Excerpt from Shattered Silence

As he rounded a corner, I almost lost my balance. I moved the flat-looking pillow out of the way to get more comfortable and have more room for my hands to balance myself. As I did so, my hand hit something hard, and it scared me at first. Looking more closely, I saw that it was a roll of duct tape. Men and their duct tape, I thought, bringing to mind Heaven's dad and all his home fix-it projects covered in duct tape. I knew Dad used it constantly in his work, but I thought it was odd to have duct tape under his pillow. I brushed the thought aside. My stomach was still jumpy, and this was the first time I'd been alone with my dad in quite some time. I was a little nervous, but he was the only man who could fix my home life.

My father started to make small talk with me, and my tension eased as he talked about his family and how everyone was doing. We stopped at the light in front of my school. I looked out the front passenger-side window to see everyone going to class and part of me wished that I had made some kind of an excuse to be there instead of going to breakfast with my father alone. The light turned green, and my father started to turn right to head downtown. He was talking about Grandpa Roy and the antics Grandpa was up to now. As he turned sharply, everything in the cabin moved and shifted almost violently, and I had a hard time sitting straight.

"Ouch!" I exclaimed. The heavy roll of duct tape had fallen off the mattress and hit my leg, just above the ankle. I smoothed the skin where it had hit, and then picked up the roll.

"Oh," said my father, as he saw what I was making noises about. "Just hand it to me." I did so, and he was silent for a time. I realized I must have been lost in my own thoughts because I couldn't remember what he was telling me before he stopped talking...