Rental

{Scene}

A gravel drive leads to four racks with bikes alternating the front tire’s direction to oppose the one beside it. Kayaks lay against a ten foot wooden divider. Long boards are stacked side-by-side in an open shed. The sign, which used to stay lit throughout the night, now blinks on and off displaying, “Beach Rentals.” October sunsets prove not only in the beauty of sharpness with distinct color, but also the conclusion of the ever-so-profitable summer. Inside the humble abode of a store, stood a woman reading an article, a time distraction of her normal business hours in the off-season, which were supposed to end at four o’clock.

{Sam}

Crying my eyes out, I took one good look at the watch and realized it was time for me to go home. I was going to surprise my husband by beating him home from work. Normally, I’d spend my time writing up the preorders from renters for the week to come, or strategically planning out the pickup routes for my teenaged employees to gather the equipment from the houses after the tourists left, or because I was reading an article that came out once a week from my local newspaper back home.

The latter was the reason for my tardiness to tend to my husband’s surprise of homemade noodles and veggie chicken – his favorite.

The article was also the reason I was crying hysterically like a little girl. Every week the syndicated columnist would do an article on her son’s brain cancer treatment and his recovery. And every week I cry harder than the week before. Although her son was now in remission and starting his own brain cancer fundraisers, there was still something heartfelt in a young man who will fight even if odds are against him.

I packed up the last bit of the rental grills and made sure my employees cleaned them to a reasonable shape. After that, I was locking up the bikes and closing the surf board shed. As I walked back inside, I looked at the clock, 4:08pm; it was a whole hour before I normally got off in the summer months. Which also meant I had just enough time to have dinner cooked and in the oven. Every year, whenever it was the last week of the October month, I tried to surprise my husband with our special dinner. It was like a tradition ever since I opened up the store.

One last thing I had to do before going home was the gratifying, satisfying, highly deserving, rewarding turning of the “OPEN,” sign to “SHUT.”

As I was walking to the door, a family of four came walking up and I had to make a choice: Either turn off the lights and hide behind the counter until they left, quickly run over and turn the lock on the door and laugh as they try to open it, or get a quick rental for them and get home as quickly as possible.

I greeted the family in and tried to give them a hint by glancing up at the clock on the wall – oh how the subtleties failed me on this day.

“Hello.”

I could tell by her accent and her facial features and short stature that she was not from the United States.

“How much?”

I spoke in a frustrated bafflement, “For what?”

Her English proved to be the reason for her defeated sounding voice. “Bike?”

I said, “How much for the bikes?”

Her son cut in, “How much for the bike rentals?”

The son couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old and the other one looked older, but not by much.

The same son spoke again, “We would like to see how much the bikes cost for a week’s rental?”

“How many bikes?” It was like I wanted to continue this conversation until its painful end. I started to lose patience with the family as my hints of looking up at the clock and down at my watch weren’t working.

The older woman spoke first, “One. No. Two.”

I was getting ready to say sixty-five dollars before the family seemed to have huddled up and started talking in a foreign language. I didn’t want to disrupt them, but it seemed like something was wrong. Something besides the fact she was only getting one or two bikes when clearly they had at least three people in their family.

Now, the son that hadn’t said anything yet spoke up, “One.”

Before I could answer by saying thirty-five dollars, the other son interrupted, “Two.”

My frustration only proved to be the beginning of a marathon of obnoxious window shopping.

4:18pm

Then, they decided to call an audible, without the family huddle, and check out the store for some other rental gear.

Every object they took off the shelf seemed like another tick of the clock. They were scatter around the store as if they were searching for loose change around the store. One would go to the corn hole set, then the other to the wooden chairs, and then the mother would look at the life jackets. I wanted to scream at these people, of course I could never do that, but it got to the point where I was about the say something.

4:42pm

The personality I take part in has no way of expressing urgency among my customers because I do need their business, but there are certain parts of supplying rentals for tourists that I hate. One of them was definitely waiting for this family to decide on something.

As I stood there looking at the article I had just read, I tried to search for a happiness amongst the never ending saga of tourist sales. When finally, after one last family huddle, the mother came back to me at the front desk and it seemed to be the end of this parsimonious escapade.

“We take one bike for one week,” she said in her accent.

“Okay. It’s thirty-five dollars please.”

The mother looked down, shameless as her sons paid for the rental. Way to go mom! Let your sons support you! I thought in my head.

“What’s the address so we can deliver it to you?”

“Address? What do you mean?”

“What’s the house number? House name? The street you are staying on?” The speed of each question was made in my clearly evident annoyance.

The son paid the bill and shook his head, “It’s okay. We’ll just ride the bike to our house.”

I wanted to ask how, because there were three of them and only one bike, but I didn’t. I just wanted to go home. Even if veggie chicken and noodles was out of the question. I held the money in my hand for second, summoning up the words I was going to say to them. I thought about the article, the pain of a mother with a dying son, and I decided to do something to make this mother happy.

“I’ll tell you what. How about I give you three bikes?”

The old woman frantically said, “No. No. I can’t pay for it.”

“You don’t have to.”

{Scene}

A store owner and her husband washed off the chairs in the lot while the teenaged employees scrubbed the grills. A week had past and three bikers approached the store pedaling slow and smooth like the current crashing against the beach.

{Sam}

It was a hot day for October and one of my “Eeyore” employees, Thad, was talking about how awful it was to be out in the heat and how we were all going to die one day from heat strokes because we never invented outdoor air-conditioning. None of his stories made sense nor did they seem to show a depression in his daily life, he loved surfing, so I passed on his sadist remarks as a joke and continued my work.

