She stays up; her little ones are tucked snugly into their beds and she knits. Squinting her tired, dry eyes she counts her stitches and marks her rows; a simple acrylic wool blend sweater for her young daughter. Forty three, forty four, forty five…..approximately thirteen rounds to go till she marks off the arms.
Her hands are cramped from working the needles for so long and she hears her husbands alarm go off. He trudges into the dim room, sips his coffee and groans while he bends to lace up his work boots with cracked soles.
Christmas will be hard this year, one of their hardest ones yet. Their son asks Santa for a Wii – she feels sad, holds her daughter tighter to her hip and tucks her hair behind her ear, Santa winks at her and tells her little boy that the elves are working on something different – something special for him this year; the boy slides off Santa’s knee, takes her hand and they walk outside into the wet cold.
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You do nicely with three short vignettes to create a larger vignette.
ReplyDeleteOnly thing I would say is that the middle vignette is a little heavy-handed. You can say 'trudged,' you can say 'groans,' and you can say 'cracked.' I don't think you can get away with all three without the reader begging for mercy. I think I'd use 'comes.' stick with 'groans,' and drop 'cracked' altogether. Trust you reader to take your point.