The boy stood outside his brother's room and looked at the crib where he was sleeping.
He stared at the ground and took a few hesitant steps towards where he was. Moonlight streaming in through the only window in the room casted a hypnotic effect on his pale face and the boy starred. He looked so peaceful, his chest rising and falling with every breath he took, his tiny fingers curling and uncurling around the teddy he held tightly against his side.
How could he look at that face, calm and oblivious, and still be angry? It was unfair, he realized, ridiculous even, to hold something against him that he was not even aware of. He wasn't sure if he would still feel the same way in the harsh light of the morning, when he wasn't standing in his presence and looking at him, and yet, right then in that moment, he couldn't help but notice the peaceful ignorance on his face and feel that somehow he was safer and happier because of it. He wondered briefly if that was how people began to let go, but he realized that it did not matter.
He was no longer going to blindly aim his unresolved emotions at people who deserved better. His brother was just a child. He wouldn't ever know how the gentle rise and fall of his chest or the fluttering of his breath on some random night in his babyhood would change everything for him, but the boy would remember. He would remember the moment he walked away from his brother's crib, with his head held high and the lingering sense of pride in his heart.
He knew it wasn't over. His anger and resentment weren't gone, but they had walls around them now, walls that understood and listened and were ready to take the hit when needed. And he felt much peaceful because of them.
During dinner that night, while his mother went off to see after his brother, the boy turned to his father.
"Dad?" he asked, "What happened to Grandpa?" He did not know why he asked that question, except that he wanted to know.
His father stopped tossing the food around his plate with the fork. "What do you mean?" he asked confused, "My father? What would happen to him?"
"Well, you don't really talk about him. And I don't even remember seeing him," the boy explained. He wondered why he had never asked about him before, but he realized he had never had much time for wondering before the old man.
"You saw him when you were a baby, once or twice, I guess," he sighed. "Your grandfather was a very jolly man. He used to laugh and joke with the first person he came across in the street. But then, he went in the war and nothing was same again. He came back a different person. He couldn't see very well, but he refused to take his glasses or the medication he required."
The boy remembered the old man talking about the war and his glassy eyes staring at the water, seeing something that he could never see.
"It was alright at first," his father continued, "But as I grew up we disagreed on some things and then one thing led to another and I walked out when I was 17. I met your mother after that and we decided to start a family. But then your grandmother passed away around the same time you were born and it was then that he finally lost it."
The boy looked at him quietly and watched the sadness in his eyes as he remembered. "I never realized how much he loved and depended on my mother until I saw who he became without her. I tried visiting him after her death, but he wouldn't see me, he wouldn't see anyone."
The boy swallowed. He had been curios about his grandfather ever since he had started spending his afternoons with the old man. He had wondered if all old people were as strange as the old man and that road of thought had eventually led him to his grandparents and all that he didn't know about them. But now that he knew, he did not what to feel for the man - angry that he had never wished to see his grandson in the eleven years of his life, or sorry that he had lost all that he had in his life. He thought about the war and how the old man talked about war sometimes like he was still living it. Not like he was affected by it or anything, but like he was still there and he could see everything. War had not yet left him and maybe it never really left anybody.
"What was he like?" he asked.
His father smiled. "He was kind, and honest and careless to the point it made you laugh. And he loved children - he had a way with them that made them feel special and understood. Sometimes, when I looked at him, I could see the child in him too, at least before the war I could, and it used to make me feel like I had a companion in the house, a friend within the family."
The boy was quiet. It occurred to him suddenly that his father had once been a boy too, that he too had a life, had emotions as strange and varying as he did sometimes, and he knew so little about it, about him.
"Do you miss him?" he asked.
"Every day."
"Where does he live?"
"Here."
"Here?" he chocked on his food. "You mean in this town? And you never went back?"
His father's face contorted. "Don't say that. I tried. But he changed his address, his number and he never informed anyone. You think I don't feel guilty every day for not being a better son to him? You think I wouldn't go to him and beg for forgiveness if I could?"
No one said anything for a while and there was just the sound of his breathing. The boy could still hear the anger in his voice ricocheting off the walls and waited silently as the seconds ticked by. And then -
"I am sorry."
"I know," the boy said.
"Dad?" he called, and his father looked at him, "It's not your fault."
The boy really had no way to know if it was; he didn't know about their fight. But he knew something about misplaced anger. Besides, he had felt that his father had needed to hear that in the moment, and so he had said it. Without thinking.
"He would have loved you," his father said with a smile, and of course he had no way to know that either. He reached for his hand across the table and squeezed it.
"I know it hasn't been easy for you since your brother came along. But we really are doing the best we can, I want you to know that."
The boy looked at his father this time and said, "I know."
Because he did. He really did.
End of chapter
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140,293 Literary Works • 673,080 Reviews
Hi there RandomTalks! Lim here with another review in a slightly different format.
For first impressions, I finished the chapter thinking ‘Wow, a lot happened!’. I had mixed feelings about suddenly seeing the boy’s father appear, because unless I’m forgetting something, he wasn’t really in the story before now. The possibility that the old man by the lake might be the boy’s grandfather seems to be teased very heavily in this chapter, which is also something I hadn’t considered before now. I always thought he was just a random mysterious old man.
The scene with the boy and the brother felt like a pretty satisfying pay-off from the conflict that has been building up since the first chapter. Even though there’s still a few chapters left, I think it makes sense in terms of the boy’s character progression for him to make peace with the idea of having a brother here, rather than at the very end of the story.