I watched as Thad put up a couple of bikes and headed toward me. He gave me an envelope, and finished by saying, “You didn’t charge her for all three bikes did you?”

We had discussed her visit as one of the normal “needy-customer stories” that made us laugh as we ate the pizza I ordered the staff on Saturdays. We always had great material with all the clueless tourists we encountered.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, she handed me this envelope and I said, ‘You already paid for your bikes.’ Then she said, ‘This isn’t the thirty-five dollars. This is a letter.’ So…”

He paused for a second while he almost opened the letter. I knew I couldn’t lie and I also knew I was too prideful to tell him the truth.

Thad continued, “And I know how much a bike rental costs for the whole week. And I know how much three bike rentals…”

I cut him off, “Alright give me the letter and get back to work.”

I tried to seem stern, but I laughed at Thad’s disappointment as it was amusing to see his face turn to the side in one of those, I thought so, faces.

I laughed, “Okay. Now give me the letter or you’re fired.”

Still unable to see through my jokes as a stern superior, Thad childishly sprinted back to the grills and began cleaning right away – Oh how I love the teenage staff.

Intrigued by the letter, I motioned to my husband that I would be going back inside for a bit. On the front of the letter heading it read, “Rental.”

I opened it up on the table in my office and locked the door so I had no distractions.

Dear Sam,

My name is Kim Cho. My son is helping me write this. You met my two sons, Jett and Jeremy. We have been coming to this beach as a family ever since Jeremy was born. He’s nine-teen now and Jett is eight-teen. Every year it seems like the sun gets more and more beautiful here. We don’t like a lot of crowds and traffic-heavy places. It seems like October has the prettiest of all sunsets. The air is sharp, clear, and crisp. My whole life I have been a stay-at-home mom for my boys. When their father got sick, I became a stay-at-home wife too. Luckily, the law firm had a good insurance policy that allowed him some time off for medical leave. They paid for most of the surgeries too. Then it got worse. My husband was a fighter though. He always was. I used to tell him, he was as stubborn as a mule. I told him one day, as he slept in the library of our house with an IV in his arm, “Jacovi, you mean everything to me. You can’t go, I will be lost without you.” Then he said, “We’ve already lost the job and the retirement money. You know what’s next.” I knew that he’d keep fighting and we would make it through as a family. I just couldn’t give my husband something immediate for him to look forward to. It was half a year away before our vacation.

Shortly after we talked that night he passed away without saying goodbye. My husband worked so very hard for so very long and it was like we were always counting down the days until our vacation here at Holden Beach. After many years of us three trying to get jobs, we lost our house and our timeshare here. We lost everything except for each other. We had so much fun as a family here; you would have never known we had just slept in our van for entire week.

I knew this vacation was going to be tough, but it has made my summer complete. This was the year that my boys decided to take on two jobs each, on top of school, just so we could have our family vacation. See, it was more than just letting us have two bikes for free. You gave us a helping hand to keep our family tradition going. Thank you

In loving memories of our past, may we keep our tradition alive,

The Cho family.

The Walls

Running in the iridescent, warming October sun, a woman held a book, rearing an appalling feature. I almost stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It made me think about painting.

After my double-take, reassuring what I saw was suitable for my lacking confidence, I ran back to the house. I was tempted to call everyone I knew or maybe even put up a witty status update on Facebook. But I didn’t. Instead I sat on the porch of my beach front house.

I watched her close and I watched her safely. I watched her for the last hour of light and I watched her pack up from the turn of dark. I watched her walked down the beach access to her house.

From my vantage, she looked like no one I’d ever seen before, but I still wasn’t convinced. I stood up from my porch and squinted because I knew she was nearing. My house has a bright blue tin roof with a matching colored door, very visible, yet appealing to the many onlookers who saw my “For Sale,” sign. I had to be careful. I didn’t want her to see me.

After many attempts of placing a name with her unfamiliar face, I was left more pleased that I didn’t know her. She was not a family member, or a close friend, or a close friend of a friend, or even a friend of a friend from work.

She walked to the fourth house from mine and climbed the stairs entering the house. All details led to her being a tourist. Someone from somewhere else. Someone I didn’t know. Someone who didn’t know me.

All at once, I feared she knew all of my secrets about things I never told anyone about. Would fear be the accurate assessment of my physically arousing state? Antsy, yet burdened with regret, or is it the wonderment of what she actually knows about me versus the words that collect my person?

I had to follow her. I walked down the road, recently littered with tourist traffic of summer, now completely deserted with only a few vacationers left, and I headed straight for her house.

The walk to the door was steep with stilt barring wood and galvanized nails, perfectly aligned with four nail-beds per board. I looked through her window and saw steam flowing from the bathroom directly in the view of her front door. Shower.

Any normal rental house in the off-season months would have been locked for the safety of the lingering, local teenagers looking for a joy house to party in. This house was unlocked because, in fact, she was a vacationer who might have the summer season mixed up with fall, but more or less left her front door unlocked.

Then, I saw it. A book faced down on the kitchen table to left. I opened the door. I knew I didn’t know her and if she came out of the bathroom right then she’d probably jump out of her towel, and I’m not opposed to that possibility, but I remained unseen, unknown.

I picked the book up and she had doggy-eared her current page.

“Have some respect!” I yelled in my head.

I didn’t have to, but I turned over the book, just to be positive. Looking at the cover, starting at the bottom, I scan for any distinction of it being a different book. At first glance, the water rippled with glass-like reflections and a needle pointing straight down. A little further up the cover, the needle turned into the beak of a pelican, mildly aged, pointing his beak downward into the water.

The title reads, “Inks No Impact.” A book of secrets kept in hidden boxes of the brain where no one can reach, like how the pelican will never dive farther than five feet in the deep ocean. It’s a book about how memories are like tattoos without ink, always fades, but never leaves.

