1 - Building a Dragon

1988, Lisa completes a new kite

Shannon W Haynes

Sep 07, 2024

Things That Can’t Be Broken is a novel presented as a live draft, one chapter every week.

Last week: Lisa picks up a pen in 2008

0 - Prologue

Shannon W Haynes

Aug 30

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Part 1 | History is an Angel

1 - Building a Dragon

Lisa Cartwright

April 15, 1988

La Mesa, California

Lisa smoothed the translucent fabric under the needle and along the edge of the dragon’s teeth while her sewing machine hummed and tapped, hummed and tapped. Bright blue and yellow bound together, shaped by tiny piping. She had just enough time before Tim came home to put the final touches on her latest kite design. Sunday would be a testing day at the bay. She hoped the new dragon would perform its magic for plenty of onlookers and spark a few pre-orders.

Lisa’s kite sales hadn’t amounted to much yet, but the word would spread. Tim’s blossoming graphic design career was paying the mortgage, and they were happy in their little green 1950s two-bedroom house. They had everything they ever wanted, well, everything she ever wanted anyway.

Tim was more ambitious. He always had been. When he enrolled at the Art Institute straight out of high school, he had expected Lisa to join him, but she dug in her heels. He had said, “You’ll be great, Lisa, just look at your book covers.”

“My paper bag book covers?” She had replied. “No, not me. I’m a doodler. I doodle. I make potholders and painted signs. I have no desire to deal with people, or work in a fancy office. But you, you’re so good with people.” Her brows lowered, and she shook her head slightly while she readjusted the fabric.

He had argued at first, “But we could work together . . . Imagine the money we could make, the nice house we could afford, the places we could travel . . . ” Then he had looked her in the eye and the push left his tone. He never brought it up again. She wasn’t going to travel anywhere, and he knew that.

She had a string of retail jobs, but it was never long before she would become miserable, haunted by daydreams of everything she would rather be doing. When Dani came along, she finally had the full-time job she wanted. After Dani started kindergarten, Lisa tried selling garden flags and painted flowerpots at the weekly farmers’ market. They did pretty well, but putting up the booth and tearing it down three hours later, twice a week, was a lot of work. So, the day she brought her flags and flowerpots to the local gift shop, hoping to sell them to the owner, she wound up taking a job there. Retail again. It was so much easier. Tim never uttered a discouraging word either way.

She worked part-time at the gift shop during the hours Dani was in school until about a year after Dad moved to Connecticut with May and she couldn’t get the kite idea out of her head. It wasn’t that she missed Dad as much as she thought she might. In truth, she was nothing but happy for him. He found someone, May was lovely, and Dad seemed more at peace than she could ever remember him being. He even smiled.

One of Lisa’s most prominent early childhood memories was the day she and Dad made paper carp kites together. She remembered running through the park with her painted fish trailing above her head on a stick, but it was Dad’s smile that day that was burned into her brain. He smiled at her with so much pride. Now that smile was launching kites. What a wild idea it had been, but when she mentioned it to Tim, he had simply said, “Why don’t you give it a go?”

She knew how lucky she was. Tim always supported her impractical ideas. Building the kites was joyful work, worth the challenges. This time, she was certain she was on the right track. She used only the best frame materials and real high-quality silk. Once she mastered the basic geometric designs, she moved on to build simple birds and other creatures, each batch of kites more complex than the last.

Tim turned out to be a natural at flying them, quickly learning to maneuver even the larger, more articulated designs. They danced in the sky while people gathered, pointing and oohing, especially when he flew the latest phoenix kites with their long flame wing tips and tails.

Dani soaked up the attention, turning cartwheels and performing handstands for her audience. She even started approaching people in the crowd without us ever prompting, asking them if they wanted to try the kites. More often than not, they couldn’t resist Dani’s sunshine. They sold two phoenix kites on the spot when they tested them in January, even on a day with no sun to gleam through the silk.

Lisa knew the Japanese-style dragon would get even more attention, especially if the sunny weather prediction was right. The dragon symbolized good fortune and prosperity as well as a tie to her father’s Japanese roots. Everyone loves a dragon. This kite was big though, Dani wouldn’t be able to fly it alone.

She was small for her age, Lisa suspected she got her stature from her own mother, who was also known as Lisa, although her name was Alessia Maria, not Lisa Marie, like herself. Mom was less than five feet tall—maybe she was even smaller by now. She hoped short genes were the only thing Dani inherited from her grandmother, and not the intermittent depression that caused her mother to retreat from life.

