by BTTap
That's one of the problems of having a grave, its a magnet to draw living persons to the dead which then only is likely to occur for two or three generations. Loving a person in ones thoughts and talking about them to others is far better than visiting a grave where there are dead remains of a person. Me, I will be cremated and scattered. I would not want anyone to visit me when I am dead, what a waste of time.
Interesting story. Heartfelt but the little girl would learn far more from photos and video than visiting a grave.
Power, yes that's the word. Because we don't know why she's dead we are left with too many possible reasons our imagination can conjure. Did she leave for a lover who killed her? Did she end it herself? Did she die of an illness she had no control over?
That ambiguity leaves the reader hanging.
More real than comments realize. My wife died leaving me with three young daughters. Part of the grieving was spent on self pity and anger at her leaving. It's been 7 years, filled with pain and sadness.
Yeah I saw this ending coming a mile off but in never explaining why she died it robs it of its power.
The twist at the end was not as clever as the author tried to make it because he went too far over board in the early part of the story in steering the reader toward believing that Maya had left her husband for another man. While it's entirely possible for a bereavement to cause a feeling of abandonment it doesn't give cause for a man to question his masculinity or what he could have done to prevent her from 'going to another' for love.
If you want to tell a story, then tell your story, don't make your readers INFER the story. Maya's death would have been powerful if I wasn't distracted by the excessive cleaverness.
Well written, unexpected ending. I'm wondering, post-partum depression and suicide
I now read the comments here and I assume a few readers had the same problem to understand the story.
As I already mentioned I think she commited suicide and the other him that she turned to as mentioned at the beginning of the story is god.
Well played, but does "You shouldn't have turned to him, at least I wouldn't have been so blindsided." mean that she commited suicide?
5* It had me fooled, but i loved it when i realised that she was dead. But i did shed a tear, which means i have enjoyed it.
I read it again and this remains a superbly written story. I think, if I remember correctly, that this is the inspiration behind my own "Hello Again". Writing that, I realized how difficult it is to write the confrontation and not give away the ending. It's tough and if the reader goes back and rereads it looking for errors, it's even tougher. You did a remarkable job here. It's first class!
2, an interesting twist but one that makes zero sense. The guy is angry like his wife just up and left him complete with another "him" but no she's dead. Being angry she is dead is understandable but a different kind of anger I would think from her leaving him in general.
im going to assume she left because she had a lover but then again who knows if she died from cancer.
Very Good, but, sad story. It did not dawn on me, that Maya had passed 5 years prior, until about the last quarter or so of this tale.
I found your page after finding your sequel to StormX's story "The Envelope". That one was good, but I enjoyed this one more.
Thank-you for the reads
Pasqual
Very sad, but we'll written beautiful story. I have tears in my eyes, I will come back and read it again and again.
What kills the story is the line that he found someone else too. Who did she find if she died. It doesn’t jive with the rest for me.
I loved the surprise ending. Somewhat poignant for me. I lost my wife 40 years ago at the age of 39.
I don't understand how a lot of the men in LW cry when their cheating slut of a wife leaves them for another man and then tell their child/children that Mommy loves them yadayadayada. Yeah right!!! She loves them so much that she leaves them to get her itch scratched! Very well written, even if the circumstances are not given.
I've read this several times and enjoyed it each time. Smartly written.
Since she wasn't responding, but I never expected that. I raised two little girls a little older than Bridgit after their mother abandoned us. Powerful. Good Job on this one. Signed: BTW
BTTap
I thought your tale was very well written and explored some genuine emotional responses from the husband. I found it powerful stuff. Well done!
I was expecting a BTB, but this was something entirely different. Pretty heartbreaking
Five stars
Goes something like this. He starts to realize things are going bad in the marriage. His wife is pulling away. Maybe emotionally, or it could be metaphorically with her health declining. It's too hard to say. There was a man involved somehow. Someone the wife turned too. A friend? Lover? Doctor? We can't really say. And then comes the ultimate separation. Death. Wife dies and it doesn't matter to the Husband if she cheated or not, the effects on him are the same. It takes him 5 years to recover and put his life back together enough to visit her.
