A little over one year ago, I started the story of Number Seven when a friend of mine sent me a writing prompt for a contest. That prompt was “Awakenings”, and that’s what I called this story through its entire first draft. What I didn’t quite realize was that Seven’s awakening would lead to an awakening for me, as well.
It took me about six months to write the first draft, then another five or so months to take reader feedback and get it edited. At just about 33,000 words, it’s far short of the 80,000-word average for a novel, meaning that no traditional editor, agent, or publisher would give it the time of day. But I didn’t want to double the length of the story with extraneous subplots or details; I always liked that it read relatively quickly. So when Amorphous Publishing Guild (APG) came to me with an opportunity to self-publish, I took it. With APG, I got to publish my story on my terms. No doubt there are folks out there who think the way I published this story is wrong, hurting my brand, not exposing it to enough readers…but we each have to follow our own paths.
I respect and admire my writer friends who are dedicated to their goals of a book deal and big-time representation. That is impressive! It’s not for me, though. I write stories that speak to and through me, and the strictly business side of publishing doesn’t much interest me. Sure, I’d like to make back in sales what I spent on production and editing costs, but I really like my day job, too. For me, writing stories is about personal joy. By sharing the story, I hope to entertain others and bring them a little bit of joy, too.
Reading the Story
To pick up your own copy of my thriller short story “Number Seven and the Life Left Behind”, choose from the following versions:
For countries not the US or the UK, you can search for “Mayumi Hirtzel”. If the book is not available in your country but you’d still like a copy, let me know in the comments, and I’ll make sure we work something out!
If you decide to give it a read, thank you! I hope you enjoy the story of Seven and his friends. And look for more stories from me in the future!
Once again, I hadn’t planned on writing a holiday story. But sometimes a line or scene or emotion gets stuck in my head, and I have to put it down on paper. Scroll to the end to skip straight to my notes, or read my 2018 holiday story, “Heritage”, below.
Christmas eve day meant that work had been crazy, traffic on the Loop had been a mess, and last-minute wine shopping had been a really bad idea, but Daniel Wright somehow made it home before Rob got back from his veterans’ group holiday coffee party. He’d had the foresight to prep the roast chicken Rob had requested for their quiet holiday dinner, and the shallots and potatoes would be a quick, easy bake alongside. That meant he could grab a hot shower, open the bottle of Beaujolais – recommended by his brother Marshall, whose knowledge of wines rivaled a sommelier’s – to breathe, maybe even queue up a playlist populated with some of Rob’s relaxing jazz favorites before the evening would get busy. Or, at least, before they would get busy for the evening.
Daniel snickered to himself as he opened the front door,
only to falter on the threshold when he smelled the unmistakable aroma of
burning kindling.
“Rob?” he called, but it was Paige who called back.
“Just me!”
Daniel blinked, set the wine on the table next to the door,
and walked into the living room with his coat still on. Paige was sitting in front
of the fireplace, coaxing a flame with a bundle of sticks while Buckle rolled,
purring, beside her.
“What are you doing here?” Daniel asked.
Paige looked round at him. “Making a fire.”
“That, I can see,” Daniel said with a half-hearted roll of
his eyes. “I meant, aren’t you supposed to be with your mum?”
“I wanted to come home.” Her green eyes glimmered at him. “That’s
okay, right?”
He felt abruptly shamed. “Of course!” He crossed to her and joined
her on his knees, taking her in a quick hug. “You just surprised me. We weren’t
expecting you until the 28th.”
She stayed close to him, smelling of sandalwood soap, and
shrugged. “Well, Brad had a heart attack.”
Daniel jerked back. “Oh, my God! Is he all right?”
Paige shrugged again. “He didn’t die or anything,” she said,
rather coolly. “My mom kind of freaked out, though.”
“I can imagine,” Daniel mumbled, even if he couldn’t quite; Paige’s
mother had always projected an air of supreme – and haughty – control in every
interaction he’d ever had with her. That wasn’t saying much, of course, being
the man her ex-husband had married.
