[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by gmw

Obviously determined not to give us a happy one.

It's very good, I think. More obvious than the previous, you hold the reader's hand more through this one - but I think that suits this story. The imagery is very good, and the pace feels right. While I thought I knew what was coming there was still a feeling of tension there waiting for it. Given the tone of the piece, the ending was not exactly what I expected.

A couple of things stuck out at me in the first few paragraphs, and I'll note them here. After that I was too busy reading to notice much in the of errors - which is a good thing.

Spoiler:

"the Norwegian fjords" - wondering if "the" is inappropriate here.

"pale grey eyes crinkled - the mix of colour and "crinkle" seems wrong (one speaks on the eye itself, the other of the skin around the eyes).

There's not a lot of critical comment here that might help with improvement ... largely because I think the story is already doing what you set out to achieve. I've said previously that such short works aren't what I most enjoy, but I do think this story is a good vignette.

Spoiler:

After writing the above I looked over Graham's comments (which were about the previous version). I can still see the shadows of some of those issues: I had to do a sort of double-take with Michael in the carseat, I half-expected Ricky to either jump in the water or collapse where she was. But overall it worked pretty well for me in this newer version.

Thank you for the critique. I'll reread the story with your comments in mind.