Now there are enough hints here to hint at an affair on her part and it ended with her death in some way. But it just as easily could have been something else. Either way the Husbands emotions are raw and genuine. So you hit it on the mark there.
I loved and lost someone, then lost her to death without any closure. It will always hurt.
Anonymous 4/25/17. Your story is better than the reference story posted on the site. You should write about it. This story on the site was a downer...could see it coming a mile away.
If you are going to write stories for a site named LITERotica, learn the difference between "that" and "who"!!!
Animals and things are referred to by the pronoun "that"! Human beings are referered to by the pronoun "who" (or "whom")!
Learn the difference! If you screw up in the title, why should I expect your story to be any better?
Not read or rated!
After my wife of 5 years admitted her affair, I left her. We had a three-year-old son and she turned to her lover. He was her first boyfriend, they were each other's first and I guess, unable to forget. Janet certainly forgot the reason they broke up, he cheated on her.
Her boyfriend, Tomas, didn't want MY kid. We knew each other and he certainly didn't want to raise my kid. It went both ways, I didn't want him to have anything to do with my son. When I left with little Tony, Janet moved Tomas into MY house, the one "I" made the payments on. He always was a deadbeat, but he had me beat in one area. According to friends who knew him well, the cock area. While I'm no slouch, 7"x6" apparently his chunk of beef was like something off a horse. Janet only told me about her deflowering as something incredibly painful for the first dozen or so times.
Our divorce was speedy. I gave her everything but our savings, not much there, in return I got Tony. Anyone who knew us had no doubt who got the best of the deal. Me.
They married three months after our divorce was final. Three months into her new marriage, I began receiving disturbing phone calls. Friends said things were perfect with her new life and perhaps I ought to look into it? Not just nope, but hell no!
When Tony and I left, we drove back to my hometown, Riggins, Idaho, from Lubbock, Texas. It didn't matter I was leaving a great job, getting the hell out of there was most important. Janet couldn't stop me and Tomas wouldn't let her. I went to work with my folks, they guide on the Salmon River and give float trip tours. Dad always guided hunters in the fall for big-game on horseback.
Janet called me the first time on the one-year anniversary of our divorce. She was crying, in the hospital, recovering from a beating Tomas gave her. After a long tearful apology, she asked if she could come back to me. Instead of answering the question, I ended our call. She made her bed, it was hers to lie in.
I got the call from her folks about three months later. Tomas had beat her again and it was one she couldn't recover from. Her folks confided she made the mistake of comparing her life with me and Tony to theirs. I had stopped making the house payment after they married and already it was being foreclosed on. Tomas refused to work and even brought home a few social diseases to her. It seemed he didn't care to hear what she gave up to be with him and the big cock he packed around.
He's in jail now, serving twenty to life. I sent word that he better hope it was life because his ended if he was ever released. I meant it then, I still mean it. Janet might have been a cheater, but she was Tony's mom. If that bastard is every released, I guarantee he's dead in just a few months. Tony cries each time I take him to visit his mom's grave.
for most readers I do hope you never have to experience this... Been there and DOING IT...Tough tough... for me 14 years this month I will love her in my heart , in my mind and in my body forever and ever....
Your redirect had far too many false holes... what was the other man? why would you state that she hadn't spend much time with daughter in five years, if she was dead? Editing a story is NOT just about spelling and grammar... the MOST important editing is whether the story's plot works
Good story, he needed the release/ As for you blah, perhaps you should go back to your Winnie the Pooh books and happy meal toy. You don't seem to be mature enough to be here.
Maya means illusion or delusion.
Might help you in determining the point of this piece... which seems to me to be to tweak Loving Wives assumptions.
And HIV chimes in to reinforce the point.
Green-something
(as for "he" I thought that was the weakest point - probably a doctor, maybe a priest - in any event, husband was not the point of comfort in extremis. Common, unfortunately. An implied affair? Not likely, since there was no time. Speaking of which, she was 11 days short of 28 years old, and the time of the story was 4 days before it was posted - i.e. "today". )
Thanks for the short heart felt story. Didn't expect the end though I was wondering why it was all a one-sided conversation.