He was about to ask what had happened when the front lock
clicked, the door swung open, and Rob called:
“Babe? You here?”
“We’re in the living room,” Daniel returned.
“Buck with you?” Rob said, when he stopped in the entryway
at sight of Paige. A confused grin split his all-American face. “Hey, kiddo!
What are you doing here so early?”
“Brad had a heart attack,” Daniel said.
Rob’s reaction was to shrug one shoulder from his jacket and
grunt. “Huh. That’s too bad.”
Daniel pulled a face. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“It’s not like I’m married to him,” Rob replied in a grumble
before flinging off his jacket and opening his arms for his daughter. “You
okay?”
Paige rose and crossed to his welcoming embrace, pressing
her cheek to his chest. “Yeah.”
“You want to talk about it?” Rob asked.
Paige drew back with a twisted-lipped grimace. “What’s there
to talk about? He tries his best, but those kids run him ragged. I offered to look
after Bailey and Dex, but Mom said that’s what she pays Alexis for.”
Rob met her expression with a frown of his own. “Did you
want to stay?”
“Not really.” Paige let go a little sigh as she bent to Buckle,
reaching out with her mechanical hand to scratch him behind one ear. She smiled
a bit for his murmuring purr, and said, “I mean, I didn’t want to just bail,
but she was all, ‘Oh, honey, it’s going to be so crazy here,’” she said, affecting
a sneer for her loose mimicry of her mother. “‘Why don’t you just go back to
your dad?’” She lifted her shoulders one more time. “So I was like, ‘All right,
fine. You don’t want me here, change my flight and I’ll go home.’”
A pang of love urged Daniel to comfort her. “I’m sure that’s
not what she meant.”
But Paige just rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I feel bad for
Brad – he’s a nice guy – but I couldn’t hang around just Mom bossing around the
kids, and Alexis, and a bunch of hospital folks, on top of everything else.”
Rob smiled and stroked her hair, once. “Well, you’re always
welcome with us.”
Paige smiled, wider and somewhat sadly. “You don’t mind me crashing
your holiday date dinner?”
“Not at all,” Daniel assured her, and grinned. “It’s a big
chicken anyway.”
“You want to help?” Rob asked.
Paige shot him her familiar snarky snigger. “I thought
Daniel cooks this dinner.”
Rob puffed. “I make the potatoes.”
“And he pours the wine,” Daniel added.
“Oo!” Paige goggled her eyes. “Can I have wine, too?”
“Sure,” Rob said, and beckoned her to the kitchen.
Daniel followed them, foregoing the notion, now, of the
shower and playlist in favor of spending time with his two most-loved. The
three of them together – with Buckle predictably underfoot – made meal
preparation go faster, easing them into a pleasantly conversational mien about all
things familial.
“Where’s Marshall?” Paige asked as she took over sieving
duty from Rob.
Daniel didn’t look up from slicing apples for the salad. “He
and Caitlin took the kids to Cleveland.”
“What’s in Cleveland?” Paige asked with an expected level of
disdain.
“Caitlin’s folks,” Daniel told her.
“They wanted to go there instead of here,” Rob said, and
Daniel could hear him making his condescending face for what would come next. “Apparently,
Chicago is too scary for them.”
“That’s not what she said,” Daniel chided softly.
“They just don’t want to be on your brother’s home turf,”
Rob said.
Paige hummed as she returned to work on the potatoes. “I don’t
know why they don’t like Marshall.”
“I can think of a few reasons,” Daniel mumbled, mostly to
himself. Rob must have heard him, though, because Daniel immediately felt a light
slap of towel against his hip. He snickered. “They’ll be back on the 28th.”
“Because Marshall can’t spend more than three whole days
with them?” Paige guessed, and they all laughed.
Daniel moved over to the sink to wash his hands, sparing a
glance at the oven timer. “Chicken should be ready in about ten minutes. How
are potatoes?”
“Almost done,” Paige said, scraping her spatula over a final
layer through the sieve.
