The Right to Love

By Katherine Yu

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645367956

Katherine Yu

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.

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About the Author

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

[e-mail]

[phone]

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 fell. All was deadly quiet, save for the sound of the waves hurling themselves against the rocky shore.

He had wanted to be alone. Now he was frightened. As the seconds slipped by, the world grew darker, and gradually the whitecaps disappeared from view.

Was his life really going to end now? No one had warned him. Death. It sounded so final, this word. A colossus that cast its dark shadow over everything, erasing all. In the shadow of death, nothing else mattered. Meetings, phone calls, people vying for his attention, no sooner here than gone, like wisps of smoke from his cigarette.

Suddenly, he roused himself. He better goes home immediately, otherwise Daisy would worry. He had never been late to dinner with her.

Daniel hurried back to his car. Since Daisy’s mother had abandoned her when she was two, he had spent as much time as he could with the girl, but owning his own business, that hadn’t been as much as he would have liked. He had built a relationship with his daughter on spare time. Lucky for Daisy, she had Anna, their Chinese maid and a second mother. Anna had raised her from the time she was a baby until the moment she left the house for Stanford University, where she had been a business major.

Daisy was probably sitting next to the phone, consumed by worry. When he checked his cell phone and saw that she had been calling every ten minutes, he had to laugh. Dad, will you turn your phone on? If you don’t return my call and tell me where you are, I’ll never talk to you again. This is the last warning!

Such a stubborn, straightforward girl. His wife used to bottle up her thoughts when something bothered her. Not his daughter. Once she had something on her mind, out it came. She dared to speak and act. Daisy was so much like him.

He loved this daughter so much, more than anything on the earth. But how was he going to tell her that he had only one month to live?

2

On the way home, he thought about her, Camille.

It was twenty-two years ago that she had left him, after three years of marriage. It was his fault, he knew. He hadn’t been a good husband.

She was nineteen years old when she appeared in the doorway of his office, asking him for a job. Her honey-sweet voice came from behind him. He turned leisurely and saw how stunningly gorgeous she was, like a classic painting of a goddess brought to life. Standing there quietly was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen since his first girl, Sally. She wore a simple black dress, her hair was long, wavy, and light blonde, falling elegantly over her chest. She smiled sweetly at him. Her eyes, framed by long lashes, were a bright, emerald-green and seemed to brighten the world. Her appearance instantly reminded him of Sally. He pondered for a brief moment and realized; any girl entering his life would betray his feelings for his first love.

So he quickly and honestly told her he only owned a general merchandise store that sold clothes, shoes, toys, and electrical equipment imported from Asia, and the business was struggling. She said she didn’t care. She told him she had left her home in Houston after graduating from high school, following a lifelong dream of living in California.

She had to start from somewhere. She had no specific skills, but she was young and pleasant and seemed to have a good attitude.

I can’t pay you much, he said apologetically and politely, but that didn’t deter her.

So he hired Camille as a secretary at minimum wage, and despite her lack of skills, she proved to be an intelligent and devoted employee. She was always there for him, organizing his documents, answering his phone calls, handling overseas orders, cleaning his office, giving him ideas. They were a good team, and they both knew it. Three years passed and the business was thriving, so much so that Daniel expanded his operation and began importing his own merchandise from China, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Soon he had a string of retail shops across several states to meet market demand.

And then came the day when Camille told him she loved him. She blurted it out one morning while they were reviewing an inventory of stuffed animals made in China. Told him she had fallen in love with him the very first time she had laid eyes on him. He was a hard worker, she said, and as he grew increasingly uncomfortable, she piled on the other things about him that had attracted her: smart, aggressive, organized, good looking. He winced.

The day I met you, she went on with amazing candor, your hazel eyes touched my heart.

Daniel remembered smiling politely and shrugging, trying to hide his embarrassment. He should have told her not to follow him, to go work somewhere else. But he didn’t. He had a soft heart and was afraid of hurting her. He should have told her, firmly, that he was in love with someone else. He should have told her, as a last resort, Camille, you’re an attractive young girl, gentle, determined, smart, considerate, and loyal; there are lots of men out there for you. But he didn’t say that either, for fear that it would fan her hope of him loving her in return.

This youthful crush of hers will come to an end, he assured himself.

Five years after Camille started working at World Mart, the company had one hundred employees in San Francisco, and more elsewhere in California and in neighboring states. Now that he could afford to, Daniel paid his employees well and gave them generous health insurance. He was happy when he saw people happy. It was a lesson he had learned from his uncle, Larry. Uncle Larry always said, Daniel, whenever people need help, never hesitate to give it.

