The narrator reflects on their 30-year marriage to Claire, marked by his alcoholism, infidelity, and absence while Claire raised their daughter Ellie and supported the family. On Christmas Eve, Ellie calls the narrator in a panic saying Claire has been taken to the hospital. When he arrives, he finds Ellie distraught and Claire unconscious in her hospital bed. Holding Claire's hand, the narrator realizes this may be his last chance and promises to change his ways and become a better husband and father.
Where Dads Go: A story for my unborn child (fiction)Jenn Baker-Henry
My submission "Where Dads Go: A story for my unborn child" is up for the Goodreads Book Club Slideshow Story Contest! Here's my story of a mom telling/showing her unborn child about being abandoned by fathers in her family line and also how relationships have played out in her family over generations.
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Where Dads Go: A story for my unborn child (fiction)Jenn Baker-Henry
My submission "Where Dads Go: A story for my unborn child" is up for the Goodreads Book Club Slideshow Story Contest! Here's my story of a mom telling/showing her unborn child about being abandoned by fathers in her family line and also how relationships have played out in her family over generations.
Popularityhelp
Blockbuster converting offer
⚡ $60 CPA - The first-ever CPA offer on Digistore!
⚡ Run it and reel in all the sales from your lists like clockwork
Zaznavni Procesi 1, Predavanje na Oddelku za psihologijo, Univerza v Mariboru
Perception and sensation, Lecture at the Department of Psychology, The University of Maribor
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Tillie Olsen, author of I Stand here ironing”, focused on her re.docxherthalearmont
Tillie Olsen, author of “I Stand here ironing”, focused on her relationship with her daughter throughout her childhood and her teen years. Tillie Olsen lived during a time when women didn’t have much freedom and pverty was abundant. This short story has a personal touch because of Olsen’s past raising her own daughters and also experiencing poverty. The theme Olsen writes about are circumstances that were out of her control which led to her daughters troubling times. Olsen describes struggle after struggle that both she and her family had to endure. “Or I will become engulfed with all that I did or did not do, with what could have been and what cannot be helped.”(234) the narrator admits that some of the issues were out of her control. The first issue the narrator mentions would be poverty. Her lack of money led to bigger issues like inadequate child care and long hours for little pay. Another factor that led to Emily’s depressed state according to her mother, are struggles that women have to deal with. Emily’s mother defined the duties the Emily faced as struggles that come with being a mother, “She had to help be a mother, and housekeeper, and shopper.”(238)
292 Tillie Olsm
I Stand Here Ironing
Tillie Olsen (/9/3- )
See page 159 for a biographical note on the author.
I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth
with the iron.
"1 wish you would manage the time to come in and talk with me about your
daughter. I'm sure you can help me understand her. She's a youngster who needs
help and whom I'm deeply interested in helping."
"Who needs help:' ... Even if I came, what good would it do? You think be
cause 1 am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a
key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened out
side of me, beyond me.
And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total? I
will start and there will be an interruption and I will have to gather it all together
again. Or I will become engulfed with all I did or did not do, with what should
have been and what cannot be helped.
She was a beautiful baby. The first and only one of our five that was beauti
ful at birth. You do not guess how new and uneasy her tenancy in her
now-loveliness. You did not know her all those years she was thought homely, or
see her poring over her baby pictures, making me tell her over and over how
beautiful she had been-and would be, I would tell her-and was now, to the
seeing eye. But the seeing eyes were few or nonexistent. Including mine.
I nursed her. They feel that's important nowadays. I nursed all the children,
but with her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, I did like the books
then said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with
swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.
Why do I put that first? I do not even know if it matters, or if it explains ...
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The Night I Changed
1. The Night I Changed
Natasha Larisa Cronin
Claire and I met at Tony Roma’s September 6, 1986. I was the manager and was
interviewing waitresses. When Claire walked in I felt the world had stopped. She was
wearing a sleeveless pink summer crocheted sweater that made her tan skin glow. I knew
she was the one. That Christmas Eve I asked her to marry me. She told me we should
start dating first.
I honestly don’t know why she stayed with me through my alcoholism, my many
D.U.I.s and of course, Blanca. Three years after our Ellie was born, Blanca had called the
house asking for me and Claire had answered. She told Blanca that her husband wasn’t
home and asked if she should leave a message for him, Blanca hung up. That night Claire
sat me down and told me, “It’s us or her. Don’t come home until you make your
decision.” Claire’s father wasn’t around when she grew up. I knew she didn’t want the
same for Ellie.
