Part 4: 3 - Hello Ammy
2022, Tim Cartwright has a new friend
Things That Can’t Be Broken is a novel presented as a live draft, one chapter every week.
Nine-year-old Dani makes a fervent promise that there will always be horses in her life, so when she finds out her next-door neighbor won a scholarship to an exclusive horsemanship program, she vows to win one too. She never gets the chance—but her short life has a lasting effect on a community.
Last week: Part 4: 2 - Traveler’s Halo • 2022, Caleb Allen stops at a coffee shop on his Southwest tour
Part 4 | This Storm is Called Progress
3 - Hello Ammy
Lisa Cartwright
April 2, 2022
La Mesa, California
“Something is missing,” said Mary, flattening one hand on the table while holding her empty tea cup with the other.
“The Earl Grey?” Said Lisa, going to fetch the pot. She poured a cup for each of them.
Mary leaned into the steam, bunching her forehead and staring up at the ceiling. “Thank you. It smells very good. . . but I meant the table. Where’s all the clutter?”
Lisa sank into a chair and shook her head at the table. “I put everything away in my office.” Her voice trailed away in defeat.
Mary tilted her head and looked sideways at her. “So, you’re not writing or sewing?”
“I want to,” said Lisa. “I need to create something, but. . . I just can’t right now. I threw the silk in a box and hid the sewing machine in my office closet. I shoved the notebooks into a drawer. I don’t know, maybe I’m burnt out. Isn’t that what people say now? Anyway, I’m not feeling it. Maybe I need a vacation.”
“Oh? I thought writing was your escape,” said Mary, setting down the cup to consider her friend.
“It takes me in circles. And I never finish anything. I built half a kite a few weeks ago. . . But I keep asking myself why? Who is going to fly it?”
Mary looked over the top of her lenses. “I haven’t seen this Lisa in a while. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Lisa sighed. She took a sip of tea, hearing the words echo hollow in her mind. “What’s the point? I’ve written down everything about my life. My life, as if it was so important. I guessed what I had to when I wrote down the lives of the people I thought Dani’s life had touched. I even made up a life for my mother. I filled in all the blanks, an entire world of ‘what ifs’. Who would Dani have been? What would she have done? I’ve run it all into the ground so many times over the years I almost believe it’s real. I could have written ten novels. It distracted me, but now it just feels like lies.”
Lisa paused, fiddling with the lid of the teapot. Her hands trembled. “I used to think people would remember Dani. I realize now, that I’m the only one. She matters to me. Only to me. I think about her every day. I don’t think Tim ever thinks about her. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I let go and move on with my life?”
“Your grief is nothing to be ashamed of. She was your child,” said Mary. “And what makes you think Tim doesn’t think about Dani? Don’t you call each other every year on her birthday?”
Lisa watched Mary take a sip and say nothing for a moment. After taking another sip, her friend put the cup gently down. She said, “What are you not telling me?”
Lisa gave a slow eye roll with a sigh. “Tim called me yesterday.”
Mary smiled and nodded slightly. “Oh? What is he up to?”
Lisa breathed out a chuckle, “He’s head over heels for this billionaire heiress he’s been dating. Regina Bradwyn. He’s sixty-five for heaven’s sake, and all of a sudden he’s in love. The fool.”
Mary’s eyebrows raised. “Bradwyn Luxury Resorts, that Regina Bradwyn? Isn’t she much younger?”
Lisa nodded into a sip of tea, then shook her head. “She’s not so terribly young; she’s in her mid-fifties, but you’ve seen her in the ads, she’s quite. . . striking. And Tim is “distinguished”, as they say. I can see why she might be interested in him. He’s done well, made a name for himself with his design firm. He’s not Bradwyn wealthy, but. . . I don’t know. Something is off.”
“Isn’t it fantastic the way men get to be distinguished gentlemen and we get to be. . .” Mary waved both of her elbows, flapping the skin of her upper arms, “Bats?”
Lisa shook her head, ignoring the attempt to change the subject. “I feel like she’s toying with him.”
“What makes you think that?”
Lisa poured more tea from the pot. “She sent him on vacation.”
Mary shrugged. “What else would a luxury resort heiress do?”
“By himself.” Lisa stared into Mary’s eyes.
“What?” said Mary, putting a hand to her chin. “I don’t get it.”
“Me neither. You should have heard him though. He’s lost his mind over her. This is the part that gets me. He says she’s testing him. That she’s going to show up whenever she thinks he’s ready to see her.”
“Testing him? For what? Faithfulness?. . . Workaholism?” Said Mary.
