Friday, April 11, 2014

Second Chance at Love

by Tina Radcliffe from the March 31, 2014 issue

Tagline: Who knew a worried mother's rush to the emergency room would lead to romance? (Um, I did. LOL)

In a Nutshell: When Emily's daughter visits the emergency room with a "superficial laceration," Emily notices the handsome doctor. An affinity for beagles is agreed upon, then lo and behold, they meet again at the dog park.

Stream of Consciousness Observations: Risky business to have the daughter be born after the dad died, but Radcliffe managed it without turning off the editors or getting too sappy in describing the situation.

I like Maggie. She's spunky. Radcliffe does great job of showing us Maggie's personality quickly. (This is just another adventure to Maggie. And Most children are afraid of doctors and nurses. Not Maggie. Sitting on the exam table, she holds the compress with one hand while she inspects the room.)

Funny guy: "Which one of you young ladies is seven-year-old Maggie?"

"Tetanus shot up to date?" - This says authentic doctor's office visit so much to me! They engage the child and still talk to the parent about the necessities.

Oooh! An unwitting child matchmaker. We see a lot of matchmakers, but most of the time they're working their magic purposefully. Maggie doesn't even know she's doing it which makes her so cute.

Love this line. So symbolic of her situation and poetic at the same time: I feel a hopeful expectation I haven't felt in a very long time. It's sort of like being gently roused from sleep.

Hm. I wasn't crazy about Emily's behavior at the end. I didn't like how obvious she was in her question, "Do you and your wife take Henry here often?" And then, "Are you and Henry ready of this, Steven?" Seemed just as forward. If I were Henry, I'd be like, "Ready for what?" I half expect Emily to take his hand.  Otherwise, cute story.

Photo credit: Cmee2 via Wikimedia Commons

2 comments:

Chris said...

This one got every element right, didn't it? Sweet child but not too cute, nice relationship with the mum, a hero with a sense of humour who's also good with kids, and a couple of dogs for good measure. What's not to like! I enjoyed it a lot. I also appreciated the realistic situation, which gave the story a bit of grit.

Only downside for me was that, like Kate, I wasn't convinced by Emily's forwardness at the end. The 'Are you and Henry ready for this' line also had me wondering 'ready for what?'. It's only their second meeting, so the question felt a bit premature. But we all understand the limits of those 800 words and all in all, it was a sweet romance.

Pat said...

I loved this story. I guess because of the kid matchmaker. I do agree that it seemed a little forward at the end, but I thought it was just to fit the story in to 800 words. Who knows what was edited out.

Tina always does a cute story that is well written.