echoed in the otherwise quiet hallway. From behind the office door, Sadie stopped whimpering.

     "Anyway," Garret went on, "I better go soon. I have no idea when Chelsea will be home." His lip curled up halfway as he listened to the remark on the other end of the conversation. "I wish so too," he replied, scratching his cheek. "But tomorrow's my birthday. I won't have any free evenings until the weekend." A charmingly sympathetic pout appeared on Garret's face that no one was around to witness. "We'll still have lunch though, right?"

     Sadie yelped from behind the office door. "Ok," Garret announced, cell phone in hand, "I gotta go. This stupid dog is about to - "

     The door opened. The talking stopped. The phone dropped to the floor. In Garret's home office stood his wife, his brother and sister-in-law, the next door neighbors, and two of his co-workers. Everyone was standing underneath a banner with the word SURPRISE printed in oversize letters made of confetti.

     Garret removed his headset in one swift motion as his beagle ran up to greet him.

Word Blog Hop: Lethe's Temptation

This fun blog hop is hosted by Melissa at Hidden Valley Simplicity. The rules are straight-forward. Write a story using the two vocabulary words Melissa provides, then link up and enjoy what others have created!

Word of the Week: verdure: The greenness of growing vegetation; A condition of vigor and health

Super Challenge: lethe: A river in Hades whose waters cause the drinker to forget their past; Oblivion; forgetfulness

Lethe's Temptation

     Jonas ran through the verdure meadow until his foot finally stumbled on a gnarled root. He had reached the woods at last.

     "Through the forest," he whispered to himself to remember the old woman's words. "Through the forest on towards the mountain."

     Jonas' lungs burst with each breath of icy air. His hands were red and raw from the biting wind. He picked himself up from the leaf-covered forest floor and began to run again.

     Into the forest.

     Tears stung the eight year-old's cheeks. He panted, leaving a wispy trail of steamy breath behind him. "On towards the mountain," he said, louder this time. The sound of his own voice made Jonas feel braver.

     The woman told him to run. She said he only had eight hours, ten at most. By sunrise, it would be too late.

     "Through the forest," Jonas breathed in rhythm with his stomping feet. He clenched his fists but didn't notice when one began to bleed.

     There was very little moonlight. Jonas kept on racing, weaving his small frame in and out of massive tree trunks, stumbling every now and then on the roots that reached out with knobby hands to slow his journey.

     Jonas tripped and stopped. He turned to view the path behind him. He leaned his head back and stared straight up. The trees were denser now. He couldn't see the sky. He couldn't see the mountain.

     He was lost.

     Jonas slumped to the forest floor and wrapped his arms around his heaving chest. He had never been this far in the woods before.

     Jonas thought he heard the old woman's voice. "Rest for a moment," it whispered. "You'll be warm in my bed of leaves. See?"

     Dry leaves covered Jonas' shivering body. He was lying down on a mossy embankment. "Good." Jonas didn't know if that was his voice or not. His eyelids drooped. He was weary, ready to give in to the lethe of exhaustion.

     Jonas' felt as if he were floating. "Good."

     The faintest beam of moonlight penetrated the cloud covering. Jonas could just see it through the trees above him. He craned his neck and could make out the moon directly overhead. He thought he saw the shadow of the mountain to his right. How much time was left? Six hours? Maybe less?

     Oblivion thwarted, Jonas picked himself up, clenched his raw and bloody hands, and continued to run. He would not allow himself to stop. He would not give in to her.

     He had to make it in time.

Word Blog Hop: Friable Dreams

Word of the Week: friable:  Easily crumbled or pulverized
Super Challenge: valleity: 1. The lowest degree of volition
                                            2: A slight wish or tendency


     "Rough day," my husband whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut. Did he really think talking things through would help at a time like this?

     "At least there weren't anymore seizures today," Roger commented. "I guess that's one blessing to be thankful for."

     Why did he have to mention blessings? Words like hypotoxic and encepalopathy and tumor were still spinning around in my head. What in the world did blessing mean?

     I reached over and stroked Priscilla's leg, one of the only parts of her body that didn't have some kind of tube or monitor attached to it. "It was nice of your mom to decide to fly in," Roger said.

     I muttered an incoherent - and ungrateful - reply. Roger and my mother hated each other, and everyone in the family knew it.

     "Chrissy ... " Roger pleaded, reaching out toward me. I wrapped the hospital blanket more tightly around my shoulders.

     "Well," Roger said with a sigh, "I guess it's good night."

     No, it wasn't a good night. In fact, with the news the doctor gave us today, I didn't know if we would ever experience a "good night" again in our lives.

     Roger leaned down and kissed the top of my head. "I'll tell the nurse you're going to sleep now," he said. I didn't reply. I watched my husband of eleven years walk out the hospital door. For a moment, I thought about running after him, about letting myself collapse into his strength, about asking him to stay with me one more hour as I sat vigil by our daughter's hospital crib. But then the fleeting valleity passed.

     I wrapped the hospital blanket around my shoulders. How many days had it been since I last was outside? I thought about getting up and brushing my teeth, but I was too exhausted. I feel asleep to Priscilla's heart rate monitor beeping in a disturbingly erratic fashion.

     I held Priscilla high above my head. "Look, Roger!" I laughed. "She can already hold her neck up!"

     "I hope you remembered to burp her before lifting her up over your head," my husband joked.

