So, here we have it, the rough draft of Luke Alexander’s scene. Poor Luke has a dark, riddled past, which we’ll uncover as we go along. But he’s also a hero, so although he is very uncomfortable with being around his deteriorating father, I wanted to also show that he is the kind of guy who will do the right think when needed. Since the inciting incident of the story has already begun with MacKenzie, I wanted to spend more time on normal world with Luke, show the kind of person he is. His journey will start when MacKenzie happens upon the scene.

Here are the SHARP elements of the HOOK I started with: (for a class on these elements, go to the My Book Therapy shop and download I got a Bite! or search the archives for HOOK).

S –Stakes – his father is losing ground every day. He wishes he could prove to his father he was a hero? Wishes he could rewrite time? It’s too soon to lose him – really wanted his father to think of him as a hero. But he had too many nightmares to let that happen.
H – Hero Sympathy – his pain at losing his father, and knowing that he can’t break free of his regrets.
A – Anchoring – Tennessee, small town, nursing home
R – On the Ruh – at the party, his nephew is lost
P – Story Problem: Can he ever fix his mistakes?

The key in back-story is to hint, just enough, without going into detail. And I really wanted to raise curiosity about his back-story without giving it away…so we’re going to play a game. Go to VOICES, and in the discussion about chapter one, list all the back-story hints/elements you’ve found…and tell me what you think happened. (Hint – I tweaked it for freshness a bit…)

Chapter 1.2

Reverend William Archibald Lewis Alexander, the third, former pastor of the Normandy Ridge Bible Baptist church, decorated Vietnam Vet, widower husband of thirty-five faithful years to Miss Darlene Parker, and father of two grown children and one precocious grandson, and resident of room number 172 of the east wing of the Normandy Ridge Resident Center was having a good day. 

           At least that’s what Missy Guinn reported when she wheeled him into the community room, and set the brakes on his wheelchair, adjusted his soiled bib, and patted him on the shoulder before leaving him to celebrate his seventy-second birthday with a family he only sometimes recognized. 

          Luke ran his gaze over his father, the familiar coil of panic beginning to spin in his chest as he took in his father’s shiny eyes, the soggy dress shirt, his big, misshapen hands positioned on the tray on his chair, the way he lilted to the side. 

           Stay.  Just until the cake. 

         “Hey Daddy.”  Ruthann pressed a kiss to the old man’s tissue paper cheek and wiped the corner of his mouth.  “Happy Birthday.” 

          She stepped away, and it seemed to Luke that maybe the old man followed with his eyes.  Or perhaps that could be wishful thinking.

          Still, Luke couldn’t move from his post by the wide picture windows overlooking the grounds, chilled under the crisp Tennessee air, the grass yellow and crunchy, the oaks still, their bare arms reaching up to the murky gray sky, as if in supplication for spring. 

         “Unca Luke, look at me!” 

          Luke turned just in time to catch his six year old nephew, Trevor, as the kid sailed by in an unoccupied wheelchair.  Luke caught the back handle, arrested the forward motion. 

         “Whoa there, Andretti. Whose wheels did you boost?” 

         Trevor gave him a grin, a gap where his two front teeth should be.  “I dunno – I found it over there.”   He pointed to a gathering of the elderly watching Jeopardy.  Or, appearing to watch Jeopardy.  Luke pinpointed the victim of the lost wheels as the tiny woman snoozing in the recliner. 

         “Return the hotrod, pal.”  Luke gave him a slight push.  “But keep it under the speed limit.”  

         “Always a cop, even when you’re not out in the park.”  Ruthann pushed her father to the table, where she’d already lit the chocolate layer cake, smoke curling from the chunky number seven and two.  

         “Come over here and blow out these candles with us, Luke.”  She shot him an undisguised, help make this good for daddy, expression of annoyance. 

Hey, he’d wanted to do this outside, maybe bundle up the old man, wheel him out to a picnic table, let him smell anything other than the trapped, piped in air that probably, slowly, sucked the life out of his father with each breath. 

