NaNoWriMo Part 2

Well, I was doing really well, making all my word counts. Right up until Tuesday when I donated blood. The trouble is that donating blood makes me really tired. I came home, had dinner, and went to bed. And didn't write. And even just one day behind made it a lot harder to write Wednesday and today. Now, I'm really far behind and I am going to have to spend all day tomorrow writing. Anyway, here is the second part of the story.

After the reading of the will, Sylvia went to the park where she and James used to take the kids she watched.

She sat down on the bench and stared at the envelope in her hands. She wanted to tear into it, read it, hopefully understand why he had given her everything.

But she also wanted to wait. This was the last conversation she would ever have with James, one-sided though it may be. She wanted it to last.

She took a deep breath and carefully ripped open the envelope along the top folded edge. She removed the letter and unfolded it.

Dear Sylvia,

You probably don’t understand why I made you my sole beneficiary. I’m not quite sure I understand myself. Only, one night I lay awake in bed thinking of all life as given me and taken away and suddenly I knew that my sons did not deserve to inherit my estate. They’ve had everything handed to them their whole lives. I don’t want to hand them their future forever. They would use it selfishly, as they have used everything ever given them in their life.

When I made this decision I knew that I had to re-write my will or else they would get everything. I was getting older all the time and it wasn’t something that could wait. I met with Busby late the following day. It was the day I had asked you what you would do if you won the lottery.

You told me that you would quit your job, finish school, and travel. I asked why you would finish school and you told me it was for two reasons. First because you never know when the money might run out and you wouldn’t want to be caught broke with no education. Second because you wanted to finish what you started.

I was impressed and I am no longer easily impressed. They were such wise words for someone so young.

Even going to Busby’s office that afternoon, I had intended on splitting my estate up and giving it to charities. But I sat down with Busby and I told him I didn’t want my sons to get my money and he asked who I was going to give it to then and I told him, Sylvia Rowland.

The moment I said your name, I knew it was the right thing to do.

I love you, Sylvia. If you had been my own daughter, I couldn’t have loved you more. I hope this helps.

James Cassidy

Sylvia folded the letter and slid it back into its envelope.

Children were screaming, running, and playing everywhere in the park. She hadn’t noticed until now. She wouldn’t be bringing the kids here anymore. She wouldn’t be the housekeeper/nanny for the Roberts family anymore. The summer semester at UBC was almost over and she could take a semester off to figure things out. Then she could go back full time. She had always wanted to go to school full time, but never had the money for tuition and bills. Vancouver was a very expensive city to live in.

But she didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

It suddenly hit her. She didn’t have to worry about money anymore. She could pay all her bills next month. She could buy a new winter jacket and boots this year. Her feet would stay dry this winter. She didn’t have to take transit anymore. Vancouver transit was pretty good, but her mother lived in Langley. Getting out there on weekends was very difficult and took about two hours by transit.

Everything was going to get easier from now on. For her and for her mother.

November 2011

They sat together in the drawing room of James Cassidy Jr.’s house on 3^rd Ave. The room was large and bright. A chocolate brown leather sofa and chair were predominant in the room. Blue and white throw pillows decorated each end of the sofa as well as the chair. There was a luxurous white rug that covered the hard wood floor. They had had sex on the rug less than an hour ago and were now dressed again and sitting on the sofa. Though most of the Cassidy family lived in the large house, everyone else was not home.

He suddenly spoke. “We have to do something.”

“I know,” she replied, taking a hairbrush from her bag and brushing her tousled blonde hair. “But what can we do? We’ve already tried to get it back. The will is uncontestable.”

“There has to be another way to get the money. It’s ours. It’s rightfully ours. We waited for years to get that money. I had plans for mine.”

“So did everyone. Look at William. He has gambling debts and they’re about to be called in. Senior always paid them before. I doubt dear Sylvia is going to offer to do that.”

“Junior isn’t much better. He may not have debts, but he sure can get in a lot of trouble when he’s been drinking. Remember when he went to the Boulevard Casino with William and they got thrown out after James started a fight over a roulette game?”

“I remember.” She stood and paced to the window, looking out into the gloom of November rain. “I wanted to get away from here this winter. Winter in Vancouver is always so depressing. Why couldn’t we move to California?”

He got up to pour himself a glass of scotch. “We don’t have the money now. But I might have an idea of how we can get it.”

She turned to him. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, we can’t very well kill her, now can we? She may already have a will leaving everything to some charity or something. That would be like her. Giving it all away.”

