Right to Love , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Katherine Yu

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115 pages

English

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The Right to Love was inspired by two special people who fell deeply in love as teenagers but were separated by circumstances beyond their control. After thirty-five years, they were finally reunited, briefly, before death.The book is written in straightforward, yet poetic, language, deals with age-old issues that touch on love, sexuality, loyalty, morality, and family.The novel is an in-depth probe of the emotional triangle of wife-husband-lover, testing the limits of endurance among them and the possibilities for acceptance and redemption.

Informations

Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	28 février 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781645367956
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Right to Love
Katherine Yu
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-02-28
The Right to Love About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgment Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
About the Author

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Katherine Yu currently lives in Los Angeles with her three daughters. She is a novelist, screenplay writer, poet, born in Mainland China. Ms. Yu moved to the U.S.A. and earned a master’s degree in film from the American University in Washington, D.C.
Dedication
For my daughters, Jenny, Alina, and Sylvia, who inspire me and give me strength.
Copyright Information ©
Katherine Yu (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Yu, Katherine
The Right to Love
ISBN 9781643784939 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643784946 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645367956 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918329
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
mail-usa@austinmacauley.com
+1 (646) 5125767
Acknowledgment
My deepest appreciation goes to my three daughters, Jenny, Alina, and Sylvia, who have always been my greatest supporters, helping me all along the way.
My thanks to my editor, Constance Buchanan, who has done a great job. I wish to express my appreciation to my beloved friends and all dear ones for providing me faith and love. This book would not have been possible without them.
Preface
I wrote this story with an old man’s image in my mind, his curved back, wrinkled face, and restless, faraway eyes. He was eighty-five years old and his name was Daniel Fenton. Daniel had once owned his own import business and been wildly successful. He had enjoyed all that a man can have in life, he said to me, except one thing: true love. Daniel had married, divorced, then married again. He had five children and fifteen grandchildren, and arranged that his worldly wealth would be fairly divided among them after his death. He was satisfied with his business success and his progeny.
But his eyes told a different story. I once asked him why they had a haunted look. Suddenly he sat straight up, gazed at me intently and said, “Can you write a book?”
“Yes,” I said confidently.
He paused, then said softly, “I want you to write my story, my life story.”
When he was seventeen years old, he told me, he had fallen madly in love with a fifteen-year-old girl who attended the same school. He saw her a total of five times. The last time they went to a movie together, then afterwards found a secluded spot and lost their virginity. Then his family moved away and they never saw each other again.
It was a simple story, I commented, not exactly fodder for a book. But he shook his head vigorously.
“No,” he said, he had searched for this girl for years on end and he’d been passionately attached to her in his mind. She was the source of both intense joy and searing pain. The mere thought of her was enough to make his heart pound. Her name was Sally Dawson, and whenever he dreamed of her, he regained his lost youth.
Daniel was an old, sick man and he would die any day. He wanted me to write his story to let Sally know how important she had been in his life. He wanted her to know that he had always loved her and tried to find her. “Please use our real names,” he said. “This is my last chance to tell her.”
“I’ll do it,” I promised, but I didn’t tell him I would change the ending to his story.
1
There was a rise in the beginning and a fall in the end. On a warm October afternoon, when the sun had already given its last, faint light to the world, Daniel Fenton left the hospital, Dr. Andrews’s words still ringing in his ears.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. You only have one month left,” the doctor had said, shaking his head.
“Without alcohol, sex, and cigarettes, you might live longer, but I can’t promise it. This form of brain cancer is almost always fatal. We can do surgery, but there’s only a two or three percent chance you’ll survive.”