The pipes echoed a vibration to my eardrum, indicating my need for an immediate exit. I did. I even put the book faced down and although I had just left, she will be carrying my face around until she finishes my seventy-second chapter.

As if seeing someone reading my book on the beach, with a face recognizable to no one I knew, captured the complexity of a gun, then I’d paint the walls with my brain and die happy.

Only as a metaphor, I live with a message of contentment, in my own dark way.

A Pale Yellow Promise

If falling down is always a part of life then give me something I haven’t seen yet. I never pictured myself on the floor of a dressing room, in my wedding dress, broken down and resentful. Not because of my soon-to-be husband, Michael, but because of something that was supposed to fix my life. Instead, I feel like it has ruined everything.

I wanted to look as pretty as I possibly could for my wedding. It’s only something I dreamed of having since I was a little girl with my mother. All because of a small piece of skin, I couldn’t get married.

See the funny thing about skin is that, not only is it the outside surface of our person, but it keeps us protected from falling apart. Without skin, we are merely a piled mess of pulsating blood covered organs. More importantly, without skin I couldn’t kiss Michael. Michael was everything to me and that was exactly the reason I was broken down on the floor, seconds away from my last moment as Jennifer Riley in the singular fashion. My name would have been Mrs. Jennifer Gould.

Back to the whole skin ordeal, Michael suggested that I get the mark on my face removed surgically for my wedding. Actually, we kind of both decided that I should get that hideous mark off of my face for my wedding day. I would have something to wine about if they had done a bad job or if I had an even worse red mark from the surgery, but they actually did an impressive job. Not a single fiber of skin was out of place or irritated. My smile still wrinkled in the same upward direction and Michael would have loved it if he could see it. With the surgery just being finished a week ago and the bandage on the new skin for that entire time – I hadn’t looked at my new face.

It wasn’t until I was talking to Gina-Robyn, my Maid of Honor, in the back room of the church. She said I looked so beautiful and made me look into the mirror to see the new me for the first time. She was right.  I did look good. I know I will never be a super model with my loose love handles and short stature, but I did look better with the surgery.

After I took a glance in the mirror, at the stranger staring back at me, I touched my left cheek where the old scar on my face used to be. It made me think about all of my other ones.

I said, “I got this one when I was first learning to ride my bike.”

I pointed where the discolored scar showed on my shin.

“I wish I could say that it was the first time I had ever ridden a bike, but it wasn’t. I was riding with my mom down the bike path in Adam’s Farm. They had just paved the bike path and I was riding too fast down a hill…Well, you can see what happened after that hill.”

Gina-Robyn was doing a good job just listening and she motioned to Haley and Joyce to do the same.

I took off my something blue wedding shoes and showed the girls my next one.

“We were at the bowling alley, my mom and I, when all of the sudden I thought it was a good idea to show off in front of the boys in the other lane. I danced with a fifth-teen pounder over my head, waving it like a helicopter or something.”

A tear came from my eyes and I tried to laugh it off.

“When the ball twisted my wrist too hard and I ended up dropping it, all I could think about was if the boys were watching. My big toe nail will probably never forgive me, or grow back for that matter.”

The room shared what seemed like a relieving laugh, except for me.

I touched my cheek again, even though my scar wasn’t there anymore. “I remember standing in the Wal-Mart customer service line and it was late, 11:11 pm to be exact. We had just finished Christmas shopping and some of the coupons didn’t go through. We walked out, finishing a conversation about how I was starting to like boys and that my boobs were getting bigger.”

I could hear the crowd in my dressing room crying before I could even finish the story.

“My mom and I always played a footsy-kind of game in parking lots. Basically, I would look at her feet and try to copy her footsteps. I was keeping up pretty good until my mom started doing a two-step, stopping, and switching feet, just to get me to laugh as I tried to keep up and failed. She did that a lot – make me laugh. We loaded up the trunk with groceries when all of the sudden the gentleman beside us opened his door too wide. The corner of his green truck’s door made a deep scratch into the side of our car. My mom and I were startled and we went over to look at the damages. I wanted to scream at the older man for his careless mistake. But my mom said it was okay and that’s what happens to cars sometimes.”

I sat up a little straighter because if my mom came in right now, she’d tell me it wasn’t lady-like to sit hunched over. That’s when the priest came to join my little listening group. I guess he was kind of wondering if this thing, my beautiful wedding, was going to happen. I don’t know why I continued, but I did.

“On our car ride home, my mom talked to me about boys, emotions, tampons, sex, and condoms. It was something that could have been very awkward, but with my mom it wasn’t. I remember every single word of what she said. We stayed in a comfortable silence for awhile and then finally she said, “Jen...Do you see why I didn’t get upset with the gentleman who hit our car today? I did that because this car is just an object. Something I owned to get me from point A to point B. This car has never won the library award or voted best junior golfer in the county or was my life partner when your dad left. You are all those things and much more. All I care about is making the people I love know that I love them and that I’d do anything for them. I hope you will be the same way when you get older. Plus, a little scratch on a new car adds character.” She said everything to me driving home from Wal-Mart in her scarred up car. I told my mom I loved her and rested my head on the door. After all, it was a very long day for both of us.”

Still in the dressing room, I rubbed the spot on my face where my character building scratch used to be.

 “My mother looked over, with her hands brushing the hair back to my neck. It’s like I can still hear her whispering I love you into my ear. At twelve years old, I was old enough to know that at night we followed the red lights and the pale yellow lights were supposed to be on our left side.”

I tried not to break down.

