Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Denise is the host.

You know what one of the things I like about this bloghop? The practice it tricks me into putting into my writing. More than that, the occasional prompting/encouragement of the other participants to trying a little harder. Case-in-point: Miz Av’ry, a week or so ago, when we first introduced the character of Sybil, in a comment wrote:

Why did she so hate the midwest? Why is she so angry? What are her goals and ambitions with all this attitude? Will she be shown as vulnerable, will she learn something from the SSC&B cast of characters, or does she have something to teach them?

This Six is a continuation of the backstory and history of Sybil Trainor (previously in Sybil Trainor)

[While I don’t disagree with ceayr on everything…lol, he mentioned improving skills. And, surely that is an available, if not utilized, element of this here bloghop here]

This week’s prompt word is:

SURPRISE

“I suppose putting off your schedule by a couple of hours is too much to ask,” Sybil’s father stood at the end of the drive, it’s loose stone and gravel seemed to gather itself into a tighter surface, as if self-conscious at the seemingly endless expanse of KS-47, uniformed with lines of painted color, presenting an almost martial bearing that would brook no casual un-paved driveway.

His words were aimed at the open driver’s side window, delivered from more than a car door’s arc; like a person, pressured into returning to confession, maintaining a buffer between confessor and supplicant, as if physical distance had any effect on a relationship.

“Your friends were planning a surprise going-away-to-school party, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your friends,” a lifetime of stubborn hope to find a girl who wanted to be her daughter, finally ran out, the interrogative lilt unable to transform an accusation into an invitation; Jessica Trainor stood at the end of the driveway, bound by her husband and his ties to the land, as much a permanent feature as the mailbox or the nearest fence post that strove endlessly to impose a sense of human scale to the endless prairie.

Had there been a neutral, but interested, observer, say, the driver of an east-bound FedEx truck, they might, mention how rigidly the man, held onto his wife’s wrist, the difference between date-rape and consensual relations, the distinction sometimes difficult to ascertain, by a moving observer.

Stepping down on the gas, the ‘make-them-non-consequential pedal’, Sybil smiled at the ‘incredibly shrinking family’ in her rearview mirror, and felt as happy as she figured she could be at the moment, the qualification as to time and duration always a variable.

Doing a quick review of the route she’d decided on to get her to Cambridge MA: ‘two-or-three ninety-degree-turns and then upslope to the Northeast’, Sybil Trainor felt as free as she could remember feeling.