“He’s got that.” Lisa nodded and then shook her head again, “I don’t think he’s ever taken a vacation in his life. But also, he’s never had a relationship that lasted a full year. I mean, beyond us. Every serious relationship he’s mentioned to me, he’s broken off by the beginning of June.”
“The anniversary of Dani’s death,” said Mary, nodding slowly.
“He thinks she wants to make sure he’s serious,” said Lisa, “He asked me if I thought that was reasonable.”
“You said ‘No,’ right?” said Mary.
Lisa nodded and slapped the table. “I said, if she has an agenda that’s open-ended for her, but has hoops for him to jump through, something is wrong.” She sighed. “Of course, he won’t listen to me at all. I’m not sure why he asked.”
Mary’s eyes narrowed. “Well, maybe time away from work will do him some good. He’s going to do what he’s going to do, Lisa. You can’t let it get to you.”
“She‘s going to hurt him,” Lisa said, surprising herself with her conviction.
Mary pointed toward Lisa’s chest. “Are you sure there isn’t any jealousy lurking there?”
“God no. But he’s . . . you know, he’s family. We grew up together. We’ve known each other for so long. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“You’ve been through a lot together.” Mary reached out and put a hand on Lisa’s hand. “But. . .”
“Nothing I can do for him. I know,” said Lisa.
Tim Cartwright
April 22, 2022
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tim hobbled gingerly down the block from the hotel, testing his left ankle, which was still a bit sore from yesterday’s little spill. A woman cycled by wearing a mask. He was glad they were no longer required. He couldn’t imagine doing any kind of exercise without air to breathe, not at his age, he admitted, but not at any age. Almost everything had opened up, just in time for his forced vacation.
He took his usual seat in front of the bike rental shop, which was also the coffee shop. Over the past three days, he had come here to get his coffee and a pastry before renting a bicycle for the day. The ankle wasn’t much more than a mild twist, but it might be good to give it a rest for this last day in Amsterdam. Tomorrow he would board a plane to London.
He rolled out his sleeve of colored pencils and opened his sketchbook to yesterday’s tulips. When he paused to stare out across the canal, the water was already glinting in the sun after the morning’s rain. Turning to a fresh page, his thoughts went again to Regina.
She hadn’t exactly bolted when he proposed, but she hadn’t said ‘yes’, either. And somehow the result was similar. Instead of bolting herself, she had bolted him. He knew she loved him, but she loved so differently. It left him confused. She wasn’t like any woman he had ever known before.
Regina was brilliant and genuinely confident. She did and said unexpected things. She could fly a helicopter. She spent a year exploring underwater caves. She told him, “This world chose me. It dares me to live.” She knew herself, and held her space in the world like no one else. All of that, along with her healthy, shapely body, her impossibly green eyes flecked with gray, beguiled him and sent the mercury rising.
She had a way of holding his gaze and listening to every word. He told her everything. When he talked about his shame at being unable to protect his angel when it counted, she said, “Life has a way of bringing us the challenges we are meant to face. Any of us can be a victim of our own life, our own circumstances, or we can shine through them. I see you shining.”
It seemed impossible, but she remembered Dani too, and Lisa’s kites from that day they visited The Bradwyn Hotel in Old Town—she was the one who told them about Lisa’s storyteller there. She had been a thread in the fabric of their lives all this time. He couldn’t ignore it.
If there was a word for Regina, it was bewitching. She didn’t need him. In fact, that’s how she responded when he proposed. “Tim,” she had said, “You know I love you with all my heart. . . And I don’t need you.” Tim could hear her saying those words so clearly in his mind. He could see the shine of the leaves on the tree above her head when she said it, as if he were standing there right now trying to process those words.
“Don’t take me wrong,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t want this, I just want to make sure you want it. I might be the latest band-aid you’re not ready to pull off yet. We’ve been together only nine months now. Will I be able to compete with your daughter’s ghost any better than anyone else has? I’m not sure.”
“Regina,” Tim had said, “You’re not like anyone else.” Even in his memory it sounded lame.
“That’s true. I’m not,” she said. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”
Tim was always surprised by Regina’s plans. They were only dating a couple of weeks when she devised a plan for the two of them to go backpacking together in the Sierras for three nights. He had never done anything like that before. It was hard and terrible. They fought. They were awed by beauty. They shared pain and silence. They were ugly, vulnerable, and brave together. He had thought he would walk away after that, but it was too late. She had made him fall in love with her.
Now here he was, sitting in front of a bike shop sipping coffee in Amsterdam, a lonely tourist, enacting her plan—and wanting her love even more.
“I know you’ve always wanted to explore Europe,” she had said with a tone that told Tim this would not be what he wanted to hear.
“We can do that. We’ll have so much time to do that after we’re married,” was his response.