“That’s why I was wondering why the pale yellow light was on our side. The driver of the car heading straight towards us was named Andrew Nicholas Bryant. Andrew’s pale yellow light was driving fast and right for us. The only thing I can remember before and after the collision was my mother’s hand pushing me back into the seat as she slammed on the brakes. She pushed the seatbelt right against my body. My mother died with her eyes open.”

Nobody’s tear drops could have helped me walk down that aisle without seeing my mother in the church. I have many scars, but the only one that brings me back into the car with her was the one that was no longer there.

Gina-Robyn was the first person to squat down and wrap her arms around me, then Haley, and finally Joyce. After a few sentimental moments of me breaking down with my bridesmaids, I was left with only the priest and a face without a scar.

“Long day huh?”

I cry-giggled and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You know it’s a relief, hearing that story.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Michael is out there having a fit. Wondering if you are having cold feet or worse…running away feet.”

I laughed again.

“Jennifer, after your mother’s accident, do you remember the day Mrs. Caison came to pick you up from Child Services?”

“Yeah.”

“Sarah Caison took one good look at you and said that’s the one.”

I finally looked him in the eyes and smiled.

He continued, “Your mother was a great person who could never be replaced by someone else or something else. The old scar used to remind you of your mother and how much you missed her, but it is never good enough, right?”

He was right, but I didn’t want to agree with anything.

“I know that you want her here today and I promise you that I want her here too. Jennifer, you have three hundred people in that church to see you get married. They’re here to be with you on this special day. It’s the day that you marry Michael and become Mrs. Jennifer Gould.”

I couldn’t stop crying. I was listening to what he said, but I still didn’t want to walk in that room. “I love my adopted mother, I really do. But I can’t help it that I want my real mother here and now my only reminder of her is gone.”

“I understand. But let me tell you something about having a baby. No matter how much they try, the parents cannot choose the color of the baby’s hair. They cannot choose the gender the baby will have. They can’t even choose whether the baby is going to be right or left handed. But when it comes to adoption, someone gets to choose their child. That child is chosen from many others. The parents had the freedom of choosing any child they wanted, and Sarah chose to pick you out of the line up.”

The priest looked down at me with a contagious smile.

“Jennifer, adoption is like being a Christian. The lord has chosen you. It’s up to you whether you accept his invitation or not. And I know that no one could ever replace your mother, but remember your mother will always be with you. Not in the teddy bears she used to give you. Not in the make-up you used to share together. Not even in the Christmas list that you still keep. All of that stuff is just stuff. Your scars are just scars. You don’t need any of those things to remember your mom. You already have them stored in your memories. There’s no reason to have this stuff stop you from something you know to be true. You and Michael are made for each other. Make those kinds of memories with him too. I promise your mom will share space in your mind for him. I can tell she likes him. Because I don’t know a single bachelor who would stand on that stage, an hour after the wedding was supposed to start, and still have the strength to remain somewhat calm.”

I wiped off the dried wells I had for eyelids and stood up from the floor. That day I decided to walk down the aisle, even without the fancy organ playing. I didn’t have that perfect entrance I had planned on, months in advance, but all I needed to see was the brush of a pale yellow light through the Church’s center window and then I saw Michael.

August 20th: River Twist Trading in Leland, NC

Have you ever wanted to know the secrets behind an author's book? Like how did they come up with the idea? What was the inspiration? Well, come out to see Nick Westfall at River Twist Trading in Leland, NC on August 20th. He will answer questions and speak about the cathartic experience of writing a novel.

Customer Reviews:

"A psychological thriller with an adrenaline pumping ending..."

"I couldn't put the book down the entire time.  Surprising and satisfying ending..."

"Murder, suspense, appealing to all ages..."

"Emotional!"

"Starts with the intrigue of being left in the dark, ends with clearing suspense."

"A book you won't forget."

"Defies the murder mystery genre in a good way..."

"Faith-testing strength with a wonderful message to the healing themes it addresses."

"Beautifully dark and riveting..."

Address to book signing/talk: August 20, 2011

RiverTwist Trading at The Waterford Village

497 Olde Waterford Way, Suite 105

Leland, NC

Catholic Knees

We can only hide for so long, before the façade of content fades. I can’t express how much I have been holding back. Read through my words and decipher your own meaning. I just need to get this off my chest.

Do you remember when you taught me how to play basketball? Well, I never wanted to learn in the first place. I only played because I wanted your attention. I wanted you to be present. Why couldn’t you do that for me when I won the writing contest in middle school and later in high school?

I know. You always came to my awards ceremonies and school events. You even came all of the way to Raleigh for my writing competition. But, you never smiled like you used to when I played ball. You never looked excited or proud of me in any of my passions. It was always about being catholic and serving your country. Anything else was just a pipe dream. Basically, it was all about you. You desecrated my dreams and destroyed my pride. All I ever wanted to do was make you proud dad.

The only time I can remember you smiling at me, or anything for that matter, was when I came back from basic training in Pendleton. You smiled, gave me a hug, a pat on the back, and for the first time in my life I felt like your son. It only took you twenty years to do that.

It was that same exact day that you kicked me out of the house. I told you the horror stories of my drill sergeant and how I spit back into his face and left the camp. I stood up for myself then as I am now. I can’t help what I’m passionate about dad. I love teaching children to learn. Not killing men I never hated, or even knew. We are compelled to do what we must do.

I’m not like you. I will never pick up a gun. I will never receive a purple star or get an honorable discharge. I will never force a life decision on my students, much less my own children. I will let them find their own way through their own choice.

