Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Fuck the statistics is our family attitude. None of us are giving in to this disease.
I have spent too much time down the rabbit hole of internet searches. The treatment is a tough one to endure. My father agrees we need to stay ahead of it. Since mom doesn’t want to give up working, we will make sure she can do it as long as possible while being comfortable doing it. I’ll learn everything before she gets through the second or third round, I hope. The goal is to have it where I can run things here alongside her. In the event she needs to take an absence or two, I can hold it down for her.
At least for the summer. When fall comes, we will reevaluate the needs of my mother, the business, and how that fits with my education. Neither of my parents want to hinder me from following my dreams. If I am honest, though, my future is not the same without my mother. Anything they think I want ahead is all a blur as my focus is solely on seeing her through this treatment and to the other side.
Luckily, I decided not to go away for college. My plan is to study accounting at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. The daily drive will suck sometimes, but being home to help my mother is worth it. Once classes begin, I’ll figure out how to juggle school and being here. I’m hopeful I can do most of them online and adjust things to manage the office while keeping up with school.
Originally, I wanted to study psychology but after watching some friends struggle with their mental health, I learned quickly I don’t have the mental capacity to compartmentalize. I feel what they feel, I take on other people’s problems and emotions as my own. Try as I might to stop it, I can’t, and it is exhausting. I can’t seem to keep my own heart and emotions separate. Therefore, I quickly realized I am not equipped for that line of work.
I took a test once from a magazine article. I’m an empath. I feel what everyone around me feels just as equally. Knowing I would emotionally take on everyone’s problems, I decided I should follow a different career path. At first, the idea of sorting a career felt daunting when I had this intrigue into emotions, mental health, and the motives that control people. It hit me randomly one day, I am actually pretty good at math.
Numbers are simple.
The sheet needs to balance. Find ways to make it balance. Accounting calls to me because it is all controllable. The more I looked into the career path, it all called to me.
Life can feel out of control sometimes, but the money is what it is. The dollars are either there or they aren’t. Positives and negatives, cut and dry.
Cancer is not cut and dry. The future isn’t clear and it’s definitely not within our control.
My whole family has decided to focus on the things we can control. Like me coming to work here with my mom and learning to do her job. Mariella is still in high school; she’s taken on doing things at home like laundry and meals. My brother helps my dad with the yard and cars and man stuff as they call it. I think man stuff is more like spending time in the garage chit-chatting with an occasional loop around the yard on the mower.
We are just opening up when my dad walks in the office with a man following behind him carrying a baby in a car seat carrier thing. Dad drove us to work, but he went right over to the garage next door to work while mom and I came in here to get the office going.
The new guy stands with my dad just inside the front door. He’s a prospect. No one has bothered to tell me his name. Sure, I have seen him around, but we haven’t spoken. With my dad being a Hellion, I know what the cut means and the patches. He’s got the cut, but no insignia and only his prospect patch. He has to do his time and earn the brotherhood. How they earn it? I don’t have a clue. How long it takes? It seems to vary. I can’t pinpoint any two prospects working it out in some steady timeline.
This man is a beast. Tall, broad shoulders, a chiseled jaw line, he is seriously hot. There is a seriousness to him that I feel tension literally rolling off him.
“Vida,” my father greets my mother then looks to me, “Maritza, glad you’re here today, hija.” He walks beyond me to my mother and kisses her.
This is something he has done for years. It doesn’t matter who is around, what he needs to say, he always kisses my mother before expressing anything else. For the longest time it annoyed me, grossed me out, and I don’t know but I didn’t like it. With my mom’s diagnosis, I actually treasure and respect that he makes loving her a priority above any conversation they need to have.