Family ties
What is family? Is your father the man you grow up with who nurtures you and loves you and teaches you to walk and talk and tie your shoes? Or is your father the stranger who donated half your genes and then disappeared? These are questions I'm planning to explore - and perhaps answer - in this story...
Devon Marsden is nineteen. Her mother Deirdre has just died. Devon wants to find the father she has never met. All she has is an old picture and a last name. The search takes her across the Atlantic and to the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland, where she arrives at the door of a secluded mansion. The man who answers has black hair, blue eyes and a lilting accent. He's the handsome, wealthy, intelligent, arrogant (and Irish) Declan Moriarty, and he has no idea who she is. The conversation goes to the effect of the following:
Devon: Don't you remember? Her name was Deirdre Marsden. It was twenty years ago.
Declan: Please. Do you have any idea how many women I slept with twenty years ago? What month?
Devon: I was born in October, so...January.
Declan: Hmm. When in October?
Devon: Twenty-second.
Declan: So...mid-January. (pause) Got a picture?
When he sees her picture, however, he agrees that he probably is in fact her father. She explains that her mother's dead and that he's her only surviving relative.
Declan isn't what she's been expecting, and Devon soon realizes that he's nothing like any of the possibilities she's imagined. He's not a criminal or a drunk or a wife-beater, not sleazy or a lowlife. He's also not a warm, caring man with a wife and a bucket of kids.
Declan is an enigma. He drinks only whiskey, rolls his own cigarettes (with licorice-flavoured paper) and used to be so careless with women that he now lives in the relative isolation of the mansion and has been under a sort of self-imposed celibacy for the past year. Devon is also probably not his only child. His moral compass is decidedly askew. He's suave, charming, almost dangerously charismatic, and she doesn't see him as a father. She understands why her mother fell for him - and she begins to do the same.
Declan understands that there is a difference between an addiction and a problem. Tobacco, alcohol, coffee, the harmonica, painting - they're all addictions of varying degrees, but they're not problems because his desire for them doesn't negatively affect the quality of his life. Women, however, have always been a problem...hence the reason he lives where and how he does. He's messed up the lives of so many women that he came to the island to be away from it all, and now he's messing up his daughter's life as well. Devon tries to keep her distance, Declan contemplates suicide...
This is not a happy story. But it's not going to have a traditional ending - they're not going to realize it was just distorted familial affection and have a normal father-daughter relationship happily ever after. Oh no. It's all or nothing for these two.
"Declan."
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Your tongue must have bite marks from all the things you never say."
Devon Marsden is nineteen. Her mother Deirdre has just died. Devon wants to find the father she has never met. All she has is an old picture and a last name. The search takes her across the Atlantic and to the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland, where she arrives at the door of a secluded mansion. The man who answers has black hair, blue eyes and a lilting accent. He's the handsome, wealthy, intelligent, arrogant (and Irish) Declan Moriarty, and he has no idea who she is. The conversation goes to the effect of the following:
Devon: Don't you remember? Her name was Deirdre Marsden. It was twenty years ago.
Declan: Please. Do you have any idea how many women I slept with twenty years ago? What month?
Devon: I was born in October, so...January.
Declan: Hmm. When in October?
Devon: Twenty-second.
Declan: So...mid-January. (pause) Got a picture?
When he sees her picture, however, he agrees that he probably is in fact her father. She explains that her mother's dead and that he's her only surviving relative.
Declan isn't what she's been expecting, and Devon soon realizes that he's nothing like any of the possibilities she's imagined. He's not a criminal or a drunk or a wife-beater, not sleazy or a lowlife. He's also not a warm, caring man with a wife and a bucket of kids.
Declan is an enigma. He drinks only whiskey, rolls his own cigarettes (with licorice-flavoured paper) and used to be so careless with women that he now lives in the relative isolation of the mansion and has been under a sort of self-imposed celibacy for the past year. Devon is also probably not his only child. His moral compass is decidedly askew. He's suave, charming, almost dangerously charismatic, and she doesn't see him as a father. She understands why her mother fell for him - and she begins to do the same.
Declan understands that there is a difference between an addiction and a problem. Tobacco, alcohol, coffee, the harmonica, painting - they're all addictions of varying degrees, but they're not problems because his desire for them doesn't negatively affect the quality of his life. Women, however, have always been a problem...hence the reason he lives where and how he does. He's messed up the lives of so many women that he came to the island to be away from it all, and now he's messing up his daughter's life as well. Devon tries to keep her distance, Declan contemplates suicide...
This is not a happy story. But it's not going to have a traditional ending - they're not going to realize it was just distorted familial affection and have a normal father-daughter relationship happily ever after. Oh no. It's all or nothing for these two.
"Declan."
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Your tongue must have bite marks from all the things you never say."
posted by Ariana at 5:05 PM
2 Comments:
your dialogue is too good. I think that's why the writing in between seems worse than it really is. I love the ideas expressed in between but the dialogue is powerful enough to suck me right in. Cheers.
/s/ Andrew
Gracias. I have no time for writing these days, but as always I'm glad for feedback, especially yours.
Too good is good enough. :)
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