That’s what life is about dad, the choices we make. If we didn’t have them, we’d be merely machines of the man. I will not stand for that. My whole life, until I was twenty, I did only exactly what you said. I wanted to make you proud. With sports, if I ever made a basket you’d say make another, now make three in a row, make four, make five. And if I messed up it was always Come on! Stop screwing it up! You’re not trying hard enough!  It was never Almost, good job, or try again. YOU ALWAYS WANTED BETTER!

Well, we both know, I’m thirty-two and you’re fifty-eight, and neither one of us is going to make into the NBA. When Ben, my son who still wants to meet his grandfather, gets old enough to play sports, I will let him choose. He will hear nothing but encouraging and supporting words that seemed absent in my life.

I am writing you this because of our talk last night. I hate that these circumstances bring forth this conversation. I wish it wasn’t like this dad, but I need to tell you everything. What you said to me helped me more than you could ever imagine. I don’t know whether it’s the medicine or what, but when you said I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but pushing you too hard as a youth will always be my deepest regret. Now, I know that whatever you want to be, I’ll be proud of you.

I wanted to hug you through the phone. I cried last night. I had forgotten, myself, how much I had bottled up over the years. I remember you taking us to Mass every Sunday morning. I hated it. I felt nothing. I didn’t understand it. Though, that doesn’t mean I didn’t try. I even tried to attend the local Catholic Church here. I’m sorry, I just don’t feel religiously moved in a Catholic Church.

There are times when I truly believe in “Defiance, defines us.” Maybe that’s why I wanted to be so different from you. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because your personality made me feel like you were forcing me to come with you.

I have a secret I’ve wanted to tell you. All of the times when I couldn’t live up to your expectations, I hurt myself. It wasn’t until I was twenty, when I stood up to you that day at the dinner table, that I stopped hurting myself.

The first time it happened was in my high school basketball tryouts. I looked at the list, not for me, but for you, and my name wasn’t there. I didn’t even want to go home. I started to make plans about staying afterschool. Maybe you would think I was at practice, but then a game would come and you would know. It happened every time I thought you wouldn’t be proud of me. It was like the optimistic play in my head of you giving me a pat on the back, vanished with my dignity.

I thought that if I could get your attention, maybe you’d open up to me. Maybe you’d ask me what was wrong. Maybe you’d care about my life. Instead, you never said anything.

I wanted to tell you this because it’s been eating me up inside. When I walked away from you at dinner that night, I decided that I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for you. I even had thoughts about what you would do if I actually killed myself.

I moved away from you and found a place where I not only feel at home, but I feel liberated from sure self-destruction. I found a church, later a college, and then a teaching job; of course my wife, and more importantly, I found something else I’d been missing my entire life--Happiness through Christ.

Last night, when I told you I had found God through a Baptist Church, you said Son, as long as you’re in some denomination of Christianity and you have some kind of belief in God, I want to support you.

As I write this down, I want you to know that a tear drop just landed on the “U” in support. I love you dad. The rest I want to tell you in person.

Love,

Chad.

Normally, I would join the group, boxing in an impatient driver, but today was different. I had a place to be. It was a much needed visit to see my father. Not only did I want him to read my letter, I also had something to say to him.

I kept the speed of my car five over. No need to go faster, no need to go slower, I just needed to get to my point B destination. Ben was with me fast asleep in his car seat. Unfortunately, Becky had to work late, planning with the grade level teachers. She said she’d meet us shortly after she finished.

When I pulled up to the parking space right in front of the building, I took a deep breath trying to gain confidence. I carried Ben, even though he could walk now. He was tired. A whole day of school and then a four hour car ride will put any three year old to sleep.

I walked through the doors, up the stairs, and to his bedroom. He was sleeping. He looked terrible, like he’d been fasting for weeks. His face sunk into the pillows. The constant ticking of the heart rate monitor only allowed seconds of freedom. Freedom of not feeling like he was just a machine in the hospital.

I put Ben down on the sofa. He was awake, but not quite conscious.

Picking up my dad’s hand seemed to feel like I was lifting a fragile object. His body felt cold.

“Dad?”

He moved a little. Gosh dad, your skin wrinkled up fast in twelve years.

“I’m here dad.”

His eyes opened up slowly.

“Hey dad.” I whispered.

“Son.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Nothing I can’t handle boy.”

“I know dad.”

He laughed and began to cough hysterically. There was nothing I could do to make him stop. I felt powerless.

“How are they treating you?”

He slowed down his cough and regained his composure.

“You know son, I can do this stuff on my own. It’s your mother who thinks I can’t do it.”

“She’s here?”

“Yes. Only because she’s in my will.”

“No dad. If that was the case, she’d put a pillow over your head right now.”

I laughed and my dad only grinned.

We talked about recent life events, being out of the hospital, my mom coming back into his life, or so he thought. I didn’t want to crush the only sanguinity he had left about his life. He had terminal cancer. I asked him what kind and he said the kind that puts a body at constant war with itself. Everything was war and peace with him. But, it was true. His entire body was at war with cancer. It spread through all major organs. Their only medicine now was keeping him comfortable.

I felt like we had some much more to talk about. Twelve years, at this age, seemed like a lifetime. Inside I was crying every ounce of tear I could. I only had a couple days left with my dad. Ben woke up for a few minutes and I introduced him to his grandfather. My dad smiled.

When Ben went back to the couch, my dad and I talked about our conversation last night. I gave him the letter and he read it word for word. It was the first time my dad had ever cried in front of me.

He said, “Son, look at you now. You should be proud of yourself. All of your awards and finishing something I could never do, college, your beautiful wife, your son. I would be proud of you even without any of that stuff. I am proud of you because you are my son.”

There was a therapeutic cry we shared on May 19^th, 2005. I will always remember that date. I held my dad’s hand one last time. He hugged me, gave me a pat on the back, and said, “I love you son. I couldn’t ask for a better one.”