I chose them of course. Who wouldn’t choose them? Her beautiful brown hair
with its soft ringlets framing her face and Ellie with her fiery red hair that matched her
personality. I should have cleaned up my act back then, but I had a disease I couldn’t
shake. I got fired from a lot of jobs, more than I care to say. My little princess was
embarrassed of me. How could I blame her?
I finally got sober before Ellie turned eighteen and landed a decent job by the time
she finished her first quarter in college. I was the general manager for a fancy restaurant
that was opening its first branch in Sherman Oaks. Claire had become a bit overweight
!1
2. over the last twenty-nine years. I didn’t judge her. I wasn’t the surfer-running-vegetarian
guy I used to be. Claire was our superwoman, super person. She brought up Ellie. I barely
contributed. I couldn’t believe Ellie was my blood; she was so mature for her age. My
princess grew up into a queen when I wasn’t looking.
I was at the restaurant when it happened, late as usual. It was a few days before
Christmas so we were busy. I do a lot of miscellaneous things for restaurants that Claire
always tells me I’m not responsible for. I’ve painted an entire restaurant over night. I’ve
let the waiters and waitresses go home a little early while I close up. I do paperwork after
we close because during the shifts, I’m always out on the floor talking to people. So I’m
usually in the office after I close from around midnight until two or three in the morning.
Luckily Ellie is like her mother; she gets all her work done days, sometimes weeks, in
advance.
Claire always carried a stack of coupons in her purse that were held together by a
black clip. If she was in a bad mood after shopping she would ask, “Can you get off your
ass and help me with the groceries?” But by the time I switched off the movie that I was
watching, Ellie always beat me to it and would be lugging the bags in. She worked eighty
to one hundred hour workweeks as a controller and HR manager. Somewhere in between
she had helped Ellie find colleges that tailored to her major. There wasn’t anything that
woman couldn’t do. But that’s what mothers are, superhuman. I guess that’s why I was in
such shock when Ellie left me a screaming voicemail from the ambulance. “Daddy,
please pick up!” She started to cry, “Dad, it’s mom. They’re taking to her St. Johns. Meet
!2
3. us there. God why can’t you pick up!?” I’m not fond of cell phones, but after that
message I became glued to the thing.
I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. I drove, but I was on autopilot. I wasn’t
in my body, I was just sitting back watching my world crumble. Claire was all I had left
in this world. Whenever I came home, I always knew she was there. I knew that when I
came home, she would shut off her TV show so that I could vent about my bad or good
day at work. She always listened either way. I couldn’t picture her not sitting in that chair
asking me, “How was work?”
When I got to the hospital I ran over to the nurses’ station and asked, “What room
is Claire Kane in?”
“Are you family sir?” The young woman asked me.
“Yes I’m her husband.” I responded breathlessly.
“Room 204.” She stood up from behind the counter, “Go down the hall and turn
right.”
“Thank you.” I pulled a muscle on my right leg on the way up, so I tried to speed
walk down the hall. I started to think about all the things Claire and I had gone through
for the past 30 years. It was then that I could feel the heat of terror and sadness make its
way up from my throat to my face causing my eyes to swell and water. All the terrible
things I had done to her. I had cheated. I had gambled away and overspent so much of our
money that she worked three jobs to pay off the sixty thousand dollar debt I put us in. She
never pursued her dreams to be a singer or actress because I ignored my duties not only
as a husband but also as a father when Ellie was born. Claire had no time for herself.
!3
4. I turned the corner and found room 204. I could see Ellie inside the room. She
was in her nightgown, the one that matched her mother’s. It peeked out beneath her
UCLA hoodie. Her red hair stuck up like a birds nest and her face was red and swollen.
She looked so tiny and thin that night compared to when I saw her that morning. Her
body only took up half the chair. Her small pale fingers were wrapped around her body as
if she were let go she would unravel.
I took another white and blue hospital chair and set it beside my wife’s bed. The
oxygen nose tubes circled around her perfectly peaceful face. The misery that I had
bestowed upon her was erased in this sleep. What had I done in my life to deserve this
superwoman? I should have always picked up her calls. I shouldn’t have strayed from her
and I should have brought up this incredible human being that we produced. I should
have encouraged her to pursue her dreams. What I was most sorry for was my absence in
our union.
I reached over to her hand and gently held it avoiding the IV tube. I looked into
her closed eyes, “I promise you that I’m going to change.” I kissed her hand. I knew I
wouldn’t get a second chance from God or the universe like I did when I was a
recovering alcoholic. This would be my one and only chance to make things right. I knew
that I had to become a better man.
!4