“What is your idea?” she prompted. She knew how much he hated philanthropy. He thought that people only gave money to alleviate their consciences and that charities were no better than homeless people begging for money.

“We’ll have to get her to make sure we’re in the will before she dies.”

“And how do we do that? She doesn’t like any of us. She won’t speak to anyone in the Cassidy family without her lawyer, present. Busby is a tricky one. He knows us all too well. He’d know we’re up to something.”

“That’s why we won’t be the ones she gets to know. We’ll hire someone to get to know her. He’ll cozy up to her, pretend he likes her, and he will find out what kind of dirt she’s hiding. Everyone has something they don’t want known. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and it’ll be something illegal. Once we have the dirt, we’ll convince her that she should write us into the will and also pay us a million dollars to keep quiet. When we’re in the will, we’ll kill her and inherit everything. You and I can leave Vancouver together. We’ll go to California, or somewhere in Europe, where no one will ever find us. We can be together and we’ll have the whole fortune. We won’t have to share it with anyone else in the family.”

She stepped toward him as she thought it over. “It’s a good idea. She might not want to write us into the will. I don’t know if I can live on only a million dollars for long.” She continued walking closer and closer to him through the room until she was standing right in front of him. “It’ll be tricky.”

“But it’ll be worth it.” He grabbed her around the waist. “Worth every penny.” Then he lowered his head and claimed her mouth.

NaNoWriMo Part 1

The first 3000 words are written. Two days down, 28 to go. My goal is 1500 words on weekdays and 2000 words on weekends (including Remembrance Day). Here are the first 1205 words. Keep in mind that I will not be editing anything until after the 30 days of November are up. I hope you enjoy reading my scrambled attempt at writing a novel in 30 days.

July 2011

James Cassidy died quietly in his sleep with only a picture of his late wife, Ruth, to keep him company. If he had been asked, that was how he would have preferred it anyway.

He had been the only one there when Ruth had succumbed to breast cancer. Now, ten years later, she was the only one to witness his final moments of life, if only from within a framed photograph.

The church was full on the day of the funeral. There was the usual mix of people for a funeral of a rich and powerful man. Some genuine mourners, but a lot of people there just to see that the old man was really gone.

Cassidy had been out of the real estate business for fifteen years, but he had made some lasting impressions in his time.

His two sons in the front row with their families. Not one of them shed a tear for the loss.

                                                                                                            

A week following the funeral, the family gathered, this time in the conference room of the Busby and Associates Law Firm. Mr. Evan Busby had been Cassidy’s lawyer for more years than he cared to remember. It was Cassidy money that had helped him start his own law firm. And while he didn’t do quite as well as his client, Busby did extremely well for himself.

He glanced into the conference room and took a deep breath. It was not going to be easy, what he had to do next. There were nine people seated around the large conference table. James Junior and his wife Clare sat opposite the two empty seats where he and the young lady with him would sit. Next to James was his brother William and then his wife Vanessa. She was the only one dressed in black. She had a tissue in one hand but her eyes were dry. Next sat William and Vanessa’s oldest child, Colby and then his sister Pamela. On the other side of the table Pricilla, James’ oldest child sat primly next to her mother. Her hands were folded in her lap and she stared straight ahead at nothing. Next to her sat her two brothers, Gordon and Robert. Her husband John was not present, nor was her baby daughter, Cecilia.

He opened the door and bid the young woman enter first.

She was dressed in a pale blue pencil skirt and matching jacket with a white blouse underneath. She had done her hair up in a simple pony tail. Her black framed glasses hid her blue eyes.

The first thing James Cassidy Junior thought when he saw her was prim and proper as well as vaguely familiar. She sat down in the chair Busby held for her and then he sat down beside her. Obviously, his assistant.

Busby laid a thick folder on the table and opened it. Then he patted his pockets until he realized he was already wearing his glasses. He poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher in the centre of the table and then wordlessly offered a glass to the young woman next to him. She shook her head no and so he set the pitcher back in the centre of the table. He took a sip of water. He adjusted his glasses. He straightened his tie.

“Mr. Busby,” James Jr. said. “Could we please get on with this? I have a squash game at 3.”

Busby glanced at the man who looked so much like his father. Busby had never liked his client’s oldest son.

“Of course, Mr. Cassidy. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to delay your game. Perhaps I should just give you the gist of what’s here so you may go.”