I cried back, “You did a good job dad. I love you.”

My father passed away. Holding my hands, he didn’t leave this earth alone. He left with his son right next to him and a smile on his face. My dad was proud of me. He had his own way of showing it. God gave me the power to become stronger through my life’s hardships. God gave my dad an extra day so I could say goodbye. I love you dad.

Heavy Hangs the Fear of Commonality

I don’t believe people really ask for it happen: the fire in the candle reaches the end of its wick. The butterflies that once crowded my stomach, in the proximity of her behalf, slowly become this normal, comfortable feeling. The ecstasy of our relationship was gradually fading to this uninteresting reality.

Life’s commonality hit me harder than my ninth drink at the bar. Had I married the wrong woman?

I questioned myself for the first time in our relationship. I know that if you’re ever in question with love, than it mustn’t be true love. So it has become difficult for me to find answers when I know that I can’t even ask the question without damning our marriage.

It’s not that I don’t want to be in love, it’s just that I fear my love for her may have run its course.

I was delaying my ride home from work. We had a talk last night that quite frankly scared the shit out of me. She asked me how I felt about having children. I am not scared about joining her in becoming a parent, because I know she’d be a great mother. It’s just that I am afraid that my love for her, which used to give me this blood-rushing feeling to my face, has turned into this lack-lust feeling of comfort.

She still had that cute face even when she was frowning. And she hadn’t let her weight go since we got married and there’s no doubt in my mind that I still see her as attractive as the first day I met her, that’s not the problem. Her external features have nothing to do with the departure of my attraction. It’s the little things that she does for me, they’re almost obsessive. Not in a crazy way or anything, she just does too much for me. Could someone ever be too good for someone else? Overqualified?

When I wake up in the morning there are these reminder notes everywhere around the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom. Here is the thing about her though, she makes all of these notes to remind me to do something, or not to forget something, but she still insists on waking up just to give me verbal reminders of the reminders. And we both know she could sleep in for another two hours and still make it to work on time.

I mean, I went to work today with a lunch that she made me. When I go home, if I’d go home, there would almost always be a clean house. She was always excited to see me come home and she'd never questioned when I would check in late. We haven’t even had an argument in the four years we’ve known each other.

All of these things she does for me have become the reasons I don’t want to go home anymore. Everything about our relationship has this comfortable reassurance that I’m scared of. I want something more complicated than what I have, in my life with her.

After the last call was made by the bartender and I realized I was the only one in the place, I decided to take the subway home.

Thoughts in my head circa the reasons I delayed my arrival back home.

When I first got onto the subway there was a fair amount of people already boarded. With most of the cart’s populations draining at the major station stops, I was left with a family.

A single father, I presumed, was sitting down while his kids introduced themselves to each other with foreign accents. I thought about how much he had already aged from having kids. He was probably in his thirties, but he looked close to fifty. How would I look with kids?

Then, the children started to run up and down the aisles. My initial reaction to the kids playing on the train could only be described of as joy. I could see how innocent those kids were. They must have been four and five years old. They were playing a game of tag on the train.

I slowly watched as people near this family furthered themselves away from the laughing, running, chaotic children. They were climbing on top of people’s luggage, sliding down poles, and flipping over their dad like he was a gymnastics mat.

My mood quickly changed, as three stops later I was left with the father who has yet to say something to his lunatic kids. My appetite for their cute games and loud laughter starved my stomach of patience.

Then one of the kids started to run back towards me and the father. She was looking back to make sure the boy was still right behind her. She ran straight into my legs, pounding my inner knees together.

“Ouch.”

The girl said sorry with this quick smile and my face directed toward her nonexistent father. “Control your wild monkeys would ya,” was what I wanted to say.

I stared at him and I knew he could feel me burning a hole through his face. I hated a man I barely knew.

It’s people like this man that worsen the gene pool of America. I found myself deepening my judgment as he looked down, shameful of the lack of control he had over his kids. He was an idiot for not nipping it in the bud with discipline at an early age for these animals he called children.

God must have a substantial amount of love for the stupid people in this world, he made so many just like this guy.

The kids moved down to the end of train and swung around the poles in a race to weave in-and-out of the aisles. I continued my blank, devilish stare into the single parent’s distressed face. The man seemed to be getting more upset, which was a good sign, at least he wasn’t proud of his parenting skills. A little remorse of faults goes a long way with people, but I can’t overlook him enabling his kid’s poor behavior with silence.

The boy and the girl were farther away and the man finally lifted his head up to see if I was watching his kids again. I wasn’t. I was watching the failure he had become as a parent. I stared hard into his eyes.

He connected my eye contact for a brief second and turned away in shame. In my head I said, “Yeah I thought so; I knew you were a push-over.”

I couldn’t believe myself, I wanted to fight this guy and he hadn’t even said a word to me.

Then the kids came back from their relay race of weaving in-and-out and the boy jumped up and grabbed the pole in an attempt to swing with his feet going above my head. Are you freaking kidding me?

I’d had enough and I was getting ready to say something when I noticed the father was staring at me and I kept my mouth closed ready for him to speak. The children kept going on down the train.

The man looked up at me and said, “I know they’re acting crazy. I know you probably want to say something to them or at least say something to me. Well, their mother just passed away and I don’t know how to tell them.”

Sinking on the impact of his words, my mouth opened up enough to swallow the waves of regret into my paper lungs. Every single facial expression and any other external clue to my thoughts about his family flashed in my head before me.

I apologized for any looks, and I even apologize for my internal thoughts. I felt like everything I had been doing for the past three hours was a mistake and I needed to get home.

