Love Unbreakable
Comeback Of The Adored Heiress
Bound By Love: Marrying My Disabled Husband
Return, My Love: Wooing the Neglected Ex-Wife
Unspoken Hearts: My Neglected Mute Wife's Escape
Moonlit Desires: The CEO's Daring Proposal
Love After Divorce
Tears Of The Moon: A Dance With Lycan Royalty
Who Dares Claim The Heart Of My Wonderful Queen?
A Second Chance With My Billionaire Love
When does the history of someone start? When the person is born? Nope. Neither it only goes back to when their parents met. It goes as far back as all the involved ones can remember, considering what they actually know about their own history.
This one will take us back to 1946. That's when David Engelmann, son of Ettel and Mika Engelmann, was born, in a small town in Illinois – U.S.A., where his parents owned a small farm, where his brothers and he, starting at age 7, were put to labor from the time they got home from school almost until supper time.
Both Ettel and Mika were German – Mika was half Japanese – immigrants of Jewish heritage, saved from The Holocaust by the Allies, then brought to the U.S., where they already had family, German farmers, who had immigrated there over twenty years before them. They had already taken in Ettel and Mika's oldest child, in 1939. So, Ettel, Mika and another child, a four-year-old son, who was living in Belgium with a friendly Dutch family, during World War II, were also taken in and given a piece of land, where they could start anew.
Growing up, David realized he didn't want to be a farmboy, though. He didn't have that in him. Even though he loved nature, he didn't want to spend his whole life doing the same things, every day, over and over. He had dreams, goals that he wanted to achieve. First of all, he wanted to be free to go, do and be wherever, whatever and however he pleased. He dreamed of getting to know new places, new cultures, learning new languages. He wanted to study and learn lots of stuff. He wanted to make money, so he could buy a car to travel around the country, and even a house of his own, preferably in a beach state, since he really loved the ocean. Maybe he could even travel around the world. But he knew he'd have to get way out of his so-called comfort zone and work hard, if he wanted those dreams to become reality.
David's parents were no picnic. Especially his mother, who was very strict. His father was a bit rough around the edges, but was more easygoing, in general.
As soon as Mika had heard of David's plans of leaving the farm for some uncertain fate, she had convinced her husband to suspend the boy's allowance, so that he couldn't possibly manage to afford leaving.
Ettel made the boys work so much and so hard, but he was open to the idea of his kids leaving the farm and trying to make a life of their own, when they were grown and seemed smart enough to take care of themselves – and he was even willing to help them, financially, whenever that time came.
On the other hand, Mika saw that idea as utter ungratefulness and stupidity, and was not about to allow anyone to go anywhere, until they got married and could afford more than just to make ends meet. Because she hadn't carried those children in her womb for over forty weeks just to let them go unnecessarily struggling and stumbling their ways through life.
"But that's what living is all about, Ma. We live and we learn through experience, like when the mother birds push their little ones off the nest, so they can learn how to fly, you know," said David, while his mother was sitting at the breakfast table, in the kitchen, looking rather annoyed, and he was calmly cooking his own toasts, bacon and scrambled eggs.
For a boy his age, he was pretty decent at cooking. Well, that's the least one would expect from a person who wants to go live on their own.
Everyone else had already eaten, except for David. He was exceptionally allowed to wake up later than his siblings, that morning, because he had to stay up late, the night before, to finish an assignment for school. He was supposed to hand it in on the previous day, but he wasn't able to finish it on time, since labor had been even more time-consuming than usual, that whole week. So, Ettel went along with David to school, explained what had happened, apologized to the teacher, on his son's behalf, and promised that it wouldn't happen again. Then the teacher, Miss Fletcher, gave David permission to come by her house and hand the paper in on the next day, a Saturday.
After the Holocaust, Ettel and Mika were so traumatized, that they had decided to drop or adapt most of their Jewish customs, fearing they might suffer more discrimination, even in the land of the free, the United States, their new home. Therefore, since Sunday is the seventh day of the week, in the United States, they decided Shabbat would now be observed on Sundays, instead. They also decided to end their restriction on the consumption of pork, since it was what most gave them away as Jews. Ending the abstinence didn't mean they'd have to disregard the principle behind it, in their hearts.
"Did you just hear this boy, Ettel? Don't you wonder how he comes up with such crazy ideas? If I were the type who likes bets, I would bet you that he's learned such nonsense at school. From his colleagues, probably, because I don't believe the teachers would be absurd and incite kids to recklessly run away from their homes," Mika blurted, while pouring herself some coffee into hot milk she had previously reserved in a brown porcelain mug.
"Well, where's the nonsense in it? I didn't hear any. It's actually quite mature and admirable, if you ask me. And it is not running away. Don't you think you're overreacting a little?"