“Mind if I grab a fast shower?” Rob asked; he was already
headed toward the doorway.
Daniel nodded him on. “Go ahead.”
“But you’re doing dishes!” Paige called after him.
“That’s what you think!” Rob cried back gleefully, followed
by the thud-thud sound of him taking the steps two at a time to the second
floor.
“We’ll run the dishwasher tonight,” Daniel said in
appeasement.
Paige tilted her head toward a shoulder. “I don’t really
mind washing. I just hate drying.” Finished with her job, she licked the spatula
and tossed it into the sink. “What’s next?”
Daniel pressed his mouth into a brief but suitably scolding
line before offering her a more tolerant smile. “Just the table. Get the wine
glasses, please? The good ones, from the hutch. I’ll get cutlery.”
He started to move toward the dinnerware drawer when the
sudden press of her body against his back made him stiffen in surprise. She put
her arms around him a moment, squeezed, and said:
“I love you.”
He chuckled. “I love you, too, sweetheart.” As she released
him, he turned, facing her with an uneasy and uneven grin. “Are you all right?”
Her face, beautiful with youth and hope, glowed with
affection. “You’ve always treated me like a regular person. Even with this,”
she said, waving her mechanical prosthetic arm. “My mom…!” She swung her gaze to
the ceiling, shook her head, and exhaled an exasperated little breath. “I love
her but… You know she still makes me use plastic glasses? I get why she has
them – the twins are still little – but I’m nineteen! I know how to handle a
glass glass! I’m not going to fumble and break them. Or, at least, you know,
not more often than she would.”
Daniel drew his own labored breath.
Getting between Paige and her mother was always a complicated
and dangerous prospect. Rob had no trouble with it, but he was Paige’s father;
he had equal claim to her upbringing. Daniel was a latecomer, though, and a
non-traditional one, at that. He tried his best to be fair to Paige’s mother…as
much as his hackles might rise in defense of the girl who was his daughter by
way only of marriage.
“I know what your arm is capable of,” he said softly, “because
I helped build it.”
“It’s more than that.” Her whole body tensed with a kind of
quiet, barely-held-in anger. “I know there’s stuff I can’t do with my arm. But
there’s lots of stuff I can! She looks at me, and it’s like I’m…broken. And I hate that.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way around her.” He held her
shoulder and dipped his chin. “But you should never feel that way around us.”
As she looked up at him, her smile returned. “I know. And, I
don’t.” She closed her eyes and shook her head again. “This whole thing with
Brad, it made me think.” She raised her eyes to him once more. “If anything
ever happened to my dad, I could still live with you, right? You wouldn’t make
me go be with my mom?”
It felt like an intangible hand reached into his chest and clutched
his heart for a pulse-stopping pause. He blinked to keep tears from forming.
“Of course, I’d want you to stay with me!” He gave a gentle
chuckle. “But, you’re an adult, now—”
“I know,” she drawled in her still-teenage know-it-all voice.
“I know, legally, the custody stuff doesn’t mean anything, anymore.” She inhaled
with an air of resolve that straightened her posture and lifted her chin. “But you’ve
always felt like family, to me. More than my mom does, now.” She twisted her
mouth to one side. “I don’t think I even want to go back to St. Louis, anymore.
It’s like, she’s got her life there, and I’ve got my life here, with you and
Dad. You know?”
He nodded and smiled; the pressure in his throat and behind
his eyes was almost overwhelming. Despite that, he managed to get out without
his voice cracking, “I do.” He pulled a slightly-stuttering breath and looked
around. “I think I left the good napkins in the dryer. Do you mind taking care
of glasses and plates while I run up and get them?”
She beamed. “Sure,” she said, and bounced out of the kitchen
toward the dining room.
Daniel hurried around the short side of the room to the
stairs, rushing up them faster than Rob had done. He stumbled into the laundry room
nearly in gasps, and flung open the dryer to grab one of the limp linens, which
he pressed to his face to muffle his sudden and uncontrollable sobbing,
“Babe?”
