*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 4/28
(I noticed I have stopped numbering and for some reason am not nervous about that.)
Because Lisa says we should write down our dreams
Because maybe we’ll figure something out from them
Last night I dreamed I was a turbid pool of water. I was aware that my boundaries were no longer human; that I didn’t have the shape or movement of a human being, but I did have its consciousness. As this muddied pool of water, I was ashamed of my dirtiness. I knew that there were other bodies of water more magnificent and clear and clean. But I was what I was. I moved along a mossy bank and traveled effortlessly forward. At one point far along in my travels, I hit a massive mountain of rock. In my clouded state, I crashed against the jagged rocks and felt dizzy. Jostled, churning, and wild, my natural movement was deterred. For what felt like eternity, I slammed up against the rock. Slam. Slam. Slam. Slam. I couldn’t fight the force of such a solid mass. I thought, well, here I come to stay. Here I must, like Sisyphus, repeat a scenario of endless torture. I couldn’t or didn’t cry or scream; I had all the properties of water. At one point, even though I thought I was thoroughly trapped, a part of me seeped into minute crevices in the rock bit by bit. This took forever. Droplet by droplet, hour by hour, I moved all of me into the mountainous rock and onto the other side. Slowly, my consciousness as water found itself in a crisp, clean glacial pool. It was huge. My muddiness was no match for the pristine waters in which I now found myself. I was no longer clouded. What I was had changed. I sensed myself amid this new atmosphere. I was cooler, smoother and more slow moving, but I was still moving. The bank I moved along was more solid, a calmer ride. Eventually, I hit an area thick with trees. We, I sensed myself as that, we, moved together under the earth where the trees were growing. I drenched the roots and slid along all the life below the surface. I would keep going, even though I didn’t know where.
*JUSTINE LETTER*
Danielle,
Ah, Bubbles will forever be known as Bubbles to me. That quote, the one you read on my refrigerator, was by the poet Rumi, a true visionary from the thirteenth century. In this letter, I’d like to answer you with my favorite Rumi poem. He says all I would say to you, but he says it better. I hope you enjoy it.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
Rumi by way of Justine
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 5/4
Immediately following Justine’s letter, which I showed to Daniel and he loved it, too
Justine is proof that old people know things. I read that poem twenty times already. I think it might be my new obsession. I taped it on my bathroom mirror and am going to read it every day before school and hope that I can come to honor the mean houseguest that is Jacob (and, unfortunately, others). I wish I hadn’t invited Jacob in, but I did. I guess Rumi would have told me I gotta try to honor him now. Deep breath. I’m gonna try. Rumi said those words a long time ago. That lets me know there were douchebags then, too. It has to be or he wouldn’t have written that rockin’ poem.
*CLASS ASSIGNMENT* 5/5
Expanded Quote Essay
(Ms. Harrison is not happy with me. I turn this essay in and I really like it. I thought I followed all the rules of the assignment—outside source, parenthetical documentation etc.—but she was VERY frustrated with me and my writing style, which she said is not appropriate for these types of essays. I have to stay in at lunch for a week and rewrite the thing according to her sterile rules. I am not happy with how the second draft is going so I won’t be keeping it in my collection.)
Danielle Levine
English 12
Ms. Harrison
Period 4
The quote from a piece of literature we read this year that I decided to use as a jumping off point for this essay is “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet, Act I, scene v, lines 187–188) Such an idea has basically been reflected in my entire life, but my father gave me some information the other night that really hit that idea home for me in a richer way.
My father told me about this guy Paul Pearsall who wrote a book in 1988 called The Heart’s Code. (My dad has read some amazing things.) Anyway, in this book, this girl gets a heart transplant from another girl who had been murdered, and the girl who gets the heart wakes up and screams in the middle of the night after having nightmares where she recognizes the man who murdered the girl who gave her the heart. Shut up! That is incredible. Who would have ever thought something like that could happen? That is what Hamlet is talking to Horatio about.
Another guy in the book got a heart transplant and then started using the word copacetic all the time when he had never used it before. Turns out, the guy he got his heart from used that word all the time!!!! (I have to use a bunch of exclamation points here to make it clear just how amazing I think this is.) (Pearsall, 1988, pp. 7–8) Also, it is very ironic, the use of the word copacetic, because my friend Daniel taught me that word recently.
