Mrs. Brown

Chapter One: Never the same.

Mrs. Brown, we’re sorry…
What? What is it? Where’s Will?
Mrs. Brown, I –
Stop it! Where is he? Just tell me where he is!

“Mommy!”
I jump slightly, his cries awakening me from the horrible dream. I know this cry; he’s having a bad dream; involving something like dragons and spiders, mine involving the day my life collapsed. I sigh heavily as I search for my slippers on the floor, fighting back the heavy tears and wiping away the few little ones that have slipped out from when I was dreaming. He’s sitting up in bed when I go in, his eyes big with fear.
“What is it sweetie?” I ask reaching into his crib to take him in my arms. He cuddles into my shoulder and whispers something about a bear. I kiss his forehead and sit with him in the rocking chair. I go back and forth with him, softly humming until his honey eyes grow tired with sleep and soon close for more. I want him to stay in my arms asleep for the rest of the day but I know I am only granted with little sleep.
He sighs softly when I place him back under the covers and continues to breathe lowly. I move back to my room, feeling heavy with fear that my dream will continue as soon as my eyes shut for more rest. So instead of having to face the nightmare again, I walk to the kitchen and set the coffee pot up.
I glance out into the frigid morning as drips and gurgles come from the coffee maker. The rest of the house is still, as is the morning outside, for me it feels like it has been for some time. I go through my day as if in some kind of trance, the only reason I wake every morning is because of the little boy who is softly snoring in his room. My little boy; my two year old son who is oblivious, still, to what happened last week. The only thing he realizes is that mommy is sad, but his small mind cannot figure out why and I cannot find the awful words to explain it to him.
In everyone’s life, there comes a time when they realize that you will have to leave this earth someday, my realization day came on the day when my sweetheart’s ended; April 8. A stupid man, who was more concerned about money then one of his worker’s lives, sent my husband into an unsecured area where a flash fire broke out on the oil rig he was working on. My husband’s life ended that day, and part of mine was taken with him. Never, would I ever be the same without Will. Never.
The last few gurgles of the coffee pot sounded, announcing that it was finished. In slow movements I pour my coffee and try not to think of the details of the horrific day, though I knew much to well that they would be fresh in mind for many years to come.
My mother would be arriving soon, along with my best friend Camilla to check up on me before their lives had to start for the day. My day would consist of trying to block out hideous memories as I played pretend in the grown up way, hiding my fears and worries as my son went on carefree. If only I was just two years old.
I take my coffee into the living room and click the TV on. I sit and stare at the it as if watching it, but really my mind is swirling with thoughts of what I was going to do today and will I ever feel the same. I casually glance at the TV and my breath is caught in my chest as the news again replays the events of the tragedy. I listen as my throat begins to swell with tears. Not wanting to watch anymore, I harshly grabbed the remote control and switched it off. I take two breaths and take a mouthful of my creamed coffee, burning my tongue in the process.
My tiered body urges me to place my steaming cup on the coffee table and close my eyes in rest, but my mind urges me stay awake so there is no chance for me to see my nightmare again. My body wins and I obediently place my mug on the table and curl up on the cool leather couch.

Whimpering cries of my name wake me from my little nap. I place a hand to my eyes to remove the sleep and rush to the room at the end of the hall. I plaster a happy smile on my face and pick up the whimpering baby.
“Good morning, Noah!” I chirp and then kiss his plump cheek. He doesn’t notice my acting and kisses mine back.
“Mommy,” he says, clinging to my neck. I smile at him and place him down on his change table.
“Did you make any stinkies?” I ask him. He giggles even though I know he does not understand. I change his dirty diaper and carry him back out to the kitchen to fix breakfast for him and more coffee for me. I check the time, registering that it is only 8:30.
This is the start of my long day.

It looks like this was double-posted. I suppose you know how to delete a post?

Just thought I'd post that before I give feedback on what you wrote.

Sorry about that. It's all cleared up now

Reviews wanted!

Hey.

First of all, you don't need to keep bumping your thread up: people will read it eventually and start commenting. Just give them some time. (Also, the multiple posts make it seem like you've gotten a few replies already, which sometimes throws people; I know there's been at least a couple of instances where I see that someone's already gotten a couple of critiques so I move on to the next one.)

So you've got a good command of writing but there's a few hiccups in the flow, the content, and the syntax that are kind of distracting.

First thing: semi-colons. A semi-colon joins together two clauses, which is to say two self-contained thoughts. You use them like you might use a colon or a period or even a comma or em dash:

I know this cry; he’s having a bad dream; involving something like dragons and spiders, mine involving the day my life collapsed.

See, the FIRST semi-colon is fine because "I know this cry" and "he's having a bad dream" are two self-contained thoughts. "involving something like dragons and spiders", however, is not. (Also, at this point it's just semi-colon overkill.)

. My little boy; my two year old son who is oblivious, still, to what happened last week.

Ditto this one. The second part of the sentence, the "my two year old son who is oblivious" bit is fine, but "my little boy" isn't a self-contained thought, it's a phrase. So nix the semi-colon.

There are several examples of this throughout the story, so I would suggest going through and looking for them (the Ctrl+F function is nice for that) and swapping them out for the proper syntax of your choice. I think the big problem is you're equating a semi colon with a colon, which is hardly true. For most instances that you use a semi-colon, though, you can easily replace it with that. Improperly used syntax is really distracting.

You also have a few instances of tense-change or small typos ("tiered" instead of "tired"), there's a couple instances of this:

In everyone’s life, there comes a time when they realize that you will have to leave this earth someday, my realization day came on the day when my sweetheart’s ended; April 8.

A bit of proofreading can solve all of that. I'm a huge proponent of printing out your story and reading it out loud — all of the things your eyes skip over on the screen or on the page become pretty apparent, and all of your minor flow issues or small typos are pretty noticeable too.

A few things:

- I'm not really sure of the timeline of his death, because you say he died on "April 8" but you also say it's frigid outside. I can buy that it's still really cold at the beginning of April (because, well, this year it was) but there's another minor hiccup. It's been long enough since his death that she's having nightmares about it but the fact that the news is picking up on it suggests that it is one to two days old.

- A minor thing, but would she really fallen asleep after having gulped down a cup of coffee?

And finally: again, you've got a good handle on writing and a decent premise, but a whole lot of nothing happens in this chapter. I feel like this could easily be condensed to a scene or (at max) two scenes, but the entire process of her moving around and brooding and making coffee and looking out the window and watching tv and napping was kind of laborious and mundane. I feel like you could condense this a lot more — a lot of this stuff could be tightened or shortened or eliminated. I'm not a huge fan of her internal monologuing of her husband's death; I suspect a few throwaway sentences throughout the chapter when dealing with her son or doing other small things would be equally effective.

Instead of saying that her life would never be the same (which is kind of obvious, and a bit of a cliche), show us how she's kind of losing the will to live. And also how her son is the only thing that keeps her going. I think you're doing an okay job of it thus far but the way she talks to her boy might reflect this a little more: she might be a little more concerned, a little more obsessive, meticulous about putting him back to bed and getting him to fall asleep. Make them her only lively moments in her otherwise dreary day.

I'm interested to see how this story shapes up; good luck on editing and good luck on writing further chapters. If you have any questions or comments or need me to specify/clarify/whatever, just send me a PM and I'll be happy to help. : )