Sisoban O'mallory
Copyright© 2019 by qhml1
Chapter 17
Sissy went on the talk show circuit and did book signings to promote her stories. Jaime Lee Curtis did a glowing review that was picked up by the news outlets. She called her the future, and said when the time came, she could retire in peace, knowing she would be there to take up the mantle.
It was not pleasant being separated from my new bride, but we both realized we would have occasional separations because of the nature of our work. I took Katie and we flew to the city she was in, surprising her for the weekend. She cried tears of joy and we ended up being interviewed together by the local paper for the Sunday entertainment section. There were several pictures, including one of us separately, one of us together as a family, and even an individual picture of Katie. The reporter made a point of saying she had a big future ahead of her, being our offspring. “She can write and illustrate her own works.”
I’d kind of bragged about how good she was for her age, and Sissy told of several suggestions she’d made that helped her mothers’ books read better. It was a natural progression.
Three years went by. Sissy grew more beautiful, and Katie was rapidly becoming her clone. They came home from a shopping trip and I told them I had a surprise for them after we’d had our dinner. They tried to pry it out of me, and I just kept peeling potatoes. We were having shepherd’s pie for dinner, one of our favorites. Our housekeeper had taught me how to make it.
We hired her because the nature of our schedules didn’t allow us a lot of domestic time and we did not want to waste it in cleaning. Mrs. Kent would come by just after Katie left for school and usually stayed until four thirty, five days a week. We paid her well, and Katie adopted her as another grandmother.
Sissy gave up her office and had another built beside my studio, connecting to one wall with a door so all we had to do was open it and pop back and forth. She gave up the office so the groom we’d hired could use the apartment. We had four horses by then. Gracie was still there but was retired, living out her life in comfort. Katie would be graduating to a larger horse, soon if she kept up her growth spurt.
Our other two horses were rescued mustangs. They came about because Sissy had always been fascinated by them as a child in Ireland, and she supported a charity specializing in mustang rescue. The blood-red mare looked like she would be at home on the sands of Arabia, and belonged to Sissy. The black was big for a wild horse, and looked to have some draft-horse ancestor. He’d been gelded before we got him, and was as calm as Gracie. When I rode, it was on him. I’d gotten a little better, and it didn’t bother me as much as it used to.
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