Rob’s hushed murmur made Daniel sniffle and turn. His husband
was in typical date-night dinner-in wear – a crewneck tee shirt and jogging
pants – but his face was blanched with worry.
“What’s wrong?” Rob asked, opening both arms.
Daniel stepped into them, at once calmed and uplifted in
that loose but powerful embrace. “Nothing,” he said against Rob’s cheek, rough
from vacation-stubble.
“You’re crying into our good napkins over nothing?” Rob said
quizzically.
Daniel sniffed and let out a shaky breath. “I wish I hadn’t
been afraid to adopt Paige when she was little.”
Rob blew a sigh close to his ear. “It wasn’t worth fighting
with Serena over, trust me,” he murmured against Daniel’s cheek. “And you were
still there for her. She still thinks of you as her dad.” He stroked the other
side of Daniel’s face. “So do I.”
Daniel stood straight with another sniffle and a still-slightly-weepy
smile. “I’m lucky to have you, Mister McAllister. And that amazing daughter of
yours.”
“I’m lucky to have you and yours, too, Doctor Wright,” Rob
said, and bumped their heads together.
A staccato clomping signaled Paige’s arrival up the stairs.
“Hello-o-oh?” she called. “Are we eating, or what?”
“Be right there,” Rob told her, still holding on.
As Paige’s clomping tread retreated down the steps again, Daniel
drew up. “Our amazing daughter.”
Rob nodded. “Our amazing, impatient, opinionated daughter.”
They blinked, looked at each other, and said at the same
time:
I’ve mentioned before how my sister and I used to write stories on Christmas eve/Christmas morning, to keep ourselves occupied before we were allowed to rush down to the presents tucked under the tree. Those years – and stories – are long gone, but I’ve renewed the tradition in recent years, if only for myself, and if only to stay in touch with my writing.
I always seem to return to the crew of my “Finding Mister Wright” universe for these holiday stories. I suppose because I wrote the very first “Finding Mister Wright” novella over the winter break of 2013, in a rush of words and emotion. In the five years since, I’ve written 27 stories starring these characters. Later stories (including this one) have swung the spotlight from the original Mister Wright Marshall to the McAllister/Wright family of Rob, Paige, and Daniel. Which is only fitting, I suppose, since Rob and Paige were the initial inspiration for a 2012 NaNoWriMo that never happened.
These stories are about family life and love, though they may not be the kind of life and love that everyone considers “normal” or “regular.” But then, what’s “normal”? What’s “regular”? Everybody deserves a chance at happiness, no matter how different one may look to any other of us. That’s especially true during the holidays.
Are you writing any stories for the holidays? Feel free to share in the comments below!
National Novel Writing Month does not inspire me the way it once did. I’ve participated in the race to 50,000 words many times over, each time writing a new story that sometimes became something more, and sometimes not. NaNoWriMo is really an exercise in forming writing habits, though, not so much about the novel or story itself. At least, that’s what it’s been for me.
I’ve long since proven to myself that I can write everyday. I may not write the 1700-ish words you need to average every day in order to finish NaNo, but I do write everyday. Some days, it’s 1000 words. Other days, it’s no more than 100. But the habit is with me, now, and it’s one I can’t shake. I suppose I can thank NaNo for that.
This November, I’m concentrating less on writing from scratch and more on rewriting. Rewrites for the following stories, to be exact:
Highs, Lows, and In-Betweens: My sci-fi space western about a group of misfits searching the galaxy for freedom, adventure, and one lost love. This one has been in rewrite hell for almost three years, now, it’s time I got seriously cracking on it again.
Finding Mister Wright: My coming-of-age not-exactly romance starring the original Mister Wright, Marshall, on his journey of self-discovery to be the better man.
Number Seven and the Life Left Behind: My most recent political action story focused on a bodyguard torn between duty, friendship, love, and country.