At the Christmas party that year, a huge party was put on for all the employees and their families, three hundred people at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown San Francisco, in a ballroom with a band. Over dinner, he was excited and nervous when he started his speech. The party quieted down and everybody had their eyes fixed on him. Suddenly he said, Thank you, thank all of you, thank you for being with me for so long. Thank you for your hard work and your trust. Thank you for bringing me encouragement. I’m not your boss, I’m your colleague. You’re the ones who are behind the success of World Mart. I want you to remember this. Together, we’ll soar to ever greater heights. His speech wasn’t over, but the cavernous room broke out in applause and swallowed his last words. Not the demonstrative or sentimental type, Daniel nonetheless grew teary-eyed that night.

The toast had something to do with it. As soon as he finished one glass of champagne, Camille immediately poured him another. He was happy, overjoyed to see his people celebrating a successful year, and by the time they started drawing numbers for Christmas gifts, he was quite drunk.

That was the last thing he remembered, people drawing lots. He’d reserved a room for himself in the hotel to avoid driving home that night, and the next thing he knew, he woke up in bed. How he had gotten there from the ballroom he had no idea.

He came to with a headache, and the sickening thought that maybe he had made a fool of himself the night before. He wasn’t used to drinking so much. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was six-thirty in the morning. Sunday morning. Wishing he had slept longer, he groaned and stretched.

And realized, with a sinking feeling, that there was someone else in bed with him. What the hell? he thought, sitting bolt upright. The shades were drawn and save for the clock’s luminous green glow, the room was dark. He peered closely at the lump and realized that the head lying on the pillow belonged to Camille. She was fast sleep. He slipped out the bed quietly, trying not to wake her, and noticed that he didn’t have a stitch of clothing on.

Panicking, he pulled the sheet partway over himself and saw then that she too was stark naked.

He grabbed his clothes from the floor, hurried into the bathroom and hopped into the shower, heart pounding. What on earth had happened the night before? he wondered. As a businessman, he well knew the dangers of becoming intimate with an employee. Maybe he’d been dreaming. Maybe it was a combination of the champagne and her confession of love, a repressed memory resurfacing in the form of a hallucination.

But that was wishful thinking. When he emerged from the bathroom, dressed, and shaved, there she was, sitting in a chair with her clothes on, wearing fresh lipstick.

Good morning, Daniel, she smiled, and he knew the second she said it, in a soft, husky voice, that they had slept together.

Tongue-tied, he just stared at her awkwardly. He wasn’t mad, nor was he excited. A strange feeling came over him, alarm mingled with a sense of profound sadness. As he stood there gazing back at her blankly, her smile gradually disappeared and her face grew red.

Good morning, he finally said, in his professional office voice.

She sat there for another moment, a look of puzzlement on her face, then abruptly stood up and offered to make him some coffee. Daniel still didn’t say a word. Standing there woodenly, he shook his head no, sensing that something was very, very wrong. She approached him and he stepped back, glancing away from her. Eyes fixed on the doorknob, he told her to meet him in his office, and in a flash, he was gone.

Two months later, Camille told him she was pregnant. They had never discussed what happened in the hotel room that night of the Christmas party, but when he heard this, he wasn’t shocked at all.

Obviously, they had slept together. Nor was he suspicious that Camille might be pregnant by another man and trying to trick him into marriage.

That wouldn’t be like her. No, the sad truth was that she loved him, they’d had sex, and now she was with child.

He sat behind his desk, staring down at a mound of paperwork. The office was so quiet, he could hear the clock ticking. Okay, Camille, he finally said, I’ll marry you, and I’ll do it soon.

They didn’t embrace, but she looked happy, walking out his office. Daniel stood up, feeling as if his life had just been hit by an earthquake. He never went back on a promise.

There was only one reason he was going to tie the knot. It wasn’t for love. It

wasn’t even to save her reputation. It was for the baby’s sake. Because no child should come into this world without a father. And he was the father. He was sure

of it.

His head exploded with thoughts that he couldn’t have imagined having just minutes before. He would have to buy a nice house for her and hire a maid for the baby. There was so much equipment for infants in the stores, he would have to read ’Consumer Reports,’ to separate the wheat from the chaff. They would need a stroller and a baby seat for the car and also—did she have a good obstetrician?

He stood there for minutes on end, plotting the future with all the attention to detail that he usually gave a business plan. Then all at once, he collapsed in his chair, overcome by the reality of what was happening. This was a crisis! And there was no one he could talk to about it. Ever since that night at the hotel, he had felt estranged from Camille, even in the office when she was devoting herself to his business and helping it prosper. There was no one he could talk to, or even wanted to talk to except, except…Except Sally.

Sally! He struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. Fool! He chided himself. Why in the hell had he drunk so much that night? Sally was his true love, his pure love, why had he sullied that love? He couldn’t forgive himself for what he had