He knew it wasn’t fair, his judgment.  The residence house had kind orderlies, and he’d never seen his father neglected.  Yet, with everything inside him, he wished his stomach didn’t turn into a knot, his palms slick with cold sweat, his legs nearly quivering with an almost Pavlonian urge to bolt every time he saw his father. 

           Like now.  Luke practically had to push himself off the windowsill, force his body over to the table.  He managed to set down his coffee, the stale, lukewarm brew for guests meant to give them a place to park their nerves, without spilling. Then he took off his brown canvass jacket, draped it over a chair.  “I’m not a cop, Ruth.  I’m a park ranger. There’s a difference.” Although, admittedly, up on the mountain, in the backwoods in the middle of the Appalachian Trail, not much of one.  At least not this weekend. 

“Then what’s with the shiner?” 

Luke’s mind flicked back to the so-called hunters he’d happened upon, the ones on the ATVS who’d managed to double team him before getting away.  He still had a warrant out for their arrest. 

“I had a run in with a Siberian Tiger.” He leaned over to his father.  “Happy birthday.”

“I’m just saying that it doesn’t look like the Appalachian Trail is any safer than the jungles of Columbia.” 

Yes, probably it seemed the same to her – a woman who had her life tucked neatly together with her beloved son, her own business, her accountant husband, her three bedroom house with the front porch attired with rocking chairs, as if in preparation for their retiring years

“Let’s blow out the candles, Pop.”  He bent down, and to his surprise, when he looked over at his father, he saw someone there, someone who, when he’d arrived home six years ago broken and jumping at his own shadow, had nursed him through his nightmares. 

A former soldier who understood the difference between Columbian drug lords and a couple of illegal hunters on the top of Roan Mountain. 

And then, just as Ruthann bent over and blew out the melting candles for all of them, his father moved his hand off his tray, and touched him.

Luke startled. He stood there frozen, hearing the whirring inside until, suddenly, it all broke apart.  Jerking away, a sweat slicked his face, and he even pressed his hand hard to his chest.  “I think I’m just going to get some more coffee.”  He said it, bravo, without his voice shaking.  As if his world hadn’t blown apart, right then, into a thousand bloody pieces. 

Again.

He turned, aiming for a quick exit, fighting the burn in his throat, but his sister stopped him with a hand to his arm.  “Stick around, Luke.”  He looked down at her, and the gentle look on her face stopped him from yanking his arm from her hand.  “It’ll be okay.”

No, it wouldn’t.  Because regret had teeth, and when he wasn’t looking, could gnaw right through him, tear him apart piece by piece. One touch, one memory at a time.   

He stepped away from her then, probably harder than he should have and started for the door, his breaths coming fast, too fast.  He just needed to make it outside, where..there…was..air—

Antiseptic hit his nose, burning his eyes. Striding down the hall, he kicked a tray of half-eaten food, turned, and caught the cold chicken noodle soup bowl overturning on his hands. 

Setting it right, he grabbed a napkin, whirled, and crumpling it his fist, headed for the door, his jaw on fire as he held in his breath, his chest about…to…explode –

He slammed through the doors, gulping the cold air, one breath lapping another.  He bent over, gripped his knees, closed his eyes. 

And for a second, he could taste the past – the tinny acid of own fear, his body, sweaty and rank, the grimy feel of starvation in his teeth.  The surreal shriek of his own screams. 

“Luke?” 

He jumped at her voice. Whirled. 

Ruthann held out a wad of napkins, her gaze flicking to the dribble of noodles down his jeans.  He took them from her without a word, but instead of wiping himself off, turned and listened to the snarling Watauga river, just past the grove of trees.  The breeze raised gooseflesh on his bare arms but he drew it into his lungs, glad for its refreshing bite.

“Why didn’t I come home earlier?” 

His voice was so soft, even he wasn’t’ sure he spoke – it could have been more of a moan inside.  But he had because Ruthann stepped up beside her, her arms crossed over her chest.  “Because you needed to be away.” 

“I needed to be here.”

