A Tale of Two Sisters

Karen Parkman

Description

A three-year journey into the lives of two sisters tells a story of sight and perception. The story of Jewel and Jade Blades is eloquently told against the backdrop of true events based in the year 2020. Several events emerged from the chaos of the year 2020, and those occurrences not only contributed to the circumstances of a nation that woke up on the wrong side of the world. The narratives focused on a disease that changed many lives and the reality of racial injustice while the United States dealt with a delusional leader who became a danger to society. Although these crises were unrelated; they had intertwined in ways which were equally destructive and had the power to obliterate the basic understanding of everyone’s history.

Jewel and Jade Blades, identical twins, struggled with their identities their entire lives. Not knowing their Asian mother while their African American father struggled with drug addiction, they were raised by their paternal grandmother who taught them to be proud of who they were and to tell their story with pride, but different life paths dictated their stories differently.
Jewel Blade-Rheaume had it all, or did she? She had a perfect life and a career as an emergency room nurse. She had a husband who adored her and a growing family. Jewel had been in tune with her gift, seeing the lighter side of life. Jewel had embarked on some challenges that could have changed the course of her life while devastating her future.
Jade Blade, a single parent, struggled with her self-worth. She encountered secondary trauma as a child protective social worker. She had been enthralled in a twenty-two-year unhealthy relationship with the father of her two children, which bought on self-harming and maladaptive behavior. Jade sought comfort from drugs and alcohol to control the voices in her head and the pain in her heart. An unexpected encounter with someone who saw her struggles and the events of a blood moon changed the course of her life.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669852209
• Langue: English

Extrait

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
 
 
 
 
 
 
KAREN PARKMAN
 
 
Copyright © 2022 by Karen Parkman.
 

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022919556
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-5222-3

Softcover
978-1-6698-5221-6

eBook
978-1-6698-5220-9
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Cover design by Gregory Butler
 
 
 
Rev. date: 10/28/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
847198
CONTENTS
Book 1 : The Story And The Vision
Introduction
The Beginning
Book 2 : Public Persona/Private Reality
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Book 3 : Relationships
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Book 4 : The Journey
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Topics of discussion
BOOK 1
THE STORY AND THE VISION
Twenty-twenty is the measurement of clarity or sharpness in sight and in vision. The year 2020 offered a movement of disasters and self-disco very.
 

INTRODUCTION
I t was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was a period of enlightenment and a period of fear. The year was 2020, a time when stories were manifested to set precedence and offer clarity to uncertainties. Stories are often cerebral in nature, told with depths of humility and self-efficacy; each chapter represents intellectual thoughts and raw emotions allowing insight to transform lives for total self-awareness. Jewel and Jade Blades’ story illustrated spiritual growth during a time when their whole existence became a pivotal point of inner conflict. They were identical twins and sharing the same womb bought on an unexplainable closeness where one twin’s ideas were the completion of the other one’s thoughts. Occupying a space until they were able to breathe air on their own was where their similarity ended, and the story of their differences begin.
Jewel was the older more rational twin, who had a lighter side of seeing life and was open to innovative ideas while Jade saw life in its darker version often feeling everything worth its existence was enthralled in conspiracy theories and attached with ulterior motives. Born thirty-six years earlier to biological parents, sixteen-year-old Mei-Lin Xiou and seventeen-year-old Dennis Blades, the twins were born with a gift of prophecy, an inheritance from their Asian ancestry. Their lineage became a crucial part of their whole existence as they never had the opportunity of knowing either of their parents. They had been made aware of their Chinese mother, Mei-Lin and their African American father, Dennis through stories told to them by their paternal grandmother, Gemma Blades. They were told their parents had been high school sweethearts during a time when the cultural conflict had been expected to keep them apart; however, there were so many other unanswered questions throughout Jewel and Jade’s thirty-six years, and those questions became prevalent during the year 2020, revealing some unexpected events and secrets, which changed the course of their lives.

