Harry and Lucy

Jerry Piasecki

Description

Why do some people fall in love? I mean, really in love. Forever. For always. For better or worse. Until death do they part... Harry and Lucy first met in a candy store in an old Polish neighborhood nestled in the heart of Detroit, Michigan, a long time ago. This is their love story an account of a woman who found her hero and a man who embraced his angel. From the Depression and WWII, until today and all tomorrows, Harry and Lucy face tragedy and loss, all the while embracing hopes and dreams. More than all else, they share a love not limited to this lifetime This is their eternal love story.

Sujets

• Historical romance

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645369493
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Harry and Lucy
Jerry Piasecki
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-28
Harry and Lucy About The Author Dedication Copyright Information © Preface Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Epilogue
About The Author
Jerry Piasecki is the author of 13 published novels for young readers. His background includes over 15 years with the United Nations, including work in the areas of humanitarian affairs, women’s empowerment, children’s rights, and UN Radio News. His novel Marie in the Shadow of the Lion was the first novel ever to be published by the United Nations.
For over 25 years, he worked as a broadcast journalist internationally, as well as in New York and Detroit. His experience includes 14 years as the creative director at a mid-sized advertising/marketing agency.
Jerry has one daughter, Amanda; and two grandsons, Ben and Harry. He and his wife, Wendy Rollin, currently live in Connecticut and Michigan with their Boston Terrier, Tima.
Dedication
To my daughter, Amanda, who loved and was so loved by her Grandma Lucy.
To my sister, Carole, who lived the story with me.
To my darling Wendy, without whom this book never could have or would have been written.
And to Harry and Lucy – Thank you. Love you forever.
Copyright Information ©
Jerry Piasecki (2019)
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 noncommercial 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
Piasecki, Jerry
Harry and Lucy
ISBN 9781643781259 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643781266 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645369493 (E-Book)
The main category of the book — Fiction / Romance / Historical / General
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
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Preface
The following is a work of fiction.
The stories of the lives of Harry and Lucy are true.
Prologue
Do you think there’s a reason why certain people come together? Why do you like the sound of one person’s voice but wince at the tone of another’s? Why do some people smell good and others kind of go the other way? Several women have told me they know from the moment they meet a man whether or not they will go to bed with him. Sex at first sight? Why? Why do men view some guys as rivals or enemies and others as life-long buddies and brothers? Why do some people fall in love? I mean really in love. Forever. For always. For better or worse. Until death do they part?
Why do we go on living after those we love die? Or do we? Certainly, the moment someone leaves us, the second they pass, we are no longer living in quite the same way as before. Yeah, the sun rises, we go to work, and sleep comes; although, perhaps, not quite as gently on all counts. The world still bursts with color. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows persist in making their vivid statements. But like all colors, they are subject to shades of individual perception and interpretation. We believe these colors are real, even though they are perceived differently by each person.
Our world is blurred by the passing of our present into our past, but we remain ever resolute that what we recognize as real is nonetheless so; that the table in the kitchen remains the table in the kitchen, not just a bunch of atoms spinning wildly with divine precision to create an illusion we can all grasp and hold on to. The beliefs we all share, a chair is a chair, continue, but our lives change when someone so familiar, so taken for granted, so loved, is lost. The person who ate at the table and sat on that chair is awkwardly absent from the scene; a scene not quite as familiar or comforting as it had been the day before. The person we once held, who touched our hair and called our name is gone…just out of reach.
Memories linger, then languish until they are gone or transformed into memories of themselves. When can you no longer hear his voice or feel her fingers? When does the sound of their laughter fade? When do their scents disappear from the clothing we keep in their memory? The lives we knew when we were with them are over, or perhaps they are never really at an end. Nothing is less solid and more temporary than what we define as ‘reality’. It can change in the blink of an eye, a baby’s first cry or a darling’s last breath. I don’t know the answers…but at least now I know what I believe.