I’m focusing my energies on making progress on all of these stories in one way or another. I’m already in pretty good shape! “Number Seven” is in the hands of my husband right now. His feedback should be the last step before I’m ready to upload that one to the printer. “Finding Mister Wright” has gone through a chunk rewrite, with the last chapter in its final stage of revision. “Highs, Lows, and In-Betweens” requires the most work, seeing as it’s a near 90% update edit, but I’ve had some plans percolating for a while now that I’m confident I can transcribe to paper.
I wish all of you out there pushing forward with your NaNo stories all my best. I know what a challenge it can be to make the time to write every day! But believe me, once you get yourself in the habit of writing, you’ll be a stronger writer for it. Here’s a blank version of the spreadsheet I’ve used in years past to track and calculate my NaNo progress: NaNo_calculations-blank. For those of you not joining the NaNo race, what are your writing plans for this month?
Back in the spring, this mister started to appear on our front porch. Being the tenderhearted folks we are, we began putting out regular bowls of food and water. Since he would eat pretty much anything we put out, we named him after the monster-eater in the Monster Hunter games, Deviljho, or Jho, for short. Jho came around pretty much every day. He actually got to the point of knowing us that we could pet him – gently – as he ate or lounged on the concrete. Then, one day in the summer, this entourage showed up:
From left to right, that’s Cal, Gogo, Mama, Stripey, and Bro (in the bushes). Mama and the babies took Jho’s place for a while as the primary users of our front porch…and eaters of the food we put out. Needless to say, we quickly went through a couple of bags of kibble with so many mouths to feed! We thought that maybe Jho had been displaced by this sometimes-rowdy crew of kittens, when we looked outside one early evening and saw this:
If Jho wasn’t part of the family (either the papa or a big brother), the entourage definitely welcomed him.
We’ve never been sure to where these cats go when they leave our porch. Sometimes, they just run to the neighbor’s yard, lounging on their porch or under the wheel wells of their truck. Other times, they race across both our yards into some other place, too fast for us to follow. We just knew that they’d come back as long as we put out food for them.
One day when the gang came by, they were short by one. Stripey never showed up again. Maybe s/he was picked up by someone; maybe s/he got hurt or sick. Oh, well, we thought. That’s life in the outdoors.
Gogo
Fast forward several weeks. The gang was still coming around regularly…but we noticed something amiss. One of the white twins, the girl, who we’d called Gogo, was limping very badly. She’d lie on her side in the grass to poop, her little sides heaving. This broke our hearts, and while we’d known before that we should try and trap these cats for neutering, that little girl’s trauma made us quadruple our efforts.
We purchased a couple of humane traps, covered them with towels as camouflage and to keep the cat calm while it was inside, put in some food as bait, and set them out early one morning. Even in the dark before sunup, we saw Jho walk out from the bushes and straight into one of the traps. (We’d picked up Jho previously, in an effort to take him to a shelter. The shelter was full, though, so we ended up bringing him back to our neighborhood and letting him go.) The white brother, who we started calling Bro, followed soon after into the second trap. We were disappointed we didn’t catch Gogo, but two of the boys were better than nothing. Leaving the traps draped, we put them in the back of the car and took them to the clinic for fixing. While I was filling out the necessary paperwork, my husband peered under the towels, to make sure the boys were all right. Jho was fine if somewhat sullen, but he was surprised to see this in the second trap:
Gogo had gotten into the trap, too! She must have limped in first, and then Bro followed her in, springing the trap with his heavier weight. We were so relieved to have Gogo in custody, since now a vet could take a look at her legs in addition to getting her fixed.
When we picked them up the next day, Bro was antsy and Jho was still grumpy.
Little Miss Gogo’s diagnosis was not good, though. She had severely limited mobility in her left leg, and almost no mobility at all in her right. We brought them back home, where we set the boys free. We brought Gogo into the house, putting her in our back room where she’d be safe, with food and water and a tiny litter box. We called our local vet, who offered to see her the next afternoon after we gave them the explanation of her condition.