THE BEGINNING
M ei-Lin and Dennis had met in high school, a year before Jewel and Jade’s birth. The couple had not been prepared for the drama that followed because of their desire to be together. Dennis Blades was a simple person, who enjoyed life and had big dreams. He was verging on a basketball scholarship with a major in engineering. He knew in the eyes of Mei-Lin’s parents, his promising future would never make him a suitable candidate to ever date their daughter; however, he could not forgo the person who had stolen his heart.
Racism had cut through their innocence and tainted their belief in love and their core values of what they knew to be true, which compelled their love into secrecy. Mei-Lin and Dennis had stolen moments in the halls at school and at the public library where they studied together as biology partners. They spent time at the mall on the weekends and often enjoyed meals at the food court or a movie at the theater. A mutual friend had helped the young lovers with spending their Friday evenings together, and when a pregnancy test came back positive, the young couple became terrified. Mei-Lin and Dennis had spent days frantic over what they would do, neither wanting to tell either of their parents.
Mei-Lin had been determined to not terminate her pregnancy and managed to hide it until the pregnancy could no longer be hidden. She knew if her parents had been aware, they would have made it impossible for the babies to survive. For six months she had been able to hide her pregnancy by wearing loose-fitting clothing while minimizing her presence around her family and friends. She had been a straight-A student and always had her nose in a science book, which made it easier to avoid being around her family. When her parents would summons her to dinner, she would proclaim she had to study for an upcoming exam. At school she walked the halls wearing a large gray goose down parka with her book bag draped across the front. She had wanted to keep her secret from friends and teachers for fear of her parents finding out. She held on to the hope she and Dennis would elope and be married before giving birth, which was a short-lived plan. No prenatal care and a tiny body frame led to premature labor.
It was a cold gray stormy night in February when Mei-Lin woke up with stabbing pains in her abdomen and vomiting profusely. Mei-Lin’s parents rushed her to the emergency room, believing she had eaten something bad. Her very conservative, traditional old-world parents had become enraged to learn their daughter did not have a bad case of food poisoning and was about to deliver not one but two babies. With just one look at the dark-complected and curly-haired babies, Mei-Lin’s parents had become infuriated to learn of the rumors that had been going around Chinatown of Mei-Lin being seen with a c olored boy were true. “We’re just friends,” she had once said. “He’s just my biology partner,” she had proclaimed on separate occasions, but she could no longer deny the facts.
Mei-Lin was forced to abandon her babies immediately after their birth, only able to briefly hold them when the doctor placed each baby on her chest after each one was born. She prayed over the tiny beings before kissing them on their forehead, unaware it would be the last time she would ever see them. Being born too early, the babies were small and rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Mei-Lin had been more concerned with the well-being of her babies than not being able to bond with them. Her parents had been determined not to allow her to make any connections to those babies by demanding the hospital discharge their daughter only fourteen hours after giving birth but not before she had the opportunity of giving the twins their names, Jewel Mei and Jade Lin.
Mei-Lin sought the support of a young White nursing student named Veronica Tinsley, who was on her very first assignment in the maternity ward. Because she was new and not well connected to any aspects of the hospital, the Xiou’s only allowed the nursing student to speak with their daughter. Veronica agreed to get a letter to Dennis to let him know he had twin daughters. After learning the babies were taken away from their mother at a crucial bonding time, Veronica took pictures of the babies and secretly gave them to Mei-Lin, which she held on to that small keepsake throughout her life. She cried many nights after leaving her babies at the hospital and held on to the hope things would change and that she and Dennis would eventually be together; however, her parents made sure those ties were immediately severed by shipping her off to China as punishment. That moment of cataclysm changed everything and shifted the trajectory of every life involved. Jewel Mei and Jade Lin were raised by their paternal grandmother.
Motherhood started all over again for forty-seven-year-old Gemma Blades when she thought she was done raising children. Her older son Brian was twenty-three- years of age and was in the army, serving his country overseas, and Dennis was seventeen years old and in route to the college of his choice. Mother’s intuition made her aware something had been brewing with her younger son and his secret girlfriend months prior, but it did not prepare her for the phone call she received from the Department of Social Services. “There are twin babies that were left at the hospital, they are premature.” The woman’s voice on the other end of the receiver had told her in a cold nonchalant tone. “It is believed they are your granddaughters; the state will take custody if you do not take action by the close of the business day t oday.”
The i