Touch of Love

By Chelle Cordero

short story collection

An Empty House: You never know what tomorrow will bring. This is a personal essay about coping with and moving on with the “New Normal”.

The Lost Love: Rejected for her Mexican heritage by the teen-age boy she had a crush on, Lindsay put it behind her. So how come, when they wind up at the same college years later, Lindsay can’t get over her anger at the humiliation? And will Brad ever forgive himself for his callous behavior?

The Dead Guy in the Park: An almost end-of-shift call leads a paramedic and her partner to a dead guy in the park. All she has to do is pronounce him so that the coroner can come get the body. What could possibly go wrong?

Rekindled: Cynthia and Daniel were college sweethearts torn apart by tragedy. A lifetime later they bump into each other again — Is this their second chance at love?

A Date with Mistletoe: Sometimes you find that it’s the “Unanswered Prayers” that are the best things to ever happen. When confronted by the man of yesterday alongside the man who means the world to her, there is no doubt in Rachel’s mind that she has the best.

He is My Brother…: Who can help save the life of a beloved family member? Prayers, hopes and a plea for help.

Always, One More Time: Disowned by her parents because of an interracial love affair, Callie Sanders is left alone to raise her son after his father, Jimmy Bernerd, dies fighting in a war on the other side of the world. Desperate to give her son a family she goes to the Bernerd household — what she finds is a second chance at love, acceptance, and family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vanilla Heart Publishing
• Release date: Aug 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386577690

Book preview

Dedication

This collection is dedicated to my husband, Mark, a man who has been my inspiration and has taught me how to be alive.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to acknowledge my children (both birth and in-law), Jenni, Marc and Trish for their unwavering love, support and friendship even through the difficult times. They’ve seen me at my weakest and have been a source of strength.

Our siblings, Bobi and Del, and Sue and Len, and their love that has been a source of comfort and encouragement.

To a myriad assortment of extended family and friends who chose NOT to disappear. So many names that are engraved on my heart forever.

To my amazing publisher and friend, Kimberlee, whose patience and compassion allowed me the time I needed to bring back my creativity.

And in memory of a childhood best friend, DL, the inspiration for Rekindled.

An Empty House

No matter how many times I turned the key in the lock I was always disappointed to find the room within always empty. I kept hoping for the day he would return. I promised him I would wait as long as it took until he came back to me.

For months I missed my husband, I missed sleeping next to him every night, and I missed seeing him every morning as he dressed for work. I was forced to accept the fact that it wasn’t our bed he fell asleep in every night. Someone else was preparing his meals, greeting him when he woke, and someone else was listening to him when he needed to talk. So many days and weeks passed while I cried myself to sleep every night... simply alone.

Life had changed. I never suspected that he would leave me, that he would leave our home.

It was late one night in December when he left. We had plans to celebrate the holidays with the family, but our plans fell flat and there were no celebrations. I never saw the warning signs, I wasn’t prepared to be alone in a house that seemed even bigger without him in it.

Now if I wanted to see him I had to make arrangements, I had to make sure that it fit their schedule. I couldn’t even call him and expect to hear his deep baritone, most times I had to swallow my tears and ask the female voice on the other end to let me speak to him.

My heart was breaking. I waited and prayed that one day he would come back to our home, to me. I prayed that one day I wouldn’t be alone anymore.

My children, our adult children were always there for me helping me to make the difficult transition from what I had, but they have their own lives to go home to. They had their own their own families and their own homes. I couldn’t keep depending on them, I wasn’t sure what my future held and I couldn’t keep them from living their own. I had to force myself to look strong for them and for me. I had to learn to do things for myself, to do all the things I had always depended on my husband to do. I was so tired and each day I wondered just how much further I could push.

It was two long, agonizing months before he returned. He was debilitated by the stroke that had threatened to take him from me permanently. Two months spent in–patient rehabilitation and physical therapy, and two months of my driving back and forth hoping to spend some time with him finally came to a close. He had shown improvement but there was so much more to go. He was frustrated and scared that he would never be the same again. I was scared, too. This stroke was so unexpected and it changed our lives completely. All of our plans and dreams were in turmoil. We didn’t know where we would go from there, where we could go. I tried to console myself that finally he was home, with me, but it wasn’t everything.

It’s frightening to realize that a man who has always been so strong, a man whose shoulders have always provided support, can suddenly become unable to do even basic things for himself. It was heartrending to watch him as he struggled to learn to walk again, to even hold a pen and write on a piece of paper, or just to pick up a fork to feed himself and not be able to hold it. I would offer to help him and just the offer would seem to diminish this very proud man. I cried with him the first day he found that he could move his foot just by wanting to.

We are so thankful for the improvement that he fought so hard to achieve. We applauded when he finally came home to stay using a walker and yet he was shaken as he remembered the days he could go running through the woods and wondering if he’d ever be able to do so again. As many times as he used to grumble about wanting to sleep in just a little longer but having to get to work, he missed the order of a daily job, he missed the feeling he had of accomplishment. This man who held jobs since his teen years, who was raised that this is what a man does (as many from that generation believed), suddenly found himself watching daytime TV and bemoaning the wasted hours.

He’s determined. I would drive him to outpatient therapy several times a week while he was yearning to be the one behind the wheel. He still tears up when he can lift his foot over an obstacle and he brags about the fact that he can now squeeze a ball in his hand. His face lights up when he does get behind the wheel and is the one who can drive to his appointments. Every achievement is applauded and every achievement reminds him how much further he wants to go.

We don’t know if he will ever fully recover, we know that a stroke leaves a permanent scar and the goal is to re-wire the brain to compensate. There are differences in the way he views the world around him. In so many ways the husband I have loved is just so subtly different, but he is still here and it’s wonderful to be by his side again. Sometimes his frustration turns to anger and I’ve learned ways to count to ten, sometimes to twenty, but some days it’s a struggle.

The doctors say that he has already come so much further than they expected and there is no way to foretell how far that recovery will go. All the doctors will tell us is that any recovery, whatever it may be, will take a long time.

Our lives are different, it’s called the new normal now. All of the plans we had for the future are on hold but we haven’t given any of them up. He is the kind of man that never planned to stop working and now he wonders if he will ever be able to work again. We had planned on moving to a home that would allow us to age in place, an idea his ego forced him to deny the need for; now he mournfully agrees that we need to keep this design concept in mind. He mourns the man he once was while I celebrate the man he always has been — determined.

We’ve made minor alterations around our home and joyfully not as many as we feared