Here’s Gogo at the vet:
She was very small – only 3 1/2 pounds – and had tapeworm and a heart murmur in addition to the issue with her hips. The vet recommended X-rays to see the true extent of the damage, and we agreed. For the next few hours, we walked around town and worried and discussed what we’d do if the vet came back with a too-serious diagnosis. When the X-rays were finally done, they brought us into the exam room and gave us the facts: Gogo’s pelvis wasn’t shattered, but it had been broken, likely because of a car injury. Her hips were severely out of joint, preventing range of movement. That is not good for a cat who lives outdoors.
There was a small chance that kenneled recuperation would help little Gogo. But there was no guarantee. She was also very afraid of us and did not enjoy being inside, even for the single night that we’d kept her. It might seem cruel, but we decided to do what we thought was best for her, and so asked the vet to put her to sleep. It’s very hard even now for me not to cry when I think about Gogo. She was so small and so sweet when she’d romp around our yard with her brother and sister and Jho. But she was a feral, not an indoor cat, and we didn’t want to prolong her pain.
The staff at the vet office was very compassionate. I often think that vets are kinder and more empathetic than human doctors because their patients have no articulate voice to tell them what’s wrong; vets have to feel their way. Gogo was already sedated for the X-rays, but they held her and stroked her and said soft things to her when they gave her the injection. And off she went over the rainbow bridge.
I like to think that Gogo is in a place open and free, with no roads or scary predators, where she can run and jump and play like she could when she was a kitten.
About a week later, we received a sympathy card from the vet, and this:
It’s a little watercolor painting made with Gogo’s paw prints. It’s going to go into a frame as soon as we find the right one, and stay with us forever, just like Gogo will stay in my heart.
If you were moved by Gogo’s story, please consider donating to the American Veterinary Medical Foundation’s Veterinary Care Charitable Fund, which provides veterinarians with a simple and effective way to offer charitable veterinary services to clients facing personal hardships as well as a means to support animals who are injured or rescued from abuse and neglect, or to your local no-kill shelter or veterinary clinic. We were able to fund Gogo’s medical needs, but not everyone is so lucky.
[C]omplete this sentence: “Chocolate is…”. Write your sentence in the comments section below. We will allow up to 3 entries per person. After the deadline, the Limebirds will decide on which sentence is the most creative, and that person will win a yummy box of Celebrations chocolates!
I submitted the entry below….
…and, I won! It was just a box of Celebrations chocolates, but it felt great to try my hand at something and get chosen as a winner. Winning doesn’t happen that often, for me. Plus, those UK chocolates were darn tasty!
I miss the days of fun challenges like this one. My weeks used to be full of exercising my writing skills between WIPs. Back in those days, I got so much joy out of writing stories, sharing them, hearing what others thought and reading theirs, too. Nowadays, I write and I share, but I don’t get a lot of feedback. I don’t read a lot of other people’s blogs, either. I’m not sure if that’s because my life has gotten busier, the temperature of the writing groups online have changed, or I’m simply not as interested any longer.
I miss my friends the LimeBird Writers, too. I do stay in touch with many of them, and I’m always happy to hear how they’re doing, what successes they’re having, and how they are meeting the challenges in their lives. It’s become more personal, where we know each other as more than just writers. (“Just writers.” Like that’s a thing.) There was a tender simplicity to that old way, though. Maybe what I miss is that feeling of not being as much of a grown-up concerned with politics and global issues. It was fun to be “just a writer” for that little while of my life.
It’s also funny to me, though, to think that the outwardly innocuous act of reading and becoming engaged by an informal online writers group could bring me into touch with so many talented, wonderful people. These are folks for whom I feel no envy, only gratefulness for being allowed to get to know them. They were like family, for a time. They came to know me, too, I think.
Maybe that’s what I really miss, what I really long for. The connection that existed once between me and these would-have-been strangers who found a common thread in our lives as writers poking and pulling at our art and craft.
Happy anniversary, LimeBirds, wherever you are. Your time may have been brief, but I, for one, enjoyed it.
Recent Comments