Oh yes! Harry reads too many of these things and then he gets them confused. Maybe he has Alzheimer's?
And yes! This was a heartbreaker. To be sure, I didn't suspect anything until we reached the end. I'm reminded of the old Vern Gosden song; there was a line, "You don't know about lonely, till it's chiseled in stone."
Good little story...sad. Certainly worth the five stars.
Here I am, a mountain man that lives out in the sticks, with satellite internet and a generator and when I finished reading this story, I'll be damned if I didn't burst into tears.
All I can say is well done, Author. Well done.
I appreciate most of the feedback I got on this story, good and bad. I made certain choices, including leaving out certain details, for a variety of reasons. For some of you that worked, for others it didn't. I thought the theme of the story was forgiveness and death as the ultimate separation. I figured if readers filled in their own blanks, it would be more personal to them and have a bigger impact. HarryVag is confused of course: no mention of wife cutting hubby off or sleeping with his brother in this story. I think he read too much of his own life into this tale. Ahhh...feeding the trolls. Thanks for reading!
Let me see if I have this right
she cuts him of
goes behind is back
fuck his brother
then walks out on their 2 year old daughter ..
and the husband says "It wasn't fair to lay that on her?"
wow...
Why is it that there are some people who need to figure out a story before reaching the ending. Well, I understand maybe doing that while reading a murder mystery (kinda like a jigsaw puzzle), but that exercise doesn't fit here. I tried to read the story without prejudice The twist at the end was much more powerful to me by approaching the story this way. I watch and become absorbed. The story is already written. I am here to enjoy not to analyze.
This story is a bit on the short side. I think that if you were to build characters, throw in some details, etc. the effect you were after would be next to impossible to maintain. You are quite good at portraying raw emotion. Keep up the good work.
I had started to pick up there was something strange occurring as I read through the story and so the ending was not a surprise for me. But, it was still well written and descriptive of what the guy went through coming to his resolution. It was a sad story but that final touch with his daughter lightened it. Well done!
...17 years 354 days.
Did she, perhaps, die in childbirth?
Certainly very young.
Very emotional and thought-provoking story.
Well done - a rare 5
This IS a Loving Wives Story.
5*, Great Story.
This is writing very close to the vest. Skilled beyond most very deep stuff. I read the comments which were quite interesting as well as the story. I need to read again to ensure I didn't miss something.
Saw it coming, but still - strange. It sounded like a telephone conversation most of the time. Seemed a little long to wait for the daughter.
As I read it, Sweetie died of something which MIGHT have been curable if caught in time. She expressed her concerns to her boss or clergy, but not Hubby until later (when the end was inevitable). Hubby at least recognizes he would probably not have sought competent aid in time, either!
Very poignant. Suspected the denouement early and it became increasingly obvious as the soliloquy went along. But, there is no direct reference to any hanky-panky (or pre-mortem disagreements or unhappiness!) It IS suggested, but so is Sweetie's live presence as Hubby's audience! Deliberate misdirection!
unrated ... not adventurous, very anti-erotic. (But it is kinda sweet. But Hubby shoulda been bringing daughter to cemetery earlier)
Terrific writing! I just wish I knew what she confided in the other man that she took her own life. She admitted it was wrong to talk to another, it certainly did not help.
"I hated that she went to him behind my back. I never knew I had competition to be her confidante; she let him know about herself while deceiving me, for months"
That suggest a third party. Maybe it wasn't important in a flash story, but I am still curious. ***** Thanks for writing the story and sharing.
where is the Juevos for his kid and his closure, TK U MLJ LV NV
That's not the only one, but it is the most egregious, because that comes very close to establishing that she’s alive.
The other is “You shouldn't have turned to him…” Yes, it could be a MD, but taken with the other line it pretty much establishes the inference that she’s alive and left them. That makes the ending not so much a reveal, but a twist, a canard.
That's not the only one, but it is the most egreious
I was sort of expecting something like that. But it still sent a shiver up my spine.
Well done.
You intended the reader had to fill in the blanks; I get that. You express feelings well and sometimes that is enough.