The implications of this kind of thing are incredible. First of all, things get stored in our bodies not just our minds. That made me rethink everything about what we know about consciousness. We understand so very little. We run around thinking we have things figured out, that we have control over things, and we don’t even know that who we are lives everywhere in us. This was a real revelation to me because I’ve been heartbroken. (I don’t want to go into the details of that with you, Ms. Harrison. Let the record just show that it’s true.) I thought my heart had been obliterated, and I was sort of looking forward to going numb. But that didn’t fully happen for me, and I think it’s because all my heart wasn’t just kept in my heart. It’s in other places in me, too. I’d have to probably cut off all my limbs, poke out my eyes and maybe disembowel myself to get rid of the hurt. I am going to come up with another plan for dealing with my pain.
We don’t understand how our bodies work, how we think, or why we are even here. If those questions are unanswerable, I realize there are so many more that are, too. But we pretend like things are figurable (I know that’s not a word but please let me use it because it’s perfect here). Remnants of feeling must be in all the cells.
We are much bigger and more complicated than I thought. That’s what I really wanted to say in this essay. That’s the crux of what Hamlet tells Horatio. It’s something we should all embrace. I’m trying to, but I get stuck in smallness and worry and pain. I hope I can house other things in places in my body besides those negative ideas. I hope magic, peace, and laughter get stowed away in me, and if anyone ever gets a piece of me from a transplant, they can benefit, too. I hope that is my legacy even if I don’t fully understand how it may come to be.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from Marv to me
How are things, Danielle?
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from me to Marv
Do you think everyone has a Sisyphean rock they shove up a hill day after day?
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from Marv to me
Danielle, I think we all do at some point in our lives. I think we push that thing up every single day until we get tired of it and we stop.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from me to Marv
Okay. Thanks, Marv.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from Marv to me
You don’t have to push the thing alone forever either.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from me to Marv
I know. I’m not.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from Marv to me
Okay. That’s good to know.
*AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 5/8
E-mail to Aunt Joyce
Forever Aunt Joyce,
Did you watch The Big Lebowski? Come on, woman! You are taking forever to get back to me.
Obsessed Danielle
*AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 5/9
E-mail from Cool Aunt Joyce
Danielle,
Yes. Saw it. Loved it. Will take you to Lebowski Fest. Start planning your costumes. I’ll have them made for you two. I will be going as a White Russian. We have a little time so you can obsess over your choice. I know you will.
Your Forever Aunt Joyce
*DANIEL E-MAIL* 5/10
E-mail I write to Daniel on my laptop after I finish my economics test early
My economics teacher is an unapologetic capitalist. I am not amused. We took a test today on the benefits of a market economy—quite frankly, the whole idea eludes me, and I’m not even sure I think a market economy or capitalism is a good idea—but anyway, there were advertisements for clothing stores and soft drinks on the test. I thought maybe I was supposed to use them in some answer or write about them in some way so I asked him about them. He said they were there because he had entered into a contract with those companies to advertise on his tests. WTF?
I have to admit that I started getting thirsty during the test and wanted a soda, which is just bullshit and shows how soft my mind is. I know teachers aren’t paid what they deserve, but making money from tests by trying to sell us crap we don’t need is bullshit. I think I just have to write off Mr. Richardson, and I kinda thought he was cool. Please advise.
*DANIEL E-MAIL* 5/10
Daniel writes back to me from his phone but he gets suspended because of it, which makes me feel super guilty.
That guy is completely unDude. You have to write him off. Do you know the slope formula, by chance?
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 5/15
My descent into sin, debauchery, and illegal activity. I swear I won’t do this again, but I must admit the road to hell was paved with more fun than I anticipated.
It is with deep regret that I report the first part of this journal entry because I got Daniel, my only friend, in trouble at school because I e-mailed him about my consumerist, opportunistic economics teacher and he responded (as friends are required to do), but then he asked me about the stupid slope formula, which isn’t relevant to life except that life is one big slippery slope, and then he got suspended for cheating and using his phone in class. Arrrrggg! I didn’t even know the damn slope formula, so I don’t see this as technically cheating because there was no payoff, but “intent” is key here, as his administrators put it.