This is a love story.
Chapter 1
Beemans gum. That’s how it all started, with a stick of Beemans gum. A penny a stick; a hefty price back then.
Hunger, humiliation, and death had been part of Harry Piasecki’s life from a very young age. It was the Great Depression, and he and his friends had to crawl over barbed wire on the top of fences to steal coal from the railroad yard to keep their families from freezing in the judgmental and unjust Michigan winter. Anyone caught was beaten senseless by the railroad guard who was usually, actually always, drunk and often invited his boozed-up buddies to join in the fun. The guard and his pals would laugh and swear in Polish, as they kicked with heavy leather boots and swung their nightsticks with all their might. None of the victims would go to a hospital. Hospitals were for rich people. These boys either crawled home and recovered or didn’t and were forgotten.
Back then, Hamtramck, Michigan was predominately Polish—a famished Eastern European ghetto girdled entirely by the City of Detroit. It was filled with people from places like Lublin, Znin, Trzchianka, Szadek, Szczebrzesyn, Krakow, and Warsaw. All had come in search of full bellies and better lives in that land of milk and money—America. Living in Hamtramck, they either kept their dreams or lost all hope.
Harry had seen his six-month-old brother, Mikey, die from diphtheria. He was buried in the family’s tiny backyard near the fence bordering the stone-covered alley. Funerals were also for rich people. A sister, who never had a name, died shortly after being born at home. His parents had no money for a doctor, and the neighbor lady who had promised to help with the delivery was visiting a friend that day. Harry’s mother almost bled to death while holding her dead daughter in her arms. After that, she started to pray a lot and to drink even more.
Food was scarce, and malnutrition was a given for many. Harry knew what it felt like to go to bed hungry and with the knowledge that the next night would be the same. But when sleep finally overcame the gnawing in his belly, Harry would dream of getting fat. He would dream of being warm. He would dream of being happy. He would dream of finding his love.
Harry never told his dad about those dreams, in fact, he tried to talk to him as little as possible. His father most often dealt with his kids from one end of a heavy, brown, worn-leather, shaving strap made for sharpening straight razors. The kids would feel the sting from the other end on their buttocks, backs, arms, wherever the swing happened to hit. All six of Harry’s surviving brothers and sisters had felt it to the point of familiarity. They had learned how to duck and turn in a way that would have the strap land in places less painful or humiliating.
Any violation of Felix Piasecki’s rules would result in a beating. If one of the girls stayed out until after dark, she would be greeted by the strap as soon as she walked in the front door. If one of the boys ever lost a fight, the beating at home would be far worse than any injury inflicted on the street. That’s how Felix had been raised by his father back in Poland. He continued the tradition so that his girls would learn to listen, and his boys would grow tough. It made Harry keep his mouth shut. It also made him angry.
Felix Piasecki hadn’t had a dream he could remember in 20 years.
If Felix ever found out about the Beemans gum, that his son was ‘throwing good money away’ and keeping food off the table, because of some girl, Harry knew he would get the beating of his life…or maybe of his death. But to 16-year-old Harry Piasecki, that Beemans gum was worth every penny and any risk. He would walk twenty and a half blocks every day to buy a stick of that gum from a 14-year-old girl named Lucy Buraczynski. Her father owned a one-room candy/animal feed/beer store on the east side of Hamtramck. That’s where Harry and Lucy fell in love. That was a long time ago.
# # #

“I wish I could go with you,” Lucy Piasecki said softly into the ‘bad’ phone that was beside her couch in the assisted living apartment. The ‘good’ phone was in the bedroom, but getting up from her corner of the sofa and using the walker to reach it before voicemail picked up was a race she could no longer hope to win. The broken hip saw to that.
“God, I haven’t been to Petoskey in 30 years at least. Last time was with Uncle Louie, when Mary died.”
Lucy’s son, Jerry, shifted the phone restlessly from his right ear to his left. He knew that telling his mom his plans to travel to Petoskey, Michigan, a place the Piaseckis had visited many times as a young family was not going to be an easy conversation. “I know, Mom. I can’t wait to se