We talked about his wife for a while. He told me how each day was such a gift when he was with her. How we take for granted the little things about our life. He said, “It is not until you see your wife lying on a hospital bed, for a small stomach pain, lifeless because that small stomach pain was an ulcer that turned out to be pancreatic cancer.”

When I got off the train to my stop, I ran all of the way to my house. In my house, was the most wonderful woman in the entire world and I love every moment I get to spend with her. My heart was new again, like the moment we first laid eyes on each other. My skin sermonized for the smallest touch of her skin. My lips craved the succulent, voluptuous lips of my wife.

When I crawled into bed, my body wrapped around her with a grip that I never wanted to release. She turned around, smiled, and never asked a single question about where I was, but I knew I’d never leave her side again. We kissed and her taste had my attention as it satisfied every desire I’ve ever had.

Love is the ability of comfort, the taste of commonality, and the optimism of prospect. Love is its own faith: difficult to see, graceful to feel, and builds foundational significance with every test and question you may ever have in the future.

Embrace love with a copious amount of admiration and appreciation for only He knows when it will be taken away from you.

Sink on Impact: Back Cover

Back Cover Text:

When a young man, Jesse, is tragically murdered, his friend Danny is profoundly affected. Needing to find answers about Jesse’s death, Danny stumbles upon on a list of possible suspects, left at the crime scene, and sets out on a quest that will unveil surprising results. Not only are the facts and motivations surrounding Jesse’s murder revealed, but Danny realizes certain things about himself. When he finishes his search of the suspects on the list, he is forced to make a choice that will change his life forever.

Sink on Impact is a riveting saga of murder, suspense and self-discovery. 

About the Author:

Nick Westfall lives in Holden Beach, North Carolina. He was motivated to write Sink on Impact by circumstances in his own life and those close to him, and the universal and healing themes it addresses. He is working on his next book.

My Reservation:

My hands trembled with excitement. I waited outside her apartment building three blocks away from Times Square. I was surprising her for the first time since she’d moved away.

I had more than just the simple surprise of my presence. The “Times,” offered me an assistant editor position, which meant we would no longer be thousands of miles away from each other.

Here’s the thing, I am twenty-nine years old and I have never been married or had any children. Although, I didn’t want to end up like my brother, who had six children before he turned twenty-seven, I also didn’t want to become the lonely man who never had the satisfaction of marriage or any proud moments as a father.

I was always careful when it came to women. I learned from my older brother. He told me, “I love all of my children greatly, but if I could go back to my early twenties again, I’d do it differently.”

That stuck with me for all of my teenage years. In my life, if I had ever met The One, I probably looked away in efforts to live out my youth like my brother said. I was always careful and took things very slow when it came to relationships of the opposite sex. I didn’t want to have any regrets when I finally settled down.

Now, I am almost thirty and I have no Christmas cards with my family pictures in it. I have no wedding band around my finger signifying that I’m capable of being committed to something. I have no soccer games to go to on Saturday mornings, but there is one thing I do have and that is my Annie.

After two years of romantic untypical dates and candlelit dinners, Annie had to move away to chase her dreams of becoming a dancer. She finally made it in one of the big showings that played weekly in New York. She was like that. She wasn’t impulsive, but when it came to doing what she wanted to do, she just did it. No matter what stepped in her way, if she wanted something bad enough she would go after it.

I could only aspire to do something as audacious as moving away from everything I’d ever known, to a strange place, for the sake of my dreams.

Finally, someone came out of the doorway so I could get inside her apartment. It seemed like the walls of the hallway were breathing heavily in unison with my anticipation. I walked into the elevator and pressed the seventh floor button.

I was left alone with my thoughts of how she would react to seeing me for the first time in months. Every beep from the elevator ascending floors became a slideshow of changing images. The excitement and shock shown on her face with every picture in my head only made matters worse to the precipitating pores in my skin.

With love to give that would leave her breathless, I watched the elevator doors open. In my hands were her favorite chocolates and a small bouquet of flowers. In my eyes were memories of the times we spent laughing, crying, loving, and smiling together. In my heart was space for nothing, because Annie crowded the room from wall to wall. In my pocket was a symbol of commitment that I had been waiting to give her.

I knocked on the door. I felt the pounding of my own beating heart. I heard her footsteps toward the door. In my mind, a part of me wanted her not to be there. Nervous couldn’t justify the way I felt as she twisted the door knob and opened the door.

The door cracked open further and further. When she came into my view, she was looking back like she just finished a conversation with someone. Then she looked in my eyes and swallowed back air into her lungs rapidly, creating a sound that I’ll never forget. It almost seemed like it wasn’t a good thing. It was like fear was the reason her surprised face shuddered.  

“Alex, what are you doing here?”

I smiled. I wanted to kiss her all over and make my way into her bed. When I noticed she wasn’t alone. The movement from the corner of my eye answered questions I didn’t even ask, like why was she still in pajamas at five o’clock in the afternoon? Her hair was everywhere screaming infidelities.

Something about the stale, dead air brought to my attention how frantic her body seemed. She was shaking, but not in the way I had been. She was sweating, but not like I was in the hallway. She was nervous, but not like the way I was when she opened the door.

The silence continued and I finally saw the strange person in the room with us. I wanted anger to be the emotion that leaped out on the table of our relationship, but there was nothing.

I felt the air conditioning freeze over my sweat glands, leaving me cold and alone. I dropped her gifts and turned around with nothing to say. I heard her drop to her knees like she was supposed to be the one crying.

As I walked away, I thought about myself. I am almost thirty and I still don’t have a family yet. Time is running out for me, I thought. There won’t be enough time for me to start over with someone else.