Daniel said he would just deal, which is the only thing to do in these cases. But then he said he wanted to get stoned, something he had never done before, which sort of surprised me and then made me happy.
I had never been officially stoned and I got all excited, which shocked me, when he proposed the idea. The only problem was that he had no idea how to get any weed and he didn’t think I would know either because, just like him, I wasn’t very “connected” at school. But Daniel was happy to learn that I did know where to get some! I told him about my neighbor whom my parents hated. I couldn’t believe I was going to be a part of something so distasteful to my parents. They really had done nothing in my entire eighteen years on this planet to deserve what I was going to do, and I totally know I’ve already caused them plenty of trouble. They deserved a child much better than me. Nonetheless, I still told Daniel exactly where Ken (the corporate exec–looking guy with the twenty-two-year-old woman) lived, and let him figure out how to score; he said he’d do it, no problem. And he did! He wanted to tell me the whole story of how it all went down with Ken, but I started to have an anxiety attack during his retelling so he had to stop.
Friday night I went over to Daniel’s. My parents were so thrilled that I continued to have “positive” social experiences on the weekend. (Little did they know. . . .)
Daniel’s house was empty except for us, and all the baggage we carried that was, for one night, dropped. We unloaded so much on each other in just a few hours. Every conversation seemed pulled from an overstuffed piece of luggage; it took all night to unpack.
Daniel had a guitar in his room, which was just one instrument amid a sea of wires and music gear. Posters of musicians he loved decorated his walls, people like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. I didn’t know Daniel was a musician. He said he hadn’t played much lately but thinks he probably should again. He lit the joint as we sat cross-legged on the carpet in his bedroom while he let the guitar lay across his lap. When he was about ten, his real father turned him on to classic rock, and he taught himself the guitar. It was just something innate he could do; it made sense to him. That bewilders me, but he said the language of music is something some people are just born with. He was one of those people. Emily was, too.
After we took our first hit, he started talking about how he got asked to play his guitar and sing a song at his friend’s bar mitzvah. That first hit of pot didn’t seem to do anything to either of us. Daniel kept talking. He said I knew this friend Joel Stein, that he was in our class at Jefferson Middle School—I vaguely remembered the name when he said it, but that memory made me a little queasy, so I didn’t think about it too much.
Joel’s family admired how well he played the guitar and wanted him to pick a special song and sing it for all the guests. Daniel was really excited; he said, at the time, he wasn’t a weirdo or a social outcast, and he loved to perform in front of people. He practiced for months and couldn’t wait for the big day. His mom bought him his first suit.
At the bar mitzvah party, after the ceremony, Joel’s father introduced Daniel, and he got up onstage to play and sing. No one had asked Daniel what he was playing. He said he played a flawless and inspired version of “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens, but before he could finish the song, he came out of his performer’s trance and realized the crowd was not with him, people were uncomfortable and Joel’s father was coming onstage to stop the performance. The song was not acceptable somehow, but Daniel didn’t get it.
Joel’s dad explained to him that Cat Stevens had become a Muslim with a new Muslim name and such songs were not to be played at a bar mitzvah. He still didn’t understand. Jews are Jews and Muslims are Muslims. What did that have to do with the song he was playing for his friend? It was about peace. What’s the big deal? How had he ruined the party? He didn’t know the Jews and the Muslims were at odds so completely. The adults in the room were not amused at all by his song or his lack of awareness. Daniel thinks they believed he chose it on purpose to dishonor their sacred day. He felt like a cad. Thank God Joel had perspective and humor even at thirteen. As Daniel was being ushered from the room, Joel got a chance to whisper in his ear—“I loved it, man. You just gotta know Cat Stevens is Jew repellant.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. At that moment, that was the funniest story I’d ever heard. I didn’t know if I could hear the sound track to Harold and Maude the same way ever again. Daniel said he was afraid that he too would be Jew repellent, that all his Jewish friends from school would never speak to him again. It didn’t happen, but he always felt a deep sense of shame for how clueless he was to the ways of the world.
