That I Would Be Good

Chapter Twenty-Two

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

A year and four months later…

     Walking down the busy street, the last of the winter’s snow melting beneath my feet I held a bag of groceries in one hand and Stewie’s and Mercy’s leashes in the other.  It was March and I was anxious for the spring weather to start.  It had been a long winter and sunshine sounded like the most appealing thing in the world to me.

      Stewie tugged excitedly on the leash making Mercy pull too.  Trying to keep my voice down I yelled at them to stop pulling.  It was hard enough walking them together when I didn’t have groceries filling one of my arms. 

      My yelling didn’t faze them though, sadly.  They just kept pulling knowing we were close to home.  They were excited to get out of the wet and cold outdoors and into the comfy and warm apartment.

    

      Ten minutes later I was putting groceries away in the fridge of the medium sized apartment I was sharing with Ferris.  Yes, we were now living together.  We had for almost an entire year now. 

     I moved in a few weeks after I cleaned out Dolores’s apartment and was looking for my own place to live.  Ferris offered for me to live with him, and the rest you can figure out for yourself. 

      Ferris had been promoted during the year we’d been together and was now a head editor at Berry’s publishing house.  He wasn’t as high in the ranks as Harold but he made enough money to support us both. 

     We lived comfortably together, I wrote with any free time I had between cleaning the apartment and taking care of Mercy and Stewie.  I had already finished the novel I decided to write over a year ago and it was sent into a publisher.  Today was going to be the day that determined if I had a future with this story or not.

     I’d sent my story into a lot of publishers and gotten rejected by each one.  The last place I was sending my story to was Berry Brudsworth Publishing House.  Also known as “Dolores’s publisher”.   The chances of being published there were slim, but it was worth a try. 

      After the completion of the novel, Ferris and I both thought it would be best if I used a pen name instead of my real name.  We didn’t want people knowing I had any relation to Dolores.  It might diminish my chances of being published because their expectations could possibly be higher.

      Dolores wasn’t doing too well.  She was rarely ever awake because of the pain of the migraines.  She’d gone in for surgery to remove the tumor, but they said it was impossible by how far it was inside her brain. 

     Unfortunately it was on her mechanics side of the brain and if they removed the tumor or even attempted to she would lose all abilities to function.  Which included breathing.  It wasn’t a risk worth taking.

      She didn’t remember who I was anymore, but I still visited once a week seeing how she was doing.  Writing on paper was her only joy.  Using the typewriter was too strenuous and she also didn’t remember how to type. 

      It was sad how fast she had lost all power over herself.  She was an infant again; needing help eating and getting dressed.  The only thing she could do by herself was writing on the little pad of paper that was always on her lap. 

      I guess loving something so much and doing it so much you’ll never forget how to do it.  I never read any of the things she was writing, because that was still her privacy, even though she wouldn’t have even known if I did read them.