Stained Glass Excerpt - Suspended Animation

From the journal of Kyle Welland, protagonist in my novel in progress, Stained Glass...

SUSPENDED ANIMATION
(Kyle Welland)

Andrew isn’t the least bit interested in what I’m doing. I thought he might perk up a bit, beings as the research is about his own family, but he remains as sullen and dull as most male teenagers. Sometimes I want to grab him by the collar, shake him, and yell “Wake up!” at the slouching brute we’ve created. But it wouldn’t do any good. He’d stare me down with that who-gives-a-shit look of his – a look harder than bricks. As far as he’s concerned his mother simply wants him out of her sight, and his father has been designated keeper – the guy who drags him away from his friends, such as they are.

St. John the Divine in Yale BC

We stopped at Hope for breakfast. There’s a place we go to whenever we’re heading inland called The Home Restaurant. They serve big plates of classic North American cuisine. For breakfast: bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast, all washed down with endless cups of coffee. It’s always crowded there, the drone of anonymous conversations punctuated by the clatter and clash of the kitchen and the bustle of waitresses whisking by with armloads full of heaped plates. Andrew and I had run out of words. So we sat on either side of the table stewing in our own silence while life went on around us.

I honestly don’t know how we got to this place. Sure, I haven’t been a role-model dad. But I haven’t been a complete bastard either. Doreen and I have taken care of the basic stuff. He’s never lacked for shelter; food; support in school; encouragement in sports, music, anything he wanted. But something’s been missing and he blames the two of us for it. I’m not even sure he could identify where the black hole in our relationship is, or what kind of gravity is sucking the love out of our lives. It’s real though. Andrew’s resentment is real.