BROKEN

A Very Short Story By Watson

1.

When Stan walked into the kitchen he was equally surprised, alarmed and bewildered to find his wife sobbing. In the eight years they had been married he had only seen Annie cry twice. The first time was when she had broken her hand on a camping trip. The second time was when she heard her father had suffered a massive stroke. Stan understood these reasons and shared, at least emotionally, the pain she was going through. But this morning it was entirely different and he found himself clueless as to how to respond. So his watched silently as Annie and Gina, their four year old daughter, sat at the breakfast table trying to fit together all of the fragments of a supper dish that had been broken into a dozen odd-shaped pieces. The dish had been part of a wedding gift, a complete set of fine china that, except for certain holiday occasions and favored guests, was rarely used. While Stan could certainly understand being a little upset by the untimely demise of a piece of china he could not possibly imagine how such an occurrence could warrant the shedding of tears, much less the deep, soul-shaking sobbing he was witnessing. So he quitely watched and waited for a clue to respond to.

2.

With her delicate, childish hands little Gina matched two of the larger fragments and glowed with pride as she grinned triumphantly at her mother.

"See, Mommy, it can be fixed. Daddy can fix it for us. He can fix anything."

With tears still tickling down her cheeks Annie suddenly looked up, as if knowing her husband had been watching all along.

"Can you, Honey? Can you fix it?" she asked. "Maybe. Sure," he replied. "I can glue it back together."

"See, I told you so, Mommy," Gina boasted.

 "But even if I did it would never look right," Stan added with a touch of caution. "And it would always look and feel out of place and everyone would know it was a broken dish and that it’s been glued back together."

"I suppose you’re right," Annie admitted, unable to conceal the pain of acknowledgment.

"Honey, it’s not worth getting upset over," Stan offered her as his concept of comfort. "We’ll just call your Mom and find out what store it was bought at, then call the manufacturer and order a replacement. They always keep replacements in stock."

"Yeah, you’re right," she replied with a half-hearted smile. "It’s silly to get upset over."

Stan glanced at the clock on then wall, then gave Annie a gentle squeeze on the arm.

"Honey, I’ve got to go get dressed or we’ll be late. Are you okay now?"

She nodded yes and waived him away. But as Stan reached the door he turned back towards her.

"It you’re not up to it I’ll call the hospital and cancel the Chemo today.

" "No, no, I’m fine now," she declared, pushing the broken fragments aside to demonstrate how the silly crises was past tense.

3.

 "What’s a repiecement?" Gina asked moments after her father had left the room.

"You mean replacement," Annie replied with a chuckle. "It means a new dish that looks like the old one so we can throw the broken one away."

"And it would be a set again?"

"Sure. A complete set again. I guess you can get replacement parts for just about anything these days," Annie added as she pushed her chair away from the table. "Now come give your Mommy a big hug."

Gina hopped off her chair and scampered towards her mother’s arms. With a stifled, though still audible, cry of physical pain Annie pulled her daughter up into her lap.

"What’s wrong, Mommy?"

 "Your Mommy gets tired easy these days," Annie admitted tenderly. "I suppose you could say I’ve gotten broken."

 "But people can be fixed. People ain’t dishes. Doctors fix people all the time, don’t they?"

 "Let’s hope so, baby. Let’s hope so."