Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Dead End (02/06/14)
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TITLE: A Path Less Traveled | Previous Challenge Entry
By Barbara Mahler
02/11/14 -
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Mark’s about face behavior was not like him. It was not the demeanor of the kind, loving man Beth had come to know during their two-year courtship that had begun with a phone call from him.
“I’m about to do something I haven’t done in more than thirty years,” the familiar voice announced when Beth answered the phone that evening.
“O…kay I’m curious, what… are you about to do?”
“Ask you for a date,” Mark blurted out all in one breath. “Jen is invited too. Please don’t think you have to leave her home alone...I know you two always do things together,” he continued.
Beth and Mark knew each other as members of the same church. They each had grown children who had graduated from the same school many years before – the elementary school that Jen now attended. But otherwise their lives had been very different.
Beth was a struggling single-parent who had been married to her children’s father for thirty years when they divorced six years earlier leaving Beth with custody of Jen.
A few years before, Beth’s neighbors recommended Mark when she asked if they knew a reputable electrician. A previous contractor had begun replacing the outdated house wiring, but never returned to complete the much needed work.
“You know Mark…”Trish and Mike reassured her, “from church…you can rely on him”
More than a year after his wife’s death, Mark’s phone call and too-hard-to-resist invitation culminated in Beth and her twelve year old daughter being treated to a sumptuous Sunday dinner and the pleasure of his company in a restaurant – not affordable on Beth’s single-parent budget.
Phone calls – unlike the surprise first one, became daily exchanges of love and plans, hopes and dreams. His loving attentions - sending flowers to work, holding doors and always reaching for her hand when they walked made her feel loved and cared for – feelings that she had not known for many years. The church community expressed their stamp of approval on the new couple often remarking, “Mark is smiling again…they seem so happy.”
But Mark’s “will you marry me?” question caught Beth off guard – she didn’t have a quick answer. She was troubled by recurring incidents that began soon after their first date. Mark’s daughter, Carol, who lived in Mississippi with her husband and infant son, surprised her father with an impromptu visit. Mark readily admitted that his daughter had come to check on their dating – a disconcerting event for her.
An incident involving Jen came to light one day when she called her mother at work to tell her that Mark had said, “even if things don’t work out with your mother and me…I’ll still take you to Disney World.”
Beth’s first marriage experience, though obviously not healthy, caused a lack of trust in her own instincts – that Mark’s daughter was not happy about her father going on with his life with another woman – not her mother – that perhaps Carol would interfere.
Beth found reassurance in the fact that Carol lived several hundred miles away – and had her own life. After all, she thought, she would be marrying Mark – not his family. She accepted Mark’s proposal – they married and began their life together. Beth and Mark celebrated their marriage and Jen’s graduation with a trip to Disney World for four – including Jen’s best friend.
A few days after the wedding, Carol called Beth and asked, “Why doesn’t my father want anything to do with my mother’s family?”
While it seemed that Beth was successful in reassuring Carol – reasoning that her father just needed some time to adjust to his new life, within a few months, Carol enlisted her father’s assistance to find a suitable house, and moved her family to within several miles of the home that her father and his new wife shared.
When the marriage counselor advised Beth and Mark that there were, in fact, three people in their marriage, Mark became enraged. The marriage was brought to an abrupt end before it had a chance to begin.
(Fiction)
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Jen's introduction seemed a tad sudden and then she was 12 and next thing graduating.Perhaps she was graduating from middle school. I know the word limit can be difficult to work around.
You did a nice job building the suspense. When he said he'd take Jen to Disney no matter what,my mind whirred in all directions. Your message is good too. Marriage is not to be taken lightly. Good job.
Check out Jan's Writing Basics on the message boards.It's wonderful for all levels of writing and now she is reviewing the criteria the judges use. :-)
God bless~