Read Dear Meredith for Free Online Page B

Meredith,
                How are you, darling? I hope the pup is keeping you busy. Old Ned told me it would be a right hyperactive bundle of energy. He's a good man, Old Ned is. I know he's been breeding the Labs and I paid him a visit one day to check them out for myself.
                You'd have loved the sight. Fat wiggling puppies everywhere, tumbling and pouncing on each other. I knew then that I'd have to get you one. I only wish I could have been there to see your eyes light up like Christmas candles when you first laid eyes on it.
                If all goes according to plan, this letter should reach you three months after I've been gone. I know you must be burning with curiousity because you don't know who is dropping the letters off. I can't give it away, got my lips sealed on this matter. But you'll find out soon enough, I promise.
                Now, as for this letter. I have two surprises for you. One I know you'll love, and the other, well, let's just say I'm glad I'm not in the same room as you when you find out.
                Let's get down to the first. There's no non-shocking way of saying this so I'm just going to come right out with it. I've bought you a bookstore.
               
                I gasp in utter shock, spluttering like a fish out of water. Mike did what ? 
     
                Yep, you read right. I bought you a bookstore. Remember how you once told me your childhood dream was to own a bookstore? Your eyes had gone all soft and dreamy as you described how it would look, the titles it would stock and how you'd recommend all the right authors for the right customers.
                "It's more than just about selling books, Michael. People live vicariously through books - our hearts can be warmed, encouraged, broken and stomped upon just by reading strings of sentences put together. Isn't that a miracle? The challenge is in helping them find the right book to help that magic begin," you told me. I had seldom seen you so animated, enthusiasm sparkling in your eyes as you imagined the scene.
                This conversation came flooding back to me on one of my long, aimless walks, shortly after the doctor's diagnosis.
                Because there are no secrets between us, I will be honest with you here, the way I couldn't fully seem to be in person. I was furious, Meredith, furious at this damned disease which swooped in from nowhere and suddenly shattered our lives. I was so angry, so blinded with resentment that I needed those walks as a way to regain some measure of rational thought back.
                I didn't want you to see that part of me - this was very important to me. I didn't want to give you more pain than already necessary. So I pounded the pavement, just walking and thinking. And during one of those walks, I passed by a little bookstore on the corner. It's a dark, dingy sort of place with lots of paperbacks and hardcovers piled up into uncountable stacks. There were yet more books in the window display, with a layer of dust so thick that I could see it from six feet away.
                I wouldn't have given it a second thought, except I had noticed a little sign pinned to an ancient easel right in front of the entrance. "Used and new books for free/all-time low prices. Stock clearance, Closing sale."
                That little grubby note didn't make much of an impact on me until a few days later. Everytime I walked pass that shop, I found my eyes automatically pulled towards that easel, my brain mulling over possibilities, that conversation we had earlier now front and centre in my mind. And I thought, why the hell not? After all, you'd been thinking about getting a job again in the past year.     To cut the story short, I walked into the store about a week later and offered to buy over the business from the very astonished Chinese old man who had