     "Swing to Daddy!" I crooned as my infant smiled down at me. I looked at my husband to see the gleam in his eyes, but Roger was staring at me in horror.

     "What did you do to her?" he demanded.

     I turned to look at my little girl. Her head was swollen to twice its normal size. She cried in pain as plastic tubes grew out of her throat, her stomach, her wrists, her chest. As I held her in my hands, Priscilla's strong body turned into a friable mess. As if she were a sand child, bits of Priscilla's body began to crumble onto the floor. 

     "Grab a broom!" I shouted to my husband, but Roger just continued to stare at the crumbs of Priscilla cascading to our living room rug.

     "A broom!" I screeched. Roger stared at our daughter in disgust, turned on his heel, and walked away.

     I woke up when a night-shift nurse came to turn off Priscilla's tube feeding. "Sorry for waking you," she whispered when she heard me rustling. I got up and washed my face at the small hospital sink. I was covered in cold sweat.

     "It's ok," I assured her. "I'm glad you did."

 The Word Blog Hop is hosted on Wednesdays by Melissa at Hidden Valley Simplicity. Each week's writing challenge features two vocabulary words to incorporate into your post. Want to join the Word of the Week Blog Hop? I'd love to hear what story you come up with! You can leave a link to it in the comments section below. (And don't forget to link up at Hidden Valley Simplicity as well.)

Word Blog Hop: Job's Subreption

 "Job's Subreption" is my first entry in Hidden Valley Simplicity's word blog hop. This weeks' words are Subreption and Plangent. "Job's Subreption" is PG in content but does contain adult themes.

     "Job," Mama began, heaping another scoop of grits onto my plate. I knew that tone in her voice, half playful, half venomous.

     "Yes, Ma'am?" I replied. I forced myself to sound casual, but I could not raise my eyes to Mama's.

     "Was your father out last night?" Mama asked. She cocked her head to the side and let her voice raise slightly, as if she were merely curious.

     Our servant Karina tensed visibly but did not make a sound. I was glad that she was standing behind the table and out of Mama's line of sight.

     Of course Father was out that night. I couldn't remember that last time that Father stayed in. It must have been last autumn, before Father bought Karina from Mister Peters a few towns over. "Cook can use someone younger in the kitchen," Father muttered to Mama by way of explanation for his spontaneous purchase.

     I was only eleven, but wasn't fooled by Father's subreption.

     At first Father only sneaked out at night once Mama and I were in bed. I watched him from my upper-story window as he slunk his way to the slaves quarters, only to return an hour later swaggering with the same haughtiness Cook always reserved for the stable boys.

     I may not have been able to articulately describe my Father's folly, but I knew what he was doing was wrong even before I overheard Mama talking to her sister.

     "He doesn't so much as look at me anymore," Mama complained when Aunt Clara came for a visit. "Ever since he got that gal to give him his way, I may as well have stopped breathing that moment as far as he's concerned."

     Dressed in my night clothes, wrapped in grandmother's quilt, I strained to hear what Aunt Clara would say.

     "That's just a man's way," she soothed. It was the same voice Aunt Clara used two summers ago when I spent a week on her family's plantation and broke my ankle falling from a tree.

     "Well, that wasn't always my man's way," Mama replied.

     "No?" I imagined Aunt Clara raising her eyebrow, like she did whenever Cousin George and I tried to convince her we weren't making trouble.

     I couldn't hear Mama's muttered response.

     "Our men are just wired different from us, as I figure," Aunt Clara explained. "They've got more need than one of our kind can give. That's all."

     "That's all? And all this is fine with you?" Mama retorted with a snort.

     "Fine or not, sweetie, what can people like you and me do about it?"

     "I've had my ideas," Mama answered.

     "So have we all," Aunt Clara crooned. "But you know when it comes down to it that's all just pluck and nonsense. We need our men just as much as they need their diversions. There's nothing you can do to get back at your husband. Not really, leastwise."

     The next day when Karina came to wait on us at breakfast, she had scratch marks across one cheek and another set down the side of her neck. "Who says I'm out to get back at my husband?" Mama asked Aunt Clara.

     From then on, I came to expect Mama's questioning over breakfast several times a month. "Was your father out last night?" she would ask, directing her voice and darting her saccharine charm at Karina who stood stoically to wait on us. Sometimes I lied, sometimes I feigned ignorance. It didn't matter. At some point during the day Karina would end up with one more bruise or one more scratch or one more black eye than she had at Mama's morning interrogation.

     "No, Ma'am," I replied this morning, my mouth full of Cook's fried grits. "I didn't see Father go out at all last night."

     "You didn't?" Mama declared, opening her mouth into a little O and letting her curls sway as she tilted her head to one side. "That's odd," she continued and furrowed her brow deliberately. "I don't remember hearing him in his room."

     I stole a glance at Karina, who was pursing her lips together and staring at the copper kettle hanging near the doorway to the kitchen.

     "Well," I hedged, "I was awake for a while last night since it was so hot, but I didn't see Father go out none."
    
     "I see," Mama answered curtly. "I'll take my tea now," she added, abruptly turning on Karina. I saw the colored woman flinch before she muttered, "Yes, Ma'am," and hurried out of the room.

     "So he wasn't out at all last night, hmm?" Mama repeated, raising her voice over the plangent noise of clattering teacups.

     I forced myself to meet Mama's glare directly. "No, Ma'am," I answered, then excused myself for my morning chores.