The Tale of Zachary Willowbrook: A Leap Day Paradox

Chapter 15: My Precious Little Gift of Time

A couple days later, Audrey had her seventh birthday. Like other birthdays, Audrey had Emma over. There was presents, cake and ice cream, as well as a couple of April Fools pranks that her mother gave out as party favors. Overall, everyone had fun. Emma, her parents, her brothers and sisters, and especially Audrey.

Two weeks later, David's first book was published. It was titled Having Your Dollars Make Sense: The Only Finance Book You'll Ever Need. In the book, he outlined some basics on financing, and some more advanced concepts later in the book. Throughout the book, he shared his personal stories, which explained how they led him to become a successful financial manager at Lawson & Wager.

Over the next couple months, Stacy has spent her time typing away on her laptop, while she supervised the boy's playtime. Since the publicity died down from the summertime, she has been writing a whole lot about Zachary. In the next month or two, she wanted to publish a book chronicling her experience with Zachary from his first eight years. The title that she gave to the book was My Precious Little Gift of Time. While she was writing every now and then, her real inspiration came when she saw David writing his finance book. Since then, most of her time has been spent on her book, with the rest of the time used to take care of her children.

On occasion, she got interrupted by either Zachary or Timothy. This time, it was Zachary.

"Mama?" Zachary shouted. "What are you writing?"

Stacy stopped typing and saved her work again. "Mommy is writing about you, honey, when you were younger."

A look of curiosity appeared on Zachary. "Why?"

Stacy smiled, as she watched Zachary climb onto the laptop, and lay down on her lap. "Mommy just likes to do this in her spare time."

"Why?"

"Because mommy loves you and wants to always remember what you did when you were little."

"Why?"

"Because mommy likes her little hobby, and wants to share all the wonderful memories mommy had with you when you were little."

"Why?"

Stacy sat down her laptop and held Zachary in her lap. "Zachary, mommy has already shared with you all the reasons why she's doing this. There aren't any more reasons. Okay?" Stacy then kissed Zachary on the forehead. "Now mommy is almost done with this chapter. Let mommy finish it, okay?"

Zachary was still on her lap, and was not about to move.

Stacy saved her work and closed the laptop, letting it charge for a while. "Okay," she said, smiling. "Mommy will play with you."

That night, David looked around in the bedroom. Stacy was nowhere to be found. Sighing, he fell asleep.

A couple hours later, Stacy slouched into bed, waking David up.

David sat up, looking a little annoyed. "Now you're finally going to bed?"

Stacy gave him a tired smile and a slow nod. "Davy, I had to get that chapter done first."

David rolled his eyes. "Really? This book thing has gone too far, Stacy. For the past couple weeks, you have been going to bed late like this."

Stacy took the defensive. "But I'm almost finished with this book, Davy! With that chapter finished, I only have one chapter to go."

"And then what?" David asked her. "You'll have another book idea and you'll work on that one. Do you have any idea what this whole book thing has done? It's starting to affect our love life."

At this, Stacy gave him a playful smile. "Davy," she sighed. "I have not forgotten that. Just understand that I can't get anything done on that book during the day. I can only make progress when Zacky and Timmy are sleeping or during their naps. Just bare with me, okay?"