“That would be fine, Busby. Please just tell us what we get.”

“Nothing.”

If a pin had fallen on the table in that moment, it would have sounded like an explosion.

“Excuse me?” William asked, the younger son.

“You get nothing. All of you. Except Cecilia who has a college fund held in trust with me. If she goes on to post secondary education it is fully paid for. If she graduates from post secondary, she will receive a bonus of $100,000 to help start her future. The same is set up for any other grandchildren and great-grand children who may wish to use it. He said to consider it a Cassidy scholarship.”

“What happens to the rest of the estate?” James asked.

“Your father left it all to Sylvia Rowland.”

The woman next to Busby gasped and started so hard she nearly fell out of her chair. “What did you just say?” she asked.

“He left everything to you, Ms. Rowland,” Busby told her.

“But why? I was just his next door neighbour. When you told me he had written me into his will, I thought you meant just something small, some token or something.”

“No, Ms. Rowland. Everything. The entire Cassidy estate.” He turned to the Cassidy family sitting across from him at the table. “He and I figured you would want to contest the will.”

“You’re damn right, we do!” James erupted.

“Before you go to the trouble and expense, I can assure you that your father did this quite a while ago and we have the documentation that the doctor gave us saying that he was of sound mind and body. I made sure this will was iron clad. If you take it to court, you will be wasting your time and money.”

James stood and everyone else followed suit. “We’ll see about that.”

When the Cassidys left the room, Busby turned to Sylvia Rowland who sat beside him in shock.

“They don’t have a case against you. The estate is yours. I have some paperwork that we’ll need to go over, but you can move into the house whenever you want to.”

“The house?” She looked at Busby, confused.

“The house is part of the estate. Unless you’d rather sell it and buy another.”

“I don’t… I don’t know. He never told me. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“I can’t tell you that, but maybe he can.” He reached into the folder and pulled out an envelope with Sylvia scrawled across it in James Cassidy Sr.’s bold script. She gently took the letter and fingered the envelope.

“I loved him you know,” she said, looking at the envelope. “My father died when I was five and so James became like a father to me. And now he’s gone, too.” Tears formed quickly in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. They dripped off her chin and onto the table but she didn’t wipe them away. She held onto the envelope, the last thing James would ever say to her, and cried.

Eventually she noticed that Mr. Busby was holding a tissue out to her so she took it and dried her face and blew her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay. You’re not the first person to cry at the reading of a will. You won’t be the last. But I should get on with it. I really do have to read this will. Are you ready?”

She looked at the envelope in her hands and nodded.

Untitled

Here it is. The last entry before NaNoWriMo. It starts Tuesday. I'm quite nervous. I'm going to have to write about 1500 words every day in order to make the number of words I need. Wish me luck.

The house of delight leered at me from my spot on the sidewalk. We lived there once. No longer a house of delight, but a shabby monument to a brighter time.

I always swore that I didn’t believe in a higher power, but it took only a taste of sacrifice and suddenly I am praying for hope, relief, another chance, freedom. There has been no answer yet. So I’m here, standing in front of the house and wondering where you are.

Remember when the rooms of this house held us in a warm embrace that seemed to keep the world at bay? Now, the world has invaded our togetherness and we didn’t survive the invasion.

I admit that I saw you. You saw me, too, but I pretended not to notice. I am conflicted. Not sure whether to hold on or to let go. But you. You were laughing and carrying on with friends. I had to swallow a pitcher of bitterness at the knowledge that while I toiled without you, you were happy without me.

I hoped to come here to the now decrepit house (was the paint always peeling? Did the screen door always hang crooked?) and let go. But I am here now and just as conflicted as before.

I want to hold on.

I want to let go.

Failure

This story I just sat down and wrote. I had no idea what I was going to write when I started, I just did it. Anyway, it probably needs some work.

Last week I said that I would be writing a longer story in installments on my blog. However, I have come to realize that NaNoWriMo is starting in just a couple of weeks and when it does I want to be able to focus on the story that I have been thinking about. That is the one that I will be posting in installments on this blog. At least, probably. Since I'm going to fully participate in NaNoWriMo this year, I need to make sure that it isn't against the rules to be posting the story here as well as wherever I'm supposed to post it. (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's National Novel Writing Month every November. The goal is to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days.) Anyway, enjoy this short story and I'll have more for you next week.

