Marty Dearnon owns a convenience store of sorts, about three hours from Laramie, Wyoming. When he bought it six years ago, it was his pride and joy. “He’d polished the wood floors on his knees.” Now the shelves are as empty as his life. Dearnon blames himself for the imminent loss of his shop but he doesn’t know who to blame for loss of his wife and daughter. Maybe he could have done things differently. He has no answers, because he’s not ready to ask the right questions. Not until a nomadic stranger arrives, someone in need, someone grappling with losses of his own. That’s when the torment Dearnon has kept at bay quietly begins to surface, challenging him to consider what might have been and what still can be.
Every parent know it’s impossible to pick a favorite child—each one is unique, precious. The same is true, at least for this writer, when it comes to short stories. But “The Broken Place” carries a punch for me that hasn’t weakened. It’s one of the shortest stories in That Very Place, yet its echos linger. I wrote it more than ten years ago, and I still wonder what became of Dearnon.
