June 15, 2021

[incomplete…]

The trees that are leafless still make a purple haze in the distance and in the relief of the forefront, bright lilac and purple apple blossoms.

Judy Mann was driving through northern Illinois to visit her brother, who lived in the smallish city of Lisle. There hung in the air above her head a purple cloud of guilt to match the landscape, which no amount of miles could escape.

Without warning or delicacy, her life had taken an unfortunate turn last week, and she had escaped dodge as fast as possible. Only, it wasn’t Dodge. It was Princeville. And quiet, unassuming Princeville, her home for the entire 28 years of her life, was abruptly not home.

This was spring, when life was supposed to be full of hope and new beginnings, but right now, it felt like the end of everything. So it felt to her, but as my skeptical reader is aware, the beginning of the story is never the end, and the tragedy that catapults our protagonist into uncharted waters is precisely the reason we have chosen to open this particular volume. Judy will not become the woman she is meant to be without this tragedy of her past.

But don’t worry reader. I am not arbitrarily introducing this tragedy into her life just to catapult her into some exciting drama. I would not dare to insult your intelligence by such an action. No, this tragedy is real - more real, in fact, than Judy, and her struggle with it will define what sort of woman she becomes.

In spite of her pain, she could not help but admire the scenery as she neared her brother’s home. She had pulled off the highway an hour early to get gas, and opted not to return to it, so she had taken the backroads. She was glad she had. Instead of passing occasional large, square business buildings of stone and glass, with monotonous, overgrown foliage in between, she took in the well-manicured houses, meridian gardens, and old, brick downtown businesses. These were cities where people took pride in their home, and something in her heart responded. Maybe the people living inside these houses took pride in themselves… and their families, too.

She pulled into her brother’s apartment complex.