Weathered Love

EVERYDAY

The doorbell rang too early for a Saturday. I groaned, and turned around to see Andrew sleeping soundly through the noise. I envied him. With a sigh and another groan, I climbed out of bed, quickly put on some sweatpants and a t-shirt, and walked to the door to see who would dare disturb me at this hour. The ringing became more frequent the longer it took me to answer the door.

"I have a delivery for Ivy?" the guy questioningly stated once I opened the door. I had to refrain from giving him a death stare. I nodded to indicate it was me, trying to rack my brain for what I could have possibly ordered that I already forgot about. "I know you," he stated with a look of sudden realization. I smiled back in response. I had revealed my real identity the year before, which wasn't much of a revelation since there were a lot of people speculating as to my real identity and which was confirmed by people who had known me in the past. I could never get used to being recognized though.

"Do I need to sign anything?" I asked. He nodded, handed me a tablet to sign, and I took the package from him and thanked him for the delivery. I closed the door before he could ask for an autograph, or worse, a photo. I was not photo ready.

Andrew and I had been married five years at that point. He was a senior associate at his uncle's law firm, doing criminal work on the defense side. He had a really good track record and was on the short-track to become a partner at the firm. I was so proud of him.

I worked as a consultant at the finance firm, only being paid for work I did, since the channel had gotten so popular and required so much of my time that I couldn't hold a full-time position and take care of the channel at the same time. It also became increasingly difficult to work since, in the office, anyone who knew my online persona and happened to come to the office would try to find excuses to pop by. It was starting to disrupt the business, so I spoke to my boss and some of the higher ups and we agreed it would be best for everyone if I worked remotely on a consultant basis. They were generous in the package they would offer me for my work and even partly covered my medical insurance, which wasn't necessary since I could get medical from Andrew's job, but Andrew and I figured wherever one insurance company fell short, the other could cover, so we opted for both.

I also leveraged my minor celebrity status as a songwriter and managed to sell some of my songs to major music production companies to use with their more popular artists. I usually only sold those songs that I couldn't satisfactorily match to a tune. It was interesting to see what music the companies thought would match the lyrics best. I also started writing some short stories and published them online. I donated any money I made from those short stories to various groups and charities that dealt with drunk driving. I never wanted to forget who got me started down this path.

Time had been good to us. Life had been good to us. Andrew's condition was being managed. They were still doing testing, although it wasn't as frequent as before, since they had figured out ways to keep the symptoms at bay while minimizing the occurrence of any new symptoms. We still had to keep an eye out and make sure Andrew didn't over- or under-heat, since we figured it would be better to go the natural route on that symptom. He already had so many medications to keep his body from attacking itself, we didn't want to add yet another chemical to that mix.

I walked into the living room of our relatively new house and put the package on the coffee table, then debated whether or not I should wake Andrew up. We'd been up late the night before playing a new video game I had gotten him for our anniversary.

"Who was at the door?" Andrew groggily asked.

"Did you order something?" I questioned, pointing to the package.

"Oh good, you didn't open it yet," Andrew smiled. "You probably thought I forgot," he teased. So he had gotten me a gift. I was wondering if he'd forgotten about our anniversary. Honestly, it wouldn't have mattered to me if he had forgotten, since, as nice as it was to get gifts, I wasn't much of a gift person anyway. If I wanted something badly enough, and it was a justifiable purchase, I would usually just buy it for myself. "Here," Andrew said, taking my hand and leading me to the table so I could open the gift he'd gotten me. "Sorry it's a day late. There was a shipping issue," he stated, looking ashamed. I stroked his cheek and gave him an understanding smile. He smiled back. Nothing needed to be said.