Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Rebuilding.

We stood there, surveying the charred, broken remnants of our house. Nothing stood upright any more. Metal had melted into slag, stone had cracked and crumbled, and everything else had been seared into ashes. My mother and father were absolutely silent.

The last time my mom had been there was three years ago, when she had packed all of her stuff into the Mercedes and driven off. It was the culmination of years of fighting and arguing. My brother and I were off at boarding school and college by then, but we always knew it would happen someday. Their squabbles were usually over something petty, like where to eat dinner, but they happened so frequently that we knew they had to belie a deeper incompatibility.

That seems like so long ago. Once my mother moved out, her relationship with my father improved dramatically. My dad drives up every now and then to visit her in Fremont, and when I see them together they are happy.

A gentle rain began to fall, as if to rinse away the ashes' painful memories of fire and destruction.

"You know what?" my mom says. "I saved the Mercedes."

We drove away, laughing.

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