I asked him then if he thought that was the incident that made him struggle in society, that ultimately led him to be a part of our illustrious social skills class.
“Oh, that such a single and innocent faux pas was the thing that derailed my ‘peace train’ from the tracks of life. Oh no, I kept making moves in the very wrong direction. It was like my life was being driven by a sadistic conductor who couldn’t wait until I jumped the track. My demise was pretty much inevitable,” he said. His eyes looked a little red at this point, like eyes do after a long cry. I wondered how mine looked.
Daniel kept talking. “I’m sure you know, Danielle, even though you’ve never said anything, I’m just sure you know: I’m gay.”
I did know. I really did know. It had never really come up in conversation before or settled deep in my consciousness, but it was something I knew. I just didn’t care at all. It’s something to recognize that such a big thing about a person’s identity had slipped my focus. I loved Daniel. I just knew I didn’t love him in that way, and I guess I was so grateful because “that way” had shattered me. Daniel glued me back together. However he was going to be was fine with me. I loved our friendship, the thing it was, so the kind of love it was didn’t matter to me. I was just grateful. I tried to tell Daniel all that I just wrote here, but it didn’t come out that smoothly. I was a little loopy in my delivery. I ended my explanation to him with, “Wow, does this mean I’m finally somebody’s fag hag?”
Daniel laughed and then added so charmingly, “No, my dear, you are my first fruit fly!”
Jew repellent, fruit fly, it was such an unplanned combination of insect imagery that I was filled with hilarity. I did a huge spit-take of the diet Coke I was drinking all over Daniel’s down comforter, and we laughed until I nearly pissed myself. I am just so excited to be Daniel’s fruit fly. It’s so much better than being some straight guy’s bitch! I said that out loud and we laughed some more.
Daniel said it is not being gay that destined his life to derail. He’s fine with being gay. I said he was lucky because I wasn’t so happy with being heterosexual—it wasn’t doing me any favors! The problem with him is that he is forever falling in love with the straightest men on the planet—twisted Fate, was his phrase.
I was really lucky I could hide my feelings for Jacob because it is a dangerous world when this kind of love takes over. In class, Daniel would stare at Pete the quarterback, Perfect Pete the quarterback, Precious Pete the quarterback, delicious Pop-Tart Pete the quarterback. (I think we might have been really stoned by this point because there were more names given—Pet Pete the quarterback, Prowling Pete the quarterback, Pumped Pete the quarterback.)
Anyway, Pete was a magnet for Daniel’s eyes in school. Sometimes it was literally minutes before Daniel realized he was staring at beautiful Pete. Staring at Pete too often is what got Daniel shoved up against the locker and a bloody nose. Daniel doesn’t even blame Pete for doing that. “I was, like, stalking him with my eyes.”
We each took another hit of pot. I think that was the third hit. Daniel kept going right after the deliberate exhale. (I think we did a really good job of smoking a joint. We looked just like kids do in the movies, all huddled by a bedside in an empty house spewing all our teen-aged crap.)
“I wrote a song after that incident at school. I’ll play it for you.” He played it for me, and I loved it. It’s funny and and folksy and even though I’m a girl and the song is about a guy, I can totally relate to it. I hope Daniel records the song someday and other people can hear it, too, and I can listen to it whenever I want. It’s called “Dumb Guy,” and it’s about being too young to be feeling so old and having regrets already.
I told him how awesome his song was, but I could tell Daniel was in an obsessive-thought mode, which I know super well so I didn’t judge him or attempt to get him out of it. I just listened while he ranted.
“Goddammit, couldn’t just one of my lusts be gay, too? Couldn’t I be attracted to someone remotely genetically wired to be attracted to me? Otherwise, this problem is going to get me killed. Seriously, that conductor is trying to derail my f*cking train! God, I’m such a f*ckin’ dumb guy!” Daniel screamed.
After he was done, I asked him, “Do your parents know you’re gay?”