Numb, Daniel made his way across the parking lot, barely feeling his feet padding over the concrete ground. One month consisted of thirty days. How could it be, he only had thirty days left in this world?
He’d lived for fifty-two whole years and had nothing but a few bouts with the flu, the occasional cold. How could someone tell him with such casual assurance that he had a mere thirty days to go, a little more, if he laid off booze, sex, and cigarettes?
Alcohol, he didn’t drink much, a glass of fine wine now and then. And sex—a bitter laugh escaped from his lips—how long had it been since he’d had a relationship with anyone? He couldn’t even remember what this word meant. As for smoking, sure, he smoked, a lot. But he seriously doubted that the number of cigarettes he would inhale between now and the time of his demise would hasten it.
Fifty-two years old and strong as an ox, except for these pounding headaches. Was this doctor with his fancy Harvard Medical School degree for real? Daniel owned his own business, surely that was cause enough for pounding headaches. He stopped in his tracks, wincing at the memory, the reason that he hadn’t gone to the doctor sooner—too busy at the office. Had his stalling caused the cancer to metastasize?
The diagnosis had to be wrong. Whirling around, Daniel abruptly headed back to the hospital entrance. In the elevator, he punched the button for the fourth floor, Oncology. Then he burst out of the elevator, marched past the reception desk, and broke into Dr. Andrews’s office.
“Hello again, Daniel,” Dr. Andrews said, rising from his chair. He circled his desk and gave Daniel a pat on the shoulder. “You’ve come back for clarification, for a shred of hope. I wish I could give you that, Daniel. As a doctor, believe me, I hate to give you this news. I wish I could cure you instead. I wish I had words to console you…” He looked away, sighing. “The only advice I can give you is to go home and relax. Forget work, make the most of these final days. And come back and see me next Monday.”
Daniel stood there rigidly, mouth wide open, ready to speak, but he forgot what he was going to say and what he wanted to know. Instead he just turned around and shuffled out the door. In the corridor, he brushed past an old man in a body cast, staring vacantly ahead. He heard muffled crying and wheels squeaking on the linoleum floor as a tired-looking health aide pushed an IV stand into some waiting patient’s room. Feeling as if he was going to choke, Daniel picked up his pace, loosening his tie.
Outside the hospital, he checked his watch. Six-thirty. He’d been here for nearly four hours, half a day of work. What a waste of time. He hated to waste time. In the struggle to prove he was a winner; he had spent his adult life making every minute count. And now when he was in the prime of life, this doctor uttered his prognosis, in a single moment, vanquishing him.
Climbing into his Lexus 740, Daniel wondered where to go. He picked his cell phone up, saw that he’d missed ten calls, put on his seatbelt, and started the car. He checked his watch again. Six-forty exactly. Time to go home, but he didn’t want to go home.
He turned on the ignition and stared at the wheel, perplexed. His Marlboros were sitting on the dashboard. He pulled one from the pack and lit it.
The smoke swirled up instantly before him and he watched its slow curling movement. Normally he was rushing around, so busy with meetings, orders, and phone calls that he had no opportunity to stop and enjoy life. Rush, rush, rush.
What he needed, it dawned on him, was some wide-open space where there were no clamoring people asking for things, no meetings to attend, and no ringing phone calls to answer. He unrolled his window, tossed away his unfinished cigarette and put the car in reverse. He needed a quiet place where he could breathe.
Resolutely, he backed out and exited the parking lot. Once Daniel decided to do something, he did it right away. He preferred himself this way: focused and determined, a real man.
At a stoplight, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. Seven on the dot. Still rush hour. He tried to avoid the rush hour in San Francisco. People could waste one fifth of their life stuck in traffic. He was lucky to have his own business; it gave him flexibility to come and go when he wanted.
Finally, he was on 17 Mile Drive, squeezed between more cars. At this pace it would take him another whole hour before he cleared the traffic jam. Then he could stop somewhere.
An hour later, he saw a sign for Pebble Beach, thirty miles ahead. He had heard of this place but never been. A few minutes later, he saw a wide-open space bordering the road. He pulled in and parked, then walked a short way until he came to a cliff overlooking the ocean. Under the darkened sky, the ocean had turned a near uniform gray, save for the whitecaps breaking here and there, reminders that nature was in a constant state of flux.
Perched on the edge of the cliff, he watched the red sun sinking slowly into the waves. He took a deep breath, then exhaled. The ocean turned gray and darkness f