Agonizing
Over Decisions
If you want to show tension in a story, choose a circumstance where a character agonizes over a past decision as opposed to one that needs to be made. For all the synonyms for agonize, struggles, suffers, I like torture or torment yourself the best. If you have ever been torn between choosing which one of two very important values to follow, then you know how challenging that can be. However, once a decision is made and can’t be reversed it is done. Now, live with it. Get on with your life. The torture is over.
Not so when a person has difficulty accepting their past decision even if it can’t be changed. Here the torture begins with no end in sight. Starving for that second-best choice means peace is absent. What other possible solutions could there have been? Is there any way that the missing value can yet be regained? Must I settle for memories of what was and what could have been?
Let’s make this torturous situation concrete. A husband asks his wife, “What would most make you happy?” Her answer, “to move to the city.” In my book, Baggage burdens. Joseph must whether to give up living on the farm where he has spent most of his adult life. Family memories and multiple successes and friends tug a Joseph’s heart. What chance does his wife have? And yet he once said his wife was the most important thing in his life. The possibility of having to choose between the two had never entered his mind.
However, his struggle is nowhere as tormenting as Jill’s. Jill chose to leave her loving and very able grandmother and move far away to a place where she knew no one. On the surface Jill’s action seems unreasonable. And in part she senses she made a mistake, but another value has greater importance––safety. At play here is the love of Josie, her grandmother, and by Jill’s own words, the heavenly home provided for her by Josie. This is countered by Jill’s fear of what might happen if she stayed. Jill intuitively knows she didn’t give her grandmother a chance to keep her safe. All Jill can do is remember the respect she has for Josie and the joy she had spending the summer in Josie’s mansion. Recapturing that situation teases her frequently.
In the first of the two excerpts below sample the tug of Joseph’s farm life. In the second read of Jill’s regret of leaving her grandmother, a feeling that haunted her for more than twenty years.
Joseph’s offer to do something to make Jill happy obligates a response. Hoping to hide his concern, he looks down.
The long silence, too long in Joseph’s mind, ends with him pleading, “I’ll need some time to think about this.” Jill’s hand lightly touches his shoulder. He looks up at her.
“This is no demand,” she says gently. “You asked what would make me happy.” After Joseph nods, she adds, “There’s no rush on this. Still, it would make a wonderful birthday present.” She flashes a smile and ducks as if she is about to be hit over the head. “I think I hear Matt.”
Joseph doesn’t hear anything. Her request has blocked everything else out.
Jill pushes her chair away and escapes to the house.
For five minutes, Joseph fidgets on the lounger. Bottled energy needs to be released. He walks down the driveway. His foot kicks a lone loose stone, knocking the memory of Robert Pashka spreading a load of crushed three-quarter-inch rock on his then soft, muddy driveway. Three springs in a row, Robert brought and spread a load. He didn’t charge once. Robert said his boss owed him a favor. The driveway is a firm, packed surface now even when a heavy rains falls. I never repaid him, thinks Joseph.
As Joseph meanders east down his two-hundred-yard driveway, a six-foot-diameter tractor tire jogs another memory. Evan Starzak’s wife bugged him about the tires littering their place. Joseph agreed to take them off Evan’s hands if he could take all five. Joseph placed them in forty-foot intervals near his driveway. He planted a tree in each tire—three apple trees, a crab apple tree, and a flowering plum. They all took. Joseph’s theory that the soil in the tires would hold water during dry spells proved correct on two hot summers. Joseph sold his apples and crab apples at the market. As a joke every year, he brought a pail of apples for Evan and his wife to show them what they were missing out on. Joseph stands on the driveway admiring the trees.
When his eyes rest on the eighteen-year-old workshop, history grabs ahold of his heart. A dry, wooden single-car garage had served his Uncle Mike as a toolshed for years. The second fall that Joseph lived on this farm, the shed burned down. Thomas came to investigate. All he saw was a heap of charred remains. He guessed that when Joseph was burning his garbage, the wind carried live sparks. They landed on the dry grass. The shed immediately caught fire. Joseph was thankful no machines or other buildings burned. Having forgotten to purchase insurance on the building and its contents, he found himself with no money to rebuild the shed and buy new tools. He questioned whether he should continue to farm.
Within two weeks, a dozen men from the church pulled into his yard. Two trucks hauled lumber, and a third carried cement, sand, and other supplies. Before Joseph could ask what was going on, Thomas hopped on Joseph’s tractor and scraped open an area for a twenty-six by twenty-four-foot garage. Men began setting up frames for a pony wall while others prepared to mix cement. Within three days, Joseph had a new garage. He marveled at the generosity of the community.
The next morning, Karen and Jill eat an early breakfast. They load the vehicle. As Karen drives away, the full reality of Jill’s plan hits her. I’m leaving the only place I ever really felt safe, felt loved.A desperate “Wait a minute” escapes Jill’s lips.
“Second thoughts?” whispers Karen.
Jill turns around, looks out the back window, and soaks in the morning sunlit driveway and her grandmother’s house. She absorbs the memories of her summer at Josey’s house. After a couple of minutes, Jill readjusts herself in the passenger’s seat.
Karen ventures a hesitant, “You ready?”
Jill nods, afraid her voice will expose her sorrow and leave her vulnerable to reassessing her decision. Nervously, Jill steals a glance at her driver
Karen leaves the radio off as she drives to the railway station. The silence, an opportunity to hear a crack in Jill’s resolve, doesn’t come. Together at the train station Jill purchases her ticket.
Karen carries a taped cardboard box holding Jill’s notes and books from school and the Brick Theatre. Partially hidden beneath a white string, wrapped more times than is necessary around the cardboard box, is a small photo album of Jill’s three-month stay at her grandmother’s place. It rests securely at the top of the box where Jill can easily see it.
Jill notices Karen focusing on her album.
Karen guesses. “A history of the days at your grandmother’s?”
“Just special memories.”
“You’re like your grandmother. You both love the place. Maybe it’ll bring you back.”
“Not likely.” Jill initiates a short goodbye, afraid her resolve will fail. Karen leaves, looking back once. It’s the last time she sees her good friend.
Jill boards the train and sets her carry-on bag containing some apples, some oranges, sandwiches, and a few cans of apple juice on the seat beside her, hoping it will prevent anyone from sitting next to her. The window seat provides maximum exposure to the sun’s warm rays, a needed comfort. The seat reclines just as Karen said it would. With her eyes closed, she imagines being back on her grandmother’s balcony, lying on the lounger, soaking up the sun’s rays. The clickity-clack, clickity-clack of the train’s wheels assures her there is no chance of turning back. The gentle rocking invites a nap.
After almost an hour on the train, the coach door slams with a bang like a student deliberately dropping a book on the floor for maximum effect. Jill hears the noise but doesn’t stir.
A familiar, annoying, male growl denounces her. “Bone head! You don’t deserve anyone’s love.”
Jill’s felt truth muzzles her from attacking her dream-accuser. She replays the image of Karen’s disappointed look when she told her friend that she wouldn’t reconsider meeting with Dave. At least she understands. Karen’s “You ready?” at the driveway and her last hopeful glance at the train station strengthen Jill’s feeling that she doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. The choice to miss Josey’s hugs deepens the accuser’s damning charge.
haiku capsule:
wrong choice suspected
too late to reconsider
hope voices “maybe not.”
Nextblog: Best Friends
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What’s your worst example of second guessing yourself?
I’d love to use it on my new website that’s being developed.
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