- Romance
- Shards of Crystal
- Page 4
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Her eyes lit up. "A bit."
"Maybe you can join me and Mrs. Bianchi when we check out florists." The tears were coming again, and it looked like she was going to start coming towards me for another hug. "Okay, gotta go. I'll send you the details."
I walked the rest of way to the subway somehow feeling lighter in spite of the life and extra weight I was carrying within me. It wasn't until I was sitting on the train that I realized that I called her 'Mom'.
AMANDA
"Amanda, you have her phone number. She'll take your call. Why do I see you every time I turn around?"
"Because you're the key that opens the heart of our daughter. You know that. You know how she thinks and what she thinks of me. I need you and I need your help."
"You're kidding. You want me to help you ingratiate yourself with Rebecca? You want me to go to bat for you?"
"Okay, Manny, maybe we could just spend some time together. Us. You're not married, and I don't think you're seeing anyone. Maybe if we just got to know each other again you can see that helping me with Crystal would be helping her. I hate what you did, but one thing is clear, you love that girl to death. Do it for her."
He looked at her, his incredulity obvious. "Spend some time together? Are you out of your mind? Jeremy dies, so it's forgive and forget? This isn't some ridiculous romance where you go back and find your first love, the father of your daughter, and reconcile. There's no happily ever after where the two of us are anything more than our daughter's parents. Stay away from me and I'll stay away from you. Looking for a relationship with your daughter? That's on you."
REBECCA
"Ladies and gentleman, we'd like to ask the father of the bride and Rebecca to the dance floor."
The wedding planner had suggested a few songs for the father-daughter dance, and I chose Billy Joel's "Lullabye". It was a sweet, sad song about fathers and daughters and always made me a bit maudlin. Dad took my hand, and the guests parted as we made our way to the floor.
When we got to the center of the dance floor, he leaned in and spoke softly. "I didn't want you to cry."
In spite of how much we were paying for a live band, I felt an electric thrill go through me when I heard the recorded opening of a song we had danced to often when I was a child. The tears still came, but they were joyous as we danced our asses off to Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl". Dad sang along to the lyrics as tears streamed down his face.
I don't know how Dad arranged it, but we were standing in front of Marco as the song ended. My father hugged me, kissed my cheek and placed my hand in Marco's before walking off the dance floor and to Sofia. She slipped into his arms as the next song started and she looked like she belonged there.
I lay my arms over my husband's shoulders and molded my pregnant body to his as we slowly danced the night away.
"Do you remember when we used to sing
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da, la te da"
I'd like to thank the good people of the Left Foot, Right Foot Society for their assistance and support. Thanks also goes out to Stev2244 for beta-reading and to Randi for editing. Some additional writing was done post-edit, so any errors you may find are solely my responsibility.
I know a number of first responders, including some that were involved with terrorist attacks. My gratitude goes out to them and anyone else that rushes in while others are rushing out.
Looking for another story to read? I'd recommend "The Death of a Cuckold". It's a well written, poignant story about the love of a parent.
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- COMMENTS
Anonymous6 months agoNo decent and complete game being to nicely finish off the story - again!!!!!!
Obviously your writing style.
We give up and moving on - permanently……..
Nitpicover 1 year agoThe ending seemed abrupt.A bit rushed maybe.I think this story had more to offer.No mention for example of the details of who his ex wife married and Marco family and business.
Ginger630about 2 years agoWas there a point to this story? The back and forth usually doesn’t bother me in story, but this was ridiculous. The story just…ends. There’s no resolution. No big drama or meltdown? The kidnapping was intense in the beginning, but barely seemed to matter in the end?!
RanDog025over 2 years agoHonestly, I have read tens of thousands of Novels, article, etc, etc,,, being an Editor, just part of the job. Some of the Authors audience apparently does not know how to read a story and has not read enough to recognize and ending from the beginning or words and meanings in between! Apparent by the comments. Thank you Bebop for a beautiful but short Love Story! 5 BIG FAT AND SHINY STARS!
Anonymousover 2 years agoTo be honest I don't know what I am reading. The to and fro make it very difficult to understand. Sorry about that and I personally think it worth only 3 🌟🔯🌟🔯🌟.
orestes08almost 3 years agoI legit have no idea what this story is supposed to be about. It started as a story about a father kidnapping his daughter from her mother was attempting to do so first. Interesting premise, let's see where it goes... Oh, it doesn't go anywhere, we just aren't going to deal with it at all until she's an adult? Weird but what else you got. Oh, her dad must have working in intelligence since he thought he could have stopped 9/11 attacks from occurring, okay maybe now we'll get some background on him and develop him as a character.... Oh, we aren't going to do that either, she just wants to be a cop now? Super boring boilerplate love arc for the daughter with accompanying (single) bland sex scene. Oh, she's meeting her mother, maybe now we'll pay off that setup and.... wtf nothing? The only conflict in this story is between the reader hoping the story will lead somewhere and develop either a theme, a plot, or even a single character; and the story that stubbornly refuses to do so. It's literally a minefield of unfired Chekhov's guns in here. Not to mention that we never even hear the mother's side of the story.
magenta9959over 4 years agoFTDS hits the nail on the head. Boom, and its over. It would be nice if the story were at all finished, but this comes out of the oven mostly raw. Underdeveloped characters aren't a fatal flaw, and a bit too common here on Lit (plainly a more difficult proposition than stylistic or grammatical errors to remedy via non-professional editing), but there's just no backstory to get us to understand Amanda or Manny -- or Marco, even. Bebop3 writes well, and what he gives us usually is better than this. I'm sure I'm not alone in welcoming a major revision and expansion to flesh things out. But maybe that's just my view. 5* for the idea, sure, but only 4* for the execution.
Schwanze1over 4 years agoYour work is appreciated. After reading the Montauk stories my thought is, you are a certifiable fucking genius. Enjoyed the hell out of this one too.
Sam3501almost 5 years agoIt would be ni e if it was finished. Many lose ends not explained. Hinting that the father is so kind of government agent but never explaining any of it.
No story about why the mother did what she did. It was not a very good story.
AutistAdventurerabout 5 years agoFactual correction: it's not that polygraphs are "easy to beat", they aren't half as easy as people think, they're not used because of a specific mathematical 'paradox' which means that they are essentially a coin toss when identifying criminals *even though they can be amazingly accurate*. It's the same paradox that makes a 99% test wrong 9 times out of 10 when you're dealing with comparatively uncommon diseases (uncommon in the target testing population).
Since the Anglo-American criminal court system relies on 'beyond reasonable doubt' almost no countries will allow the use of them as they can easily be used to introduce reasonable doubt.
That's why.
Anonymousabout 5 years agoThe secondary story (Crystal & Marco) nearly fits in Romance.
The main story is not at all romantic. It's very one sided. We hear how an egotistical megalomaniac Manny indoctrinates his daughter into believing his version of events. We never hear Amanda's full version of history.
I was hoping for all to be revealed (maybe Mum and Daughter reconciling) but it suddenly ended very abruptly with Dad yet again being the hero. The ending only confirmed that Rebecca/Crystal had been brainwashed.
BTW. Polygraphs have been proven to so unreliable and easy to beat that they haven't been used for many years.
blackrandl1958about 5 years agoA fine story, sir. Please write another. Make sure those socks are on the right feet and always remember, it is Yeet, or be Yeeted! Randi.
Anonymousabout 5 years agoto add several more chapters to this story. I was going along really great and then you just stopped rather abruptly and leave us with so many unanswered questions. Please continue with this story to it's conclusion.
Thanks!