“Well, after I came home dented and bloodied from the locker incident, my stepdad asked what happened, and I said I had gotten beaten up for being a faggot. He didn’t really react. My mom didn’t really talk to me about it, but that is right around when I had to go to a Catholic church and when my mom signed me up for social skills class. I’ve never really come out to anyone formally except you. Tonight was the first time I uttered the words genuinely and with someone I trust. Yeah, wow, that was really something.”
“Daniel, I know you’re gay and all, and maybe if I wasn’t stoned, I wouldn’t say this—but, I really want to kiss you. I want to put my lips right on yours and try that out. One derailed train locked into another.”
“Right about now, that sounds perfect.”
And then I added, “But, would you mind if I pretended you were Jake Gyllenhaal?”
“Would you mind if I did?” he asked.
And there, stoned and alive and in the moment, I had my first real kiss from someone who knew me and loved me and was gay and didn’t mind that I pretended he was Jake Gyllenhaal. It was so nice. I felt like it was the beginning of charting a new course. I think Daniel felt that way, too, because he yelled out “Damn girl!” and we fell on the floor laughing and laughed ourselves right to sleep.
*JUSTINE LETTER*
Dear Justine,
Since we last communicated, my best friend came out to me (that means he told me he was gay) and, in English class, I have to try to write about how I stand out. All the ways that I can think of are embarrassing. You don’t know me very well, but do you have any ideas? Thanks for being my friend.
Sincerely,
Danielle
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 5/20
Daniel and I plan our Lebowski outfits.
So Daniel and I had to watch The Big Lebowski more times to come up with the perfect Lebowski-fest outfit. He said it was key that we find something super nuanced that no one will ever wear. We spent time online looking up past costumes. All the characters are out. Everybody does that even though some people do it really creatively, like men come as Bunny, dressed in bikinis with green toenail polish. Also out is the rug that Woo pees on, “the queen in her damned undies”—although that is really funny—and other abstract props like the Port Huron Statement, Cynthia’s dog’s papers, or a cash machine.
I thought there was no way we were gonna find anything. Then I had a stroke of genius when we got to the end of the film. When the mortuary guy wants $180 for an urn for Donny’s ashes, Walter yells: “Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t make us saps!” I said, “Let’s go as bereaved people who aren’t saps!”
Daniel wondered how we were gonna do that, but I said my fashion designing aunt would figure it out for sure. “After all,” I told him, “that’s exactly what we are in life—bereaved, but not saps.” Despite what any quarterback or mooing a*shole thought.
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from me to Marv about an unfortunate event during “Spirit Week”
Marv,
Could you please explain to me why James got suspended for the outfit he wore today for Decade Day? (I dressed like the sixties in a tie-dyed shirt and painted a peace symbol on my face in case you didn’t see me today.) Anyway, look, the eighteen hundreds had decades and so why did James get in trouble for dressing like a slave? There were slaves in many decades in the eighteen hundreds. The shackles he wore had to be pretty expensive, and those whip marks took some effort to create. I applaud his effort. If we were only allowed to dress in outfits from the nineteen sixties, seventies, or eighties, someone should have told us. I know the administration told James his outfit was inappropriate, and he responded by saying, “Yeah, it is pretty frickin’ inappropriate. It was inappropriate for hundreds of years.” James was right. So why was he suspended?
Confused,
Danielle
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from Marv to me, which I receive soon after my letter to him.
Danielle,
I have two explanations for you. One, people may have believed he was mocking a terrible situation. Or, two, in the face of undeniable, painful truth, many do not know how to react. They just want it to go away.
Marv
*MARV MISSIVE*
Letter from me to Marv
Marv,
Thank you.
Danielle
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 5/26
We have dinner with the social skills class and an unfortunate thing happens.
The quest to get my mother to see that I am now beyond my social skills class continues. I’m done. I’ve got a friend. Daniel keeps playing the same card with his parents, too, and they aren’t biting either. He even tried to tell them he has a newfound relationship with the Lord and that should suffice. They don’t agree.
So we were both stuck going to dinner with the class at the Galleria on a Saturday night, which is just death. The entire Meadow Oaks student body goes to the Galleria on Saturday. My mom said that would be wonderful because people would see me socializing. Oh God, she just never gets it. But Daniel and I realized we would have to go. He suggested we get stoned beforehand because we had one joint left. I didn’t want to do that. It’s one thing to do that alone in his room. I didn’t trust myself out in public that way. Although, looking back on how I actually behaved, I would have been better off stoned.