I wanted to go someplace where the sun would warm my cold extremities. Some place where the wind would leave a sobering breeze for me to let go of every memory I had of her. I wanted a place where every photograph of her seen through my mind’s eye would die. Somewhere I could clear my head and start to separate our relationship to my life without her.

I walked up the steps to the top of apartment building and started a slight grin because I had found the exact place I was looking for. My body still seemed as depressed as when I saw the guy in her bedroom, laying around like he owned the place.

Shaking my thoughts of her, I silenced my mind for a moment. I allowed my eyes to be the only one of the five senses to tell me where exactly I was. I thought about how all senses only had one common objective of telling me where exactly I was located. My mind was telling me why I was there, but I tried to drown out any information pertaining to the last ten minutes of my life.

I found the view amazing. I had the Hudson River to my left and the galore of tall buildings on my right. The mixture of the sun’s warmth and the river’s breeze would suffice my desires for the time being.

I didn’t want to let one tear drop fall because that would be wasting an emotion I could keep for someone else. If there would ever be someone else. I didn’t want to waste my time with thinking about her anymore.

“Excuse me, sir.”

I turned around hoping it wasn’t Annie who followed me.

“I made reservations to die right here and you are directly in my way.”

Stunned, but not completely blown away with what she said, I responded, “Wait a second, do you even know what you just said to me?”

“Oh go ahead, say something a text book could have told me. Tell me something just like the rest of them. Tell me it’s not right. Tell me to choose life. Go ahead! Really…Give it your best shot.”

“Excuse me miss, I think you’ve got me confused with someone else. I’m not here to stop you and tell you to choose life.”

“Well, would you please excuse me? I think I want to die right over there.”

Something inside me wanted to stay in front of her and call for help. Something about this beautiful girl made me think twice about why she would want to die.

I tried, but it didn’t come out smoothly, “Things aren’t as bad or good as they seem in life. But there is something about life that you should know. Every day you can decide how good or bad things really are. You always have that choice.”

“Oh how heart-felt. I'm glad I have that choice. Now, excuse me because I don’t care about hearing your cliché motivations of why I shouldn’t jump.”

I don’t know why I said it, but I thought I’d get it off my chest, “I just flew thousands of miles to see my girlfriend. I came here to tell her I got a job here in New York. I mean, it would change everything. We would be living in the same state again. I wanted to ask her to marry me.”

I showed her the ring and waited to see if she was still listening or even if she really cared.

The response time I gave her fell silent and I continued, “I wrote letters and I should have known from her lack of ability to reply. I should have never come here to surprise her. She already had someone else. But seeing it in person was the worst way possible for our relationship to end. Now, I am almost thirty and I haven’t started a family yet…So you’re here and I don’t have the slightest clue why you would want to jump. But, I do know this. If you jump right now I promise I’d be left here wondering what I could have done differently to keep you here. I would rather give you a choice. Instead of dying, will you live with me?”

A fell swoop of silence pushed us together. The proximity of her body brought the closeness of our pain together. With one stare into her suicidal eyes, I tripped into in a joyous wonder.

Our waists touched and her hand slowly made its way down my arm to my palms. In an effort to keep her touching me, I didn't move.

My heart beat slowly and with every drop of blood it pumped into my body, I’d give it all to her and not for the sake of her to live without jumping. I’d give it all to her so she’d jumped into me.

She spoke softly, “Are you crazy? You don’t even know me.”

“Yes I know and I’d like to change that too.”

She was left silent again as she didn’t know how to respond with my way of words. I gave her a response that only proved to have truth beneath every line.

Through my form of expression she could taste my sincerity, “I could say all of these things to convince you to stay, like how life has all of these moments where self conclusion becomes the easiest way to get out. Even though we flirt with self destruction, we’re not supposed to act on the thoughts of ending our life. But, you already heard that before. You’ve probably told yourself many times in an attempt to convince yourself. Well, my offer still stands for you to live with me. I won’t stop you either way.”

I stepped away from her like the newly created space would give her more confidence in her decision. Her eyes looked up at mine. Even with her tangled, broken down hair she was as beautiful as the violet clouds on the sunset over the Hudson.

She shuffled her feet and whispered loud enough for me to hear, “Okay. I’ll give you one chance to make your offer more appealing than my attempt at flight. I swear to God, if you hurt me I will jump right off of this building and you won’t even see it coming. I don’t have much left to lose from my heart so know that I am on the edge of the earth and I’m not begging for someone to give me a reason to come down. This isn’t some cry out for help or attention. I wanted to die because living has become full of this self loathing sympathy for me. My insides are filled to the top with emptiness. I had no plan of anyone saving me here before I met you. Just know that I was hoping to see no one up here when I opened the door. If you hurt me you can count on me leaving this human race, I promise.”

“I know exactly what you're going through. Just three minutes before you came up here I was going to jump too.”

Inspired by "The Spill Canvas."

Book Cover by: Susan Lang

My Next Book

For Official Author Website: http://www.sinkonimpact.com/

WOW! I cannot believe the outcome of this first novel already. It hasn't even come out yet and so many people have preordered! I have a lot of good friends and family. I want to thank each and every one of you. Sink on Impact will be great, I know it! I hope it changes some aspect of thinking for the people who read it because it sure has been a blessing for my life.

My next book will be a series about a young couple who look to take the next step in their relationship. Hayden and Jessica move in together after graduating college and face the hardship of disapproving parents, not knowing a single person in the little town they moved to, and a haunting past.

Once you read Sink, you'll know there is no way that this will be an ordinary love story. I am very excited about writing this novel because I, now, know what it takes to get a book published. I am currently 30,000 words into the story and have already grown to love each character I have created. I'll try to keep you updated better as this book progresses.