The hallway was silent and dark. Four pictures hung along one wall. Pictures of happier times. Alice walked slowly down the hallway, her expensive shoes clicking loudly on the hardwood floor. She paused for a moment by each of the pictures on the wall.

The first was of her grandparents at their wedding fifty years ago. It was black and white and faded, but the happiness shining out of her grandmother’s eyes as she clung to her new husband hadn’t faded in all the years since.

The second photo was of her mother on her wedding day. Her mother wore a beautiful ivory white dress. Satin and silk draped over her body and flowed down the red carpet that lined the isle in the church where she had married her husband of thirty years. She smiled like she had a secret.
The third picture was of her older sister. She had been married on a magnificent day in July five years ago. The sun shone brightly in the sky and it seemed that the flowers had all bloomed just for her that day. Roses and carnations and lilies. Pink and red and orange. Not a single cloud marred the perfect blue sky. It was all for her.

The last picture that she stopped at was her own. She smiled at the photographer with such exuberant joy. It had been barely eight months since the happiest day of her life. Alice scrutinized the image of herself, laughing in the arms of the man she had married. They had been so perfect for each other.

She reached up and removed the picture from the wall.

Ann-Louise's Story - Chapter 1 "The Beginning"

I'm sorry that I again missed a week. I haven't been very good at writing every week. I think the problem might be that I don't really like writing short stories. I like writing longer pieces. So today I am posting something that I wrote a long time ago. It is the beginning of a story that I haven't finished. What I am planning on doing now is taking one of the stories that I have posted the beginning of and continuing to write and post only that story. If you have a request as to which one you would like to hear more of, please post or send me a message (though I'd really like it if you posted since I haven't gotten any real posts yet).

Anyway, this is the beginning of Ann-Louise's story. It is only the first scene from the first chapter. Let me know what you think.

“You want to know why I did it, don’t you?”

The young man at the door nodded. He had never been to this house before, had never met the woman at the door, but he had come here for information that only she could give him.

She stood aside and said, “Come in, Kevin.  Would you like coffee?  Or would you prefer tea?”

“Tea, please.”

“I’ll put the water on.”  She led the way into her kitchen.  “Twenty years is a very long time.  You look like your father,” she said, pausing to look at him.  His dark hair was quite short and small rectangular glasses perched over strikingly blue eyes.  His black and white suit was impeccably tailored to his wiry frame, and it looked like he kept well in shape.  She shook her head and turned back to filling the kettle.  “Anyway, it seems like a lifetime ago.”

“It was.”

He sat down in her sparkling kitchen and watched as she set the water to boil on the stove.  Her sleek black hair held a few strands of grey that wouldn’t have been there before and though she was looking away from him now he had seen her green eyes were still bright with life.  She really wasn’t all that much older than he was at forty to his twenty; everything that had happened made it seem like there were more years between them than there was.  He watched the way her slim body stretched to reach the cups on the top shelf and seeing her fluid, no-nonsense movements reminded him of something his father had once told him.

“He told me you were graceful, that you used to dance.”

She nodded.

“I think he was half in love with you.”

She smiled and shook her head.   “No, he wasn’t.”

They were silent as the water finished boiling and she poured two cups.  They added their own milk and sugar and she asked him, “Shall we go into the living room?”

“Here is fine.”

“It’s a long story,” she warned.

“Here is fine.”

 She nodded and took a sip of her tea.

“It really was so long ago.  It seems almost to have happened to another person.  But I remembered it all, as accurately as it is possible to remember something with twenty years between then and now.  I knew that, one day, you would come to me and ask me this question of why.  And I knew that, those nine months we spent would force me to answer.”

She took another sip of her tea and looked at the young man across from her.

“You’re looking for truth, Kevin.  Beware that this is what you’re going to get.  It may not be pretty, and it may not be what you’re looking for.”

When he nodded, she looked away from him into a past that he could never see.

“The year was 2039 and my friend, Lucy and I were looking for jobs.  I still find it slightly ironic that the 1930s and the 2030s were decades of severe economic depression for Canada.  As my history teacher would later tell me, there are no new ideas in Canadian history.

“Lucy was a beautiful girl with long blonde hair and the kind of a body a man would kill for.  She was gorgeous.  She had gotten involved with someone a couple of months before and he had gotten her pregnant.  Then he left and we were on our own again.

“Needing money, we went to the last place either one of us wanted to be.  We didn’t want to get caught up in the controversy surrounding the place.  But they paid good money.  Kwan Dynastic is what would eventually help turn the economy back around for Canada, since the whole world wanted what he was supplying.  First, they offered jobs, which Canadians from all over came for.  Then, by putting a lot of money back into the country, the company put Canada back on its feet.