Only I feel like someone remove Pages 20 thru 40 out of a 80 page book. Leaving me to wonder what the hell happen to her. Your story your ending. Thanks for sharing.
I had to read it more than once and I am still unsure who "he" was. It could have been an MD, or a minister or even a lover but I still liked the story. If it was not a lover than he should have been more upset with himself than with her for shutting her out.
Great twist on talking to the grave stone however it's missing the nuts and bolts of the story.
Why did they break up? Was she sick? Killed or something else?
Next time you write take all this into consideration other then that good job
talk to headstones. He might have shown a bit more tenderness, though, unless her death was the result of her cheating, as contrasted with a terminal illness. I really do not see enough here to know which. Realistic story, though. Thanks.
NOBODY TALKS TO GRAVE STONES? Try watching families or those close to the loved ones lost. What a twist, this story is awesome, anticipated cheating when the end threw me for a loop. Well written. Please continue writing 5 stars, which we could vote for more.
Of course I suspected something was up because "she" never responds. But it still surprised me and got me to feel about it. I agree with others that the "confidante" should have been clarified. A priest? God? A counselor? I strongly suspect so. She knew she was dying and didn't tell them until the very end. But it would have been better to leave no doubt for the reader. Thanks for a nice change of pace.
It was god. Nice try BTTap - I guess you just penned this in a moment of sentimental fuzz. Ya always get a five from me.
Had to deduct a star; biggest question left unanswered: why/how did she die? That's where the real story would be. If she had left him for another; what happened to that third party?
Nice story of closure though.
Who was the confidante? I'd like to think she turned to God, not another man or a doctor. 5*
The corpse may not be turning over in grave, but if she could , her eyes would be rolling. This was just so relentlessly vanilla. Afterwords the happy family went out for ice cream and root beer. It's just too easy for an author to kill a faithless wife.
The alter-ego husband doesn't have check self for fault or listen to opposing POV, fight for custody, pay child support. It's not like winning lottery in terms of improving life quality. It's better. Addition by spiteful spouse subtraction.
It definitely simplifies things for author who doesn't have to worry about alter-ego wronged spouse not getting last word.
There are enough of these crap stories out there no need for another. His own fault for marrying a whore. Good for the cuck probably not even his real daughter. Only redeemable person in the story is dead and that says a lot.
Good story, loaded with emotion. Closure is always hard, and comes to each person in a different way. In this story, I get the distinct impression that when Maya left her family behind, and went to the grave it was intentional. There is anger when grieving with death of a loved one, there are five stages. There is no established time frame for each of the five stages, and btw no particular order. Sandra knows that he could never reach closure until he confronts the anger. Sometimes the unspoken in a story is what creates the story. In the context of this story, the way Maya died is not important. This story has more depth than some realize. Very emotional and thought provoking. A good, solid 5* in my opinion.
Is that she had cancer, or some other time bomb disease, and she didn't tell him. She was talking to another, her physician, and only told him when she was dying. In any case, the story, though showing promise, is not well explained, IMO.
I expected more. Not clear, if she died five years ago, cheated then died, or what.
BTTAP your writing has gone downhill.you need a beta reader to help with plot files and flows.
Confused in California
I appreciate your attempt. I don't expect eroticism or anything like that, but I myself would have liked things to have been better defined. I have only buried a daughter - so I can't fathom being so distraught that the husband visited the grave site of a wife (in good standing) sooner than five years (sorry - it may well be just MY tunnel vision). So the implications through the story about a wife who willingly abandoned her family sort of detracts from the emotional pull that would have gone with the accidental demise of a wife who loved / was loved and didn't abandon her family. Sorry - just my take Still - well written and 5*.
having lost my wife after 56 years you really have no idea what it feels like. but none of us do till it happens. so just waiting to join her.
Nasty ending there, but as a widower I know the feelings. Not enough for Bridgit to embrace and a bit of a cheat there on his part. But all in all, not totally unexpected as you go crazy after a loss like this. 5 stars
The fianceé's claim was a proper aim for a closure and to get the role from the imagine dead wife. 5*****.