“You needed to get well.  To get your life together.  And start over.  We all understood that.  Especially Dad.  He didn’t want you to know–” 

“You should have told me.”  He tried to keep the edge out of his tone, but it hit her anyway, and she flinched. 

“I did.  You didn’t answer my email.  It’s nobody’s fault.  You were who you were, and you can’t go back.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it.  He couldn’t ever go back, fix it, make it right.  Not for his father, not for himself…

Luke closed his eyes; moisture pooled under them.  The wind dried it to an icy glacier. 

“I wish…” 

“You’d been here?  Of course you do. But you were here for the good parts.”

He couldn’t look at her.  She said that a lot – a coping mechanism he supposed, something she gleaned from her support groups.  Of course, it made sense.  Yes, he’d grown up happy, with parents who loved him.  Believed in him. 

Even when he hadn’t believed in himself. 

But his wishes went further back then just six years ago, and leaving town in a cloud of smoke.  And that was the problem….his father was forgetting the wrong things, hanging onto the ones Luke wished time might erase from the old man’s addled mind. 

“Come inside, Luke.  Have some cake.”

“Miss Ruthann?”  Missy Guinn stuck her head out of the door behind them.  “Have you seen Trevor?” 

“He’s not inside?” 

“No ma’am. I came back to fetch your father, and one of the orderlies said she saw him pushing a wheelchair down the hall.”

“I told him to put that back—“ Luke held open the door.

Ruthann pushed past Missy. “Why didn’t she stop him?” 

“Well, she was busy with a patient –“
            Ruthann had already taken off down the hall in a jog.  “Trevor!” 

For crying out loud, the kid was probably pilfering someone’s candy supply. 

Luke hot-footed it down the hall, peering into rooms, wincing now and again at the inhabitants.  Please God, he never wanted to be that helpless again.  His sister’s voice echoed down the halls.  Perfect.  Maybe they could make the newspaper.  The Normandy Voice was always looking for juicy stories. 

Especially if it involved Luke Alexander. 

He passed by the side double doors leading out to the parking lot and out of his periphery, he glimpsed a gray blur.  Oh…no—

Turning, he sprinted to the door, banged it open.

Sure enough, Trevor the Terror Andretti was making for the parking lot on his stolen wheels. 

“Trevor!” 

The kid paid him no mind, wheeling fast as he sailed off the handicap access into the lot.  He shot past the few cars at the curb and was out into the smooth pavement, wheeling along with abandon. 

“Whee!” 

Luke broke into a run.  “Trevor!” 

            Because it wasn’t enough that Trevor was joyriding with the property of the Normandy Ridge Residence Center, but of course, he had to do it on the inclined drive toward the rush hour highway. 

“Trevor, stop – “

He tired to obey, but as Trevor put out his hand to stop the chair, it ripped at his arm, and he let out a howl.  And now he’d lost control of the wheels, set on an careening trajectory straight into death.

 “Trevor, jump!”

            A scream shook his bones behind him – Ruthann had found them. He peeled out into a full-out run, his heart already ten lengths ahead of him as Trevor turned, holding onto the back of the chair, his big eyes now full of terror.  “Help, Unca Luke!” 

            Luke lunged for the chair, managed to hit it.

It shot out of his reach. 

            Brakes squealed, horns, the sound of metal crunching —  just as the wheelchair hit the barrier between pavement and asphalt, Luke hooked Trevor around the chest and dove. 

            Skin peeled from his arms, embedding gravel as he skidded into the ditch along the highway, grinding mud into his pores, his hair, his back even as he clutched Trevor to his chest. 

Ten feet away, two cars had collided, the wheelchair crumpled beneath the bumper of a third.

Trevor struggled in his arms, but Luke held him tight.  Simply laying there, staring at the gray, sunless sky.  Breathing.  Alive. 

            Alive. 

            And, at the end of the day, that was probably the most important part, right?  

 

 There it is!  Now – for discussion this, and input, and thought about inciting incident and story flow, go to Club My Book Therapy and add your VOICE to the discussion of Chapter 1.  Every Voice Counts!