Anyway, we met at the restaurant. You couldn’t miss Lisa, who was wearing the brightest yellow suit I’d ever seen. She looked like a banana. Does she own anything but these suits? I wore my green sherpa hat even though the weather is warm because I thought, worse case scenario, if I didn’t want to listen to anybody, I could tie the flaps over my ears.
We all looked like we were taken out of the asylum for a night, which was kind of true. We were sitting as a befuddled, geeky group at a big table in the front of the restaurant when Jacob, Keira, James, and Heather walked through the door. I saw Keira see me and move her group toward our table for at least a “hello” and at worst a public shaming.
I reacted totally on crazed instinct. Daniel was seated next to me, and I leaned over and grabbed his face and planted a big kiss on him as Keira and Jacob approached the table. Daniel was stunned but recovered quickly when he realized who was standing before us.
“Hey, Danielle,” Keira said. “Is this your boyfriend?”
In quite deliberate language I said, “Yes, Keira, this is my boyfriend, Daniel. And Daniel this is Jacob.”
“Hey, man,” Jacob condescended.
Daniel brilliantly continued, “Hey, are you guys joining our Save the Children dinner meeting? We can pull up chairs.”
Lisa was stunned. She had no idea what was going on, and all the other doofuses just stared in disbelief that I had kissed Daniel so boldly. Iggie threw some paper bird in the air and slammed his head down on the table. So weird.
Jacob said, “Naw, we’re here to eat before we see a movie. But you guys have fun saving the planet. Later, Danielle.”
After they left, Lisa lectured everyone on the poor social graces of lying about yourself out in public. “You all have nothing to be ashamed of, so covering up who you are to impress others is not necessary. Now I expect all of us to think about what we can actually do to begin to save the children in order to live up to the lie that Daniel has set forth tonight.”
“Well, then I’d say my lie was a good thing. Getting this group to do something other than whine about our circumstances can only be good. I, for one, think we should shift the entire social skills class into a Save the Children group. All in favor?” Every hand shot up.
Mission accomplished.
Daniel did talk to me about not using him to make myself look better to Jacob, even though he did agree to go to my prom with me because he could masquerade as a full-fledged straight guy and stare at all the boys without fear of fists. He couldn’t see what I saw in Jacob, actually. I thought for sure Daniel would take one look at him and fall in love.
“No. If I know up front he’s straight but an a*shole, the a*shole trumps straight, and I’m immediately turned off. Generally, I have to discover them on my own, like them first, think they are dreamy and perfect and smell good, and then I find out they are jerks, get my face smashed into a locker or some metaphorical equivalent, and then get over them. You took the locker to the face for me on this one. He’s got a little prick—you can tell.”
“OMG, really?”
“Totally.”
*JUSTINE LETTER*
Dear Danielle,
How nice your friend is gay. That’s just fine by me. As far as how you stand out, just know everyone stands out. Each life is a unique blend of energy that colors the planet. Think about the energy that is you, that you give off. Where did that energy come from? What has happened in your life that gave you your unique you quality. Pick one little or big thing, it doesn’t matter. If you are honest, how you stand out will read loud and clear like the crisp air in the morning of a new day. In your essay, just be who you are. I, for one, like her very much.
Do you know what I do each week, Danielle? I mean besides my tours. Each week, I meet with five other women I’ve known now for over thirty years, my goodness. When we first started meeting, we were all grieving widows. We did a lot of boohooing together for a while. But, you know what, we needed to be that for a little bit. That was who we were.
And then one day, one of the women started talking about a lusty romance novel she was reading. Oh my. We couldn’t help ourselves, Danielle. We all went home and bought that book. Since then, our grieving widows group has become a romance book club. Are you picturing that, dear? Five old ladies sitting in a pub snickering over silly books, talking all about the impossible lives of fictional people? Well, that’s what we do, my dear, because our youthful shame and guilt left us long ago. We do that and we make meals with each other and we go to church and we live.
Good-bye for now, dear,
Justine