I didn’t really get a sense of the father’s personality in the one scene he was in. I was mostly focused on the exposition he was delivering, so by the end of the chapter I still don’t quite understand what he’s like. The boy’s character is pretty consistent, and for a story that focuses on characters’ internal states of mind, I think the paragraphs of his thoughts on his father work pretty well.
Plot
I thought there was a good sense of plot progression in the two scenes of this chapter. In the first one, the boy makes a resolution to himself to treat his brother better, and in the second one, a question is opened up as to who the old man really is. The second scene also links to the first one with the boy demonstrating his newfound emotional maturity by comforting his father and saying that he does understand the family is doing their best.
I like that the boy’s anger is said not to disappear entirely. The metaphor of the walls was pretty insightful, and it seems to make for a more realistic progression for his emotional development. At this point, I’m wondering what it will be like if the father really meets the grandfather again, and what exactly happened to make him leave in the first place.
Setting
I think I would have liked to see more description of the setting during the boy’s conversation with his father.
This line sets the initial scene quite well, and frames a quiet conversation with just the two of them. The parts I find hard to imagine would be what the general atmosphere is like. Is it bright? Is it dim? Is the brother crying or making noise in the other room or is everything quiet? Where are the boy and the father sitting at the table? Next to each other, or on opposite sides? That sort of description I think could help make this part more vivid.
I liked the setting description for the first half of the story, especially how you use nature to create a certain mood. The nature descriptions are really strong throughout your writing, for instance with the lake, and the description of the weather in the first chapter.
This description of the moonlight makes the atmosphere seem very quiet and magical, and I like how that works with the boy contemplating his younger brother’s innocence.
That’s all
Hopefully you found some of these comments helpful. Feel free to chat with me about anything else in the story you’d like feedback on or if something I said was unclear.
Cheers and keep writing!
-Lim
Banner courtesy of @ImaginativeAlice
Thank you for the review!
You are right, I do need to set some setting for the dinner scene.
Hi RandomTalks,
Mailice here with a short review!
I like the approach you have taken here with this chapter. The focus has developed into a reflection after the many visits to the old man, which the reader can marvel at here for the first time through the lines. I like the way you have built it up in this way, and through it, success.
The focus was very much on the boy and his inner world. You portrayed that well in many moments and reflected his thoughts through that. I really liked the dialogues between father and son. You managed to give them both a voice of their own and one could hear how the father's amazement at the question developed into a kind of sadness. I thought it was a very good point in general, how you showed once again that the boy has changed and now also shows compassion and empathy towards his fellow human beings / his own family.
One point that I didn't find so good, however, was the question about the boy's grandfather. It's very clear that you're implying that the old man at the lake is the boy's grandfather and I think that's a twist that I don't like so much because it takes away the illusion that the two characters don't know each other. Now they are connected by blood and think that the whole story and the old man's tales are more of a redemption than a help to the boy. One question that remains unanswered for me is whether the old man knows this too, or whether there is still a question on the part of the boy.
Apart from this rather obvious set-up, I thought the chapter was well written because, as repetitive, you could clearly see that the boy was going through a reflection and change.
I like how you keep it so short and yet make a very pertinent point. I suppose some readers who have a younger brother/sister can relate to how they felt when the attention was focused on someone younger. And yet it's normal human behaviour if you don't understand it.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Thanks for the review! When I first wrote the story, I too was a little doubtful about the twist as I thought it would shift focus from the main element of the story which is the development and growth of the boy. But neither of them are aware of the fact that they are related by blood and they won't be until the very end. I hope that doesn't change the way you have felt about this story too much.
This twist is not going to completely change my thoughts for the story now. I just found it a bit generic.
Heyyy! Forever Here for a short review!
Isn't that a plot twist? 👀 And didn't you say that the story is not gonna have one until the end? Whatever it is, but oh! That was an awesome plot twist to be honest. I wonder why the boy didn't actually realise that the old man was his grandfather after hearing to his dad? Or the old man is not actually his grandfather? I will strongly go with the former that the old man is actually the grandfather of the boy. Now I wonder if the old man knows it that the boy is his grandson...
The good thing is that the boy has finally changed(I am yet to know wholly or half) but he has changed. Now, he has learnt to control himself, construct a barrier around everything negative. There are now a lot of changes in him which i can clearly see. He is now understanding people and in general, he is understanding the truths which he didn't use to understand.
I have a doubt about your story tho. How did the father know that his father lived in the town? He should know by some means. When he has changed his address, how did he know that he has shifted to somewhere else in the very town and not in another? I just need some clarification on the topic.
Here, the question mark does not seem to continue. I am not very sure about it but it just read odd to me and so I told.
Overall, this was a great one and your story... Is it coming to an end? And yes, pls tag me when you post the next chapter.
Keep writing!
~Forever
I cannot believe this. Was that really so easy to figure out? Guess I shouldn't have made it so obvious....And yes, how would the boy's father know that his grandfather still lived in that town? Maybe because he knew that a man who lost everything would not want to leave the place where he once had everything? I will need to figure that out. And the boy does not suspect anything because to him the old man and the lake represent a whole different world, he even believes that the old man does not belong to the world outside. Also, yes this will have 2 more parts. And as always, thank you for the review!
Oh good! It was not obvious until this chapter. When you started to figure out those similarities, it was kind of obvious. And waiting for the two more parts. That makes sense why the boy couldn't understand that
Oh good! It was not obvious until this chapter. When you started to figure out those similarities, it was kind of obvious. And waiting for the two more parts. That makes sense why the boy couldn't understand that