On A Matter Of Trust—Gary M. King
	The first sentences of this story display a narrative voice established as belonging to the main character.   In the second paragraph the narrator’s voice is identified as belonging to a young woman, and the reader learns her name is Carol through her interaction with her friend Jennifer on the fourth page.  The use of first person voice makes the link between story and reader to be limited to Carol’s conscious.  Thus it is natural that her name is not identified until her later interaction with another character.  This use of voice and point of view gives the story an advantage.  The story is ultimately driven by her character’s conflict with what to the character is a valid interpretation of the orange tags in the garden.  The first person voice and limited omniscient view keep the action within her frame of reference, and from that frame of reference she presents justifications for her views through memory sequences.
	The memory sequences are established in the story beginning in the second paragraph.  Although the word “memory” itself is not stated until the sixth sentence, it is clear to the reader that Carol has moved into past events in her life.  The use of past tense verbs is an obvious stylistic showing of this.  This is in contrast to the use of present tense verbs that characterize the actual present time state Carol is in.  This allows the reader to journey through important points in Carol’s life, gaining her some credibility as a person rather than simply words.  It also allows the reader to see the establishment of Carol’s relationship with her father.  
	However, these memories are in Carol’s voice; while the author uses past-present tenses to establish a stylistic voice and provide the story’s structure, the entire style of the story must be evaluated according to fitting within “Carol’s nature.”  The subject matter is not unduly heavy, but is weighted with some emotional meaning to Carol.  Stylistically, the author was trying to create a believable high-school age pregnant girl, and there are some weaknesses in her interactions with other characters.    Mostly this is in the form of the dialogues.  The dialogue between Carol and Jennifer could have been less generic and made to serve more purpose.  It is almost irrelevant; Carol could easily have been having the same memory sequence at home, on the bus, or any other place.
Better dialogue was established between Carol and her father, but work needs to be done on the dialogue to bring about the response from Carol.  This could be dealt with by further establishing Carol’s relationship with her mother through memory sequences, as well as addressing the time between the death of Carol’s mother and the present day.  This time period was obviously of great importance to the current plot line, since it was during this period that a relationship with a “Richard” is implied ending due to her pregnancy.  Although the scene does cover the necessary plot function of getting Carol into the rather contrived “car accident,” it could have been more dramatic without slipping into demanding sentiment for characters who have not earned it.
In some ways, this lack of knowledge helps prevent the story from slipping down into sentimentality.  As it stands, the struggle is to relate to the character of Carol as she is presented.  The reader has the best opportunity to do this during the memory sequences.  The memory sequences centered on the garden work better than any other, which is natural due to the garden being her central childhood image.  They are also the sequences that allow the reader to understand her relationship with her father, and how her impression of how that relationship has changed as the central conflict of the story.  The memory of Jennifer is glossed over a bit and could have been used to help introduce Jennifer better as her friend.  The memory scene of Carol and her mother is clichéd with popular images about chemotherapy causing baldness and band-aids on knees.  This is in the character’s voice so there is some merit to it, but more original images might be used in a rewrite.  The saving grace for the paragraph is her memory of kicking the dresser, and the causes behind it.  That is a more unique image and helps the reader identify with Carol as a living person.
Structurally, the story relies upon the sequence of present-memory-present to pace the story through the conflict and the conclusion.  The memories are provided in chronological order, following each other in Carol’s mind just as the present-day portions of the text proceed chronologically.  This allows the reader some ease in following the storyline’s transitions from present activity to past memory.  This form, while structurally simple, fits the form and style presented by the text.