“Hold on. Let me finish.” She’d put her hands on his chest. He could feel them now like the memory of a burn. “I’m not going. I put together an itinerary for you.”
“What?! But I want to go with you!” Tim ran his hand through his graying hair.
“It’s nearly June, the month you always do your break-ups. . .”
“How on Earth do you know that?”
“I’ve pieced it together. And it makes sense. That’s when you lost your daughter.”
Tim paled. His heart seized as it always did when he thought of Dani. She was right. June 11th was coming. Over the past several years he had dated three women seriously, but when they started to talk about a lifetime, he’d gone numb. He had walked away without any explanation or remorse during the first week of June—every one of them. But Regina was so different.
“So, what’s the plan?” He had asked her.
Tim had warmed to Regina’s idea. He even began to look forward to the adventure by himself, but more as a challenge than a vacation. If this is what it would take to prove himself to Regina, it was worth doing. Lisa didn’t agree. But he wasn’t sure why he had even brought it up to her. She couldn’t possibly understand Regina.
Over the past three weeks, he had filled his mind with history, architecture, and art in Paris, Zürich, Berlin, and now Amsterdam, next London. Most of the travel was by train, no expense spared, the best room at every Bradwyn. Regina’s itinerary was busy enough to keep him interested while giving him time to contemplate and relax, which he was decidedly not good at. But so far, no Regina. Regina. The thought of her caused the blood to splash and rush through his arteries. Or was that the second cup of strong coffee?
Tim barely noticed a tall skinny blonde boy swing off his bike, park it by the shop, and unfasten a large wooden crate from the back. He set it down gently in front of him and sat down in the chair next to Tim.
“You’re American,” he stated in a strong Dutch accent.
Tim looked up from his drawing. “How did you know?”
“The shorts and the hat.” The boy pointed to his own head.
Tim touched his baseball cap and smiled at the boy. “Ahh, you got me.”
He was wearing his lightweight cargo shorts and had his plain brown baseball cap pulled down low so that he could see to draw. The boy opened the top of the crate and Tim leaned over slightly, curious. What he initially thought was laundry, in the glare of the morning sun, uncurled and opened their eyes.
A perfect little tangle of three golden retriever puppies, maybe seven or eight weeks old, yawned and began to whine and try to crawl over one another to get to him.
“Would you like to hold one?” said the boy.
Tim had almost forgotten the boy was there.
“Sure!”
As Tim reached into the box to pull up one warm wriggling pup, he was barely aware of the phone dinging in his pocket, he pulled it out by reflex. Regina. Tim tucked the phone back in his pocket. He would call her back from the room.
The puppy licked his face with her sweetly skunky puppy breath and tried to chew his ears with her tiny needle teeth. How long has it been since I held a puppy? He brought the squirming fuzzball in to his chest. His heart broke. Tears began to flow unchecked from his eyes. He held back a sob. Why am I crying?
He realized in that moment that he wasn’t going to call Regina right now. It was his turn to protect himself. He would let her wait. Maybe he would call sometime after noon and she could call him back this time. Maybe he would answer.
“They’re for sale.” The boy was hunched over with his hands in the box, keeping the other two pups from climbing out, while staring up at Tim’s leaking face.
Tim felt a breeze, a new drop of rain. His angel whispered, “This one, Daddy.”
Life was about to change.
Next
Part 4 | This Storm is Called Progress
4 - The Offer
Behind-the-Scenes Extra
The challenge with this chapter was a matter of breaking my own rule. I had decided long before I started this draft, to keep my POV (point of view) characters to a minimum. I wanted you to feel like you know and understand each of them, because there is enough to confuse a reader with so many stories weaved together.
Tim was not among these POV characters. I was pulling my hair out over this for days. Not literally. But how could I get you to understand what Tim was experiencing through a conversation with Lisa? It wasn’t working. It wasn’t ever going to work. So I crumpled up that rule and threw it into the round file.
And. . . FREEDOM!
Welcome to Tim Cartwright’s mind. Once I made that decision, the next challenge was to pull just the right parts from a relatively long previously polished and re-polished—but never completed or published—short story about Tim’s travels written a few years back.
I massaged the chosen passages into the updated Tim from this novel. Lisa led you in through the conversation with her friend Mary, rather than having the conversation with Tim. I think this works better. I hope you enjoyed it.
We didn’t get to name the puppy yet. But we’ll get there soon enough, and you probably guessed by the name of the chapter, anyway.
Just nine more weeks/chapters to go.
Thank you for hanging in there with me, loyal readers! AND occasional readers. This draft is up to about 85,000 words now. If I were not writing and publishing the draft week by week, there is no doubt in my mind I would not have gotten this far nor would I be so certain I will complete this one.