Precerpt from Nothing So Broken (Richards)

Coming Soon! Available now on pre-order! Nothing So Broken - war, memoir, more. Today we provide a precerpt (an excerpt from a book not yet published) -

-nemesis-

Most of my childhood mornings were marked by my father’s absence. Running five miles every day, he said. Just something he needed to do, he said.

So, on weekdays before school, I’d wait at the kitchen window—teeth brushed, Space 1999 lunch box in hand—and watch the royal blue AMC wagon puff smoke from its exhaust in the Bott family’s driveway two houses away.

My mother would run final checks with me—coat? gloves? hat?—from my brother’s bedroom because “Defiant Bryant” loathed mornings. He started each day looking like he’d slept through a cyclone. Dressing him for kindergarten was like Greco-Roman wrestling with a grumpy squid.

When the old AMC wagon finally putted its way up the road, I’d book-it out of the house and wait at the end of our sidewalk. Mrs. Bott’s smile through the window served as the weather barometer. An authentic grin occurred once a year, the first day of school, a tired or forced smile indicated trouble, and a frown would send my heartrate soaring.

Despite the sometimes-foreboding signs, I was always excited to see Johnny. Johnny Bott and I clicked from day one. Same age, same school, same classes, and an almost identical match in interests: Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Blazers, wiffleball, football, dodgeball, basketball, monster ball, tag, freeze tag, monster tag, blanket forts, tree forts, dogs, swimming, fishing, crayfishing, Atari, arcades, Creature Double Feature. We were Han and Luke battling stormtroopers. We were Godzilla and King Kong destroying Tokyo, or Fox Kid and Panther Kid protecting the neighborhood from Willow Walker, the evil river spirit. We ran all operations out of our secret base, high up in the Maple tree in my front yard.

Who gets to meet his best bud at age four? And live right next to him? Fate had gifted us something special!

But part of the deal was Steven, Johnny’s older brother.

As I’d scooch into the backseat of the Bott-mobile, Steven would greet me with a cocky smirk, the diabolical wheels whirling away inside his head. Johnny would offer a brief smile and then stare out the window, counting the seconds.

“Hello, Christopher Robin.” Mrs. Bott’s standard salutation taught me early that if the Botts teased you, they liked you.

Pulling the car door closed, I knew the next few minutes were going to be the worst few minutes of my day. Johnny had four older brothers, but Steven was the closest to us in age, two years older, and Steven was… challenging.

One morning, as we merged into a busy intersection, Steven yanked my boot off with an evil giggle and tossed into the way-back storage area of the car. Blood boiling, I clambered over the back seat to retrieve it while he went to work untying Johnny’s sneakers. Johnny swore and cracked him with his Star Wars lunchbox, so Steven wrenched the box from Johnny’s hands and dumped the contents onto the floor.

Mrs. Bott turned and swiped at him with a rolled-up magazine, “Knock it off!” she yelled as Steven dodged and ducked, cackling like a deranged elf. Once past the intersection, she pulled over to the side of the road.

“Get. In. Front. Now!” She said now without opening her mouth, a tremor in her voice, the tendons in her neck pronounced. I wanted to jump out of the car.

Steven hopped over the seat and landed on top of a small pile of newspapers and magazines, knocking them onto the floor. I pressed up against the back door while Mrs. Bott formed complete sentences with her mouth shut, teeth gritted.

With five boys between the ages of eight and sixteen, Christine Bott lived every moment pre-occupied with the certainty that something bad (and likely expensive) was happening somewhere. There was an endless list of damage reports to review, assess—sigh!—and respond to.

As for Steven, the rides to school were merely the opening acts. I can remember one rainy morning during indoor recess the gymnasium smelling like wet dog. All of the grade three, four and five students sat in the bleachers under the watchful eye of Mr. Rogers, the Vice Principal and Mr. Kerins, the gym teacher. All, except two. Behind the adults, on the opposite side of the gym Stephen Ceccarini chased Steven in and out of a series of doors like in the Scooby Doo cartoons. Moments before, Steven had given Ceccarini, the finger while neither teacher was looking.

Ceccarini never caught Steven, but Mr. Kerins caught Ceccarini and sent him to the principal’s office. I don’t remember how Steven avoided a similar fate, but I do remember him beaming with how things played out—until Charlie Darling, a tall, athletic kid ambushed him from behind one of the doors. Charlie dragged Steven back into the hallway and pounded the daylights out of him. One of my happier childhood memories.

Thankfully, I didn’t see much of Steven during school hours, but per Mrs. Bott, he often got in trouble for doing “stupid stuff,” like rubbing up against the blackboard to erase class assignments or using reflective surfaces to shine points of sunlight onto the back of the teacher’s head. Whenever Mrs. Bott saw her son sitting outside next to the mailbox, she knew a disciplinary letter was on the way.

After school was more of the same.

“Knock it off or I’m stoppin’ this bus!” the driver would shout at the fifth graders in the back seats where Steven sat.

“Stop it right now, or I’m calling Officer Perry!” Mrs. Butler, the poor harried crossing guard yelled at Steven (and others) once the bus dropped us off and the fights began.

Knock it off!

Cut it out!

Cut the shit!

Leave me alone!

I’m telling Ma!

He never stopped, possessed by some demon that needed to provoke others. When his crosshairs found me, which was often, I’d end up rattled, bruised, and teary-eyed. Oh yes, and furious. His constant attacks stoked a deep visceral rage within my young soul. Nobody bullied me like him. I’d pray at night for strength to fight back. I’d pray that he would no longer be Johnny’s brother. I’d pray that he would go away and disappear.

But God didn’t seem to be listening.

Book description:

In the shadow of loss, a path to healing begins.

Chris Richards grew up in a small New England mill town, where life was tough and loyalty ran deep. At just 19, his world was shaken when a close friend was left permanently disabled by a devastating accident. At the same time, Chris’s father began to show troubling symptoms linked to his service in the Vietnam War—unseen wounds that would slowly unravel the man he once knew.

The weight of watching two people he loved unravel under the strain of trauma and physical decline left deep scars—ones Chris carried silently into adulthood. For years, he buried his grief and fear, never imagining that one day, facing his own crisis, he would turn to their stories for strength.

This powerful and moving memoir explores the enduring impact of trauma, the quiet power of resilience, and how even the most broken lives can become sources of inspiration. Born of hardship, shaped by loss, and redeemed through reflection, Chris’s story is a testament to the human spirit and the healing that can come from finally confronting the past.

Keywords:

New England memoir, Vietnam War legacy, trauma and healing memoir, coming-of-age true story, memoir about father and son, real-life story of resilience, personal story of grief and growth, emotional healing journey, memoir of small-town life, family trauma memoir, impact of war on families, veterans and PTSD family stories, intergenerational trauma, inspirational memoir about loss, adult child of a veteran, memoir set in a mill town, friendship and tragedy true story, memoir about overcoming fear and grief, how to heal from family trauma, memoir about growing up with a veteran parent, finding hope through personal crisis, true story of surviving emotional loss, lessons from a father's wartime wounds, memoir about friendship, trauma, and redemption