More Novel in a Paragraph

kj: It doesn't feel right to write on my blog as if nothing is wrong.

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Renee: Nothing is wrong, kj. Don't worry about me. xoxox

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kj: But Renee, your children, your family, all of us here in the blogs who can't bear to let you go.

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Renee: You don't have to let me go.

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kj: I am still going to bitch to you whenever I need to.

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Renee: Har har har. That's fine kj. I have big shoulders. xoxox
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A word of explanation: I am writing a novel where short snippets will hopefully tell a story all by themselves but will also combine with other short snippets to reveal a deeper story. Here in my blog, perhaps once a week, I will share a few snippets, but in no sequence or logical order. That part comes much later.
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Hitched
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Yan* and Casey got married above the Post Office Café in Provincetown, standing on a make shift stage used nightly for the sold out drag queen performances of Jimmy James, who impersonated Marilyn Monroe like nobody’s business. They were standing on that stage because of a historic Massachusetts ruling that legalized gay marriage and because their blood tests were about to expire. Responding to Casey’s phone call, the manager and sometimes minister of the Post Office Café, a tall goofy looking man named Dixie said he could perform the ceremony but only right away. Casey hung up from him, told Yan to finish her breakfast and change out of her pajamas, and off they went, two women together for twenty years, unaware that the ceremony itself would be surprisingly affirming and nothing short of hotdamn historic.

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Dixie read them their vows, threw in a poem he had written for good measure, giggled in a couple of spots, and they walked off the make shift stage utterly shocked by the significance of the occasion, these two, the 1006th couple to tie a legal knot in Provincetown that year.
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Irony

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Somewhere somehow in Catherine’s history she had been hurt or blinded to the point that she could not navigate her way to compassion. She came from a country where the government was corrupt, where justice took place randomly and often only for those who could afford to pursue it. For Catherine, it was all about self sufficiency. If you couldn’t care for and tend to yourself and your family, you got what you deserved. That did not explain her utter failure to understand when her words and actions lacked empathy or hurt someone, but ironically it made it easier for her to drop the conscience part and comfortably settle into her own version of undeserving victim.

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* FYI: I have been ambivalent about what to name Casey's partner. I've considered Maggie, and Jelly, and at least for now, I am settling on Yan. So if you search for past snippets under "Novel in a Paragraph" and you find references to Maggie, she and Yan are one and the same. :)

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Rest softly Renee, the Angel Tribe is waiting for you.