The chilling part was, Lisa had memories of her mother that were happy, times when she was energetic and fun, like Dani. Dani was always in motion, quick to smile and laugh. She seemed determined to be happy since the day she was born. Tim’s mother had said Tim was like that too, so no reason to worry.

Like Tim, Dani loved all animals, and somehow, they always seemed to love her right back. She had a special bond with George, her fluffy grey cat, who slept curled on her pillow at night. And although their old Corgi, Jelly, was Tim’s dog, if Tim wasn’t around, she was right there with Dani everywhere she went. Lisa never could drum up the affection for animals her husband and daughter shared, although they enjoyed them so much she didn’t mind having them around.

Tim introduced Dani to horses at the fair when she was just two. The effect was irreversible. Why couldn’t it have been cats or even rabbits? There were no horses nearby where they lived, but when they drove into rural areas, Dani was always scouting for them. If she spotted a horse near the road, Tim would often stop for her to get out and pet it. When Lisa told him he was spoiling her, he replied with that infectious grin, “It’s not toys or ice cream, Lisa. It’s horses!” As if that made it all okay. Now anytime Dani saw a horse, she would bounce up and down screaming as if Elvis had just walked into the room.

Elvis. Lisa shook her head as she snipped and rethreaded the machine with a new color. There was no extracting Elvis from Lisa’s memories of her childhood. If her parents had a religion, The King was it. He was everywhere in the house, from framed posters to kitchen towels and salt-and-pepper shakers. Lisa kept a framed photo of Mom as a singular homage to her parents. In it, Mom was a wide-eyed young fan, standing next to Elvis, his head bowed to sign an autograph. Dad must have taken the picture. It had always been on Mom’s bed stand, next to the ash tray and the prescription bottles.

It was not long after Elvis died that Mom disappeared. All the searching, all the flyers Dad printed and they posted on telephone poles all over the county, but there was no trace of her. In the end, the investigators could only tell them that sometimes people go missing on purpose. Sometimes people choose to disappear. It was hard not to imagine she crossed into Mexico and either lost her way or started a new life—or more likely, she was dead.

Mom had missed the birth of her beautiful granddaughter the August after she disappeared. It was easier to imagine she was dead. She had to be. But Dad wouldn’t talk about Mom, let alone admit she was probably dead no matter how hard Lisa tried to wrench it out of him. Did he think she was still out there, living on the streets somewhere, or sunbathing on a beach in Mexico? Of course not. If she wasn’t dead, she would have come home. Someone would have found her.

Lisa finished sewing in the dragon’s second row of teeth while summoning Tim’s warm smile to comfort her mind. He knew her better than anybody else. After they met in sixth-grade art class and found out they were neighbors, Lisa spent far more time at the Cartwrights’ house than at her own sad lonely home.

The Cartwrights were so welcoming, and they were happy all the time. They played board games and brought her along to church barbecues. She considered herself a Cartwright long before she and Tim married, as everyone always knew they would. When Mom disappeared, Tim’s father, Daniel, led prayer circles with strangers, which made her uncomfortable, but she also felt the love. Mom wasn’t there to be a grandma to Dani, but Tim’s mother, Alice, was Dani’s best buddy.

It was hard on Dani when Alice passed a few years ago. She still talked about Grandma Cartwright sometimes, trips to the zoo, making cookies together. Lisa was glad she kept those good memories.

Just as Lisa reached the last line of stitching, Dani appeared beyond her sewing machine. Lisa startled and nearly snapped at her.

“Mom,” Dani said, arms crossed in front of her. “Do you think there will always be horses?” Her head was cocked in defiance.

Lisa stopped the machine, “Uhh, why wouldn’t there be?”

Dani’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t know. Jackie says they’re going to go extinct because nobody needs them anymore.”

“Oh,” Lisa said, reminding herself she had been intense in her sewing for some time. Dani was just looking for a little harmless attention. “Well, you know Jackie, Dani. She’ll say anything to stir up some trouble.”

Then she smiled at Dani and put up a finger. “Hold on just a moment . . .” Humm. Tap tap tap. Lisa picked up the scissors. One final snip and she stood and put up her hands with a rodeo calf-tie flourish. “Done!”

Dani started jumping and clapping. Jelly took it as a cue and joined in, barking and pushing that slobbery red ball into Dani’s hand.

“Yay, Mom!” said Dani, tossing the ball down the short hallway, sending the dog skittering and sliding after it on the wood floor.

Dani’s eyes were wide as Lisa lifted the dragon’s ornate head. “Are we taking it to the park? Can I fly it?”