Everyone slept in to eight, a rare event. Breakfast at the nearby Bob Evans and Paul and Owen are in Target while you wait. Kim, Carol and Brennan are at the grocery. Paul will be studying Kim, Carol and the boys are going to feed the ducks at Horseshoe Lake. You are planning on working through fifteen hundred words of Brothers-3 this morning. Lunch is planned for Bar Louie's then later this afternoon Paul is driving to Marion, Ohio for his first interview for employment next year. If he took the job the plan would be to live in Delaware, Lewis Center or Powell. The boys would go to Olentangy City Schools and Kim would be right back home with the Orndorff's, Flook's, Huelf's, Clawson's, Cooks, Schick's and Freeman's of the nineteenth century who called Delaware County their home. You did your student teaching at Olentangy and the Freeman's had a large farm that is now in the center of Lewis Center. One of Grandma's stories takes place during the great blizzard of 1888 on that farm. Delaware County is still the fastest growing county in the state with Warren County (Mason area) coming in second. Paul is getting his feet wet early on the interviewing but all agree it is a good thing. In a couple of weeks he has his anesthesiology oral exams Las Vegas.
2143 hours. I have completed a draft of The Brothers - 3. It meets the readability criteria but again, not at all like the first book.
This will be more balanced even though they are not two sets of married identical twins. It's a draft. Drop it in and post. - Amorella
*** ***
The Brothers - 3
The next day Richard walked up the steps and down the hall to Robert’s present study.
“This is like our old club house. No women allowed,” announced Richard.
Both laughed, and Robert added, “and to think, we both had girls.”
“Just as well,” responded his brother.
“I got rid of the flowers on Mom and Dad’s graves this morning?”
Robert replied, “I'll tell Connie as Memorial Day is coming up.”
“I still like walking Lady through the cemetery in the morning.”
“Just like Papa used to do,” chuckled Robert. “And, Dad too. I sometimes walk Jack down to the cemetery but we usually go to the park and along the river instead."
Smiling with restored energy Richard sat down across from his father's old work desk. “We used to explored the cemetery and mausoleum as kids.”
“And, from the mausoleum, down the hill to the bend in the river. Fun times exploring the nearby world we have lived in most of our lives,” said Robert in a light tone.
“You know," said Richard, "People still say it's haunted on the west side of the Mausoleum where the old trail leads to the woods down the hill.”
Robert sighed, “Dad never said, but Mom thought it was haunted too. It was an old story about seeing people walking who weren’t there. I have a poem about it somewhere."
"Published?"
"It was, some years ago in our own Riverton Historical Society bulletin," responded Robert.
"Mom always believed in ghosts but Dad never did."
In a sadder than expected tone, Richard said, "I don't think Dad ever believed in anything."
"Not in our lifetime anyway. What are the girls up to?"
"They are getting ready to go shopping."
"Why did I even ask?" moaned Robert.
"I got the car if you want to head over to the used book store."
Perked, he asked, "The one that used to be a church?"
"Why not, we haven't been over there for awhile."
"You know I'm looking for an old copy of Ferlinghetti’s "Coney Island of the Mind".
"When Cyndi and I were in Frisco last year we stopped at Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore. They had a republication the classic Coney Island."
In some frustration Robert commented, "I used to have a signed first edition, but I can't find it.”
"Julie probably borrowed it to show her classes. Her favorite is "Coney Island of the Mind # 5", the same as me."
"I can't believe she has a popular unit on fifties Beat poetry," Robert paused, "she didn't have to take my signed copy though."
"I don't know that she did. Give her a call. Do you want to go or not?"
Robert mumbled, "Old books are one of the few things we have in common these days. Let's go."
A few minutes later the house was quieter by two and Connie and Cyndi were still sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea with an opened recent House and Garden and a like themed iPad app or two.
"It is hard to believe the boys just turned seventy," whispered Cyndi.
"We're not far behind."
"They been going to that used bookstore for at least forty years."
"Was it ever a church in our lifetime?"
"I have no idea, but probably. They go over there and come back with an old poetry book or two."
"Julie usually borrows them to show her classes."
Connie, still whispering, commented, "Robbie always wanted Julie to go into medicine, to be a surgeon like himself."
"You wanted her to be a cardiovascular nurse like we are."
"She didn't want that so we directed her into case management and she didn't want that either."
"Julie always wanted to be a teacher like Richard."
"Does she still call him Uncle Dickie?" giggled Cyndi.
"That was Robbie's doing." Both laughed.
"What kind of countertop do you really want?"
Exasperated, Cyndi snapped, "Richard says he doesn't care. He says that, but whatever we end up with he won't like it."
"They are both stubborn and single-minded. We knew that when we married them. Even if he says he doesn't like, which he never will, it's not the truth anyway. Both hide themselves in each other -- personality quirk of identicals, I suppose."
“How in the world did we ever decide who was going to marry whom?”
“I think we flipped for it,” said Cyndi. Both laughed independently, one never knew who was going to stop first. This is one of the small differences in not being identical twins. At least this is what they believed to be true.
(749 words)
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