“Lucy and I, however, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.  We didn’t know our lives would be irrevocably changed as a result.  It was our fault, I suppose.  We never asked what the consequences were until it was too late.”  She shrugged.  “Plus, we were desperate.”

A Beginning

I really don't know what this story is about exactly. I was thinking about making it a fantasy story but I really am not yet sure. Hope you like it and if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Darkness surrounded him and rain pelted down on his bare head. He should have remembered his umbrella. Lightning flashed, illuminating the deserted street for a brief moment before plunging him into darkness once again. The young man continued walking and two steps later, thunder crashed around him.

He moved forward steadily, unhurriedly, heedless of the rain that poured around him.

“It was stupid,” he said to himself. “I should have been more careful.” He shoved his wet hands into his wet jacket pockets and kicked a stone dejectedly as he continued to walk.

“But of course, you do stupid things all the time,” he continued. “Like deciding to walk home but leaving your umbrella behind.”

Rain dripped from his dark eyebrows into his green eyes. It dripped from the tip of his sharp nose. It collected in his normally brown hair, turning it almost black and dragging the ends of it onto his forehead.

He kicked another stone.

The stone jumped and skittered away, scaring a cat seeking refuge under a bush from the storm.

He kept walking, unconcerned.

Lightning flashed again, and the street was visible to the end of the block for half a second before the light died away again.

The young man didn’t flinch.

Not at the lightning.

Not at the rain.

Not at the thunder a few seconds later.

He just kept walking. Muttering to himself about how big a fool he was.

He walked all the way to the end of the block and never noticed the dark van slowly trailing him.

The lightning flashed again and the van sped up, pulling next to the young man. As the resounding thunder rumbled through the sky, the side door opened and the young man was pulled inside.

The door slammed shut and the van took off all in the same moment that the thunder died away.

Through his fear, the young man thought again of what a fool he was.

Secret in the Attic

I'm sorry I missed a week and am late this week. It's been a little crazy lately what with work and driving and lack of sleep and all. I wrote something new and I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I hope you like it.

It was a really windy, the day she arrived at the house. It had been threatening to rain all day, but so far only the wind had arrived.

She had driven all day to make it to the house before everyone else arrived. She wanted to have some time to herself to face the house. She hadn’t been here for five years, but she had been expected to be here this time, regardless of whatever had happened previously.

The house was three stories tall with whitewashed siding and a dark green door and shutters. It was an old Victorian house. Most people would love the house. It really was beautiful. She was not most people.

She forewent the front door and instead went to the back yard. There was a rope swing hanging from the large oak tree. She used to swing off it into the lake that stretched out to the East. She looked toward the back door. There was a screened porch around another dark green door with a window.

She remembered the door well. It was the one that had allowed her to escape.

She had run out of the house that day through that back door. Now, she would enter the house for the first time since then through that same door.

She strode determinedly toward it, climbing the five stairs quickly. She opened the screen door to the porch and crossed to the green door. But there she hesitated. She could hear again the screams of that day. She didn’t even have to go inside to hear it. To see it.

She had run down the stairs from the attic and found her mother in the kitchen. “How could you not tell me? Why did you never tell me?”

Entering the kitchen she could see the scene between herself and the woman who had raised her. They had fought for an hour before she had finally left. Her mother called after her, “Really, Eliza. It’s not that big a deal.”

But it was a big deal. So big that she hadn’t spoken to her mother since. She hadn’t been to the house where her family spent most weekends during the summer since that day.

She moved through the kitchen and started climbing the stairs to the second floor. Then to the third. Then finally, she pulled the hatch down to release the stairs to the attic where she had found the papers that had torn her world apart.

She found the spot where the papers had been. She didn’t know if they’d still be there, but it didn’t matter. She remembered what they said.

“I thought you would be here before everyone else.”

Eliza turned around to see her father coming up the stairs to the attic. “I had to come. My brother is getting married. I couldn’t miss that. Even if he really isn’t my brother.”

“Just because we adopted you doesn’t mean we’re not your family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We didn’t want you to feel exactly what you are feeling now.”

Eliza looked down at her feet and then up at the man who had been her father all her life. She wanted to forgive him.

“You’ve had five years, but I can see that you need more time. I will be here when you’re ready.”