Richard P. Braden

Reunions Richard P. Braden

Reunions is a story about three people, two men and one woman, who graduate from the same high school in Florida in the 1950s. They go their separate ways, then are reunited for three events two class reunions and a funeral. The two men do well in life because they are highly educated and know where prosperity lies. The woman is not so fortunate she ends up in a bad marriage and is forced to separate herself and her children from an angry spouse. One man, the narrator, considers her a victim of society and tries to help her through life. The other man shuns her seeing her as a danger to society, an opportunist, and a traitor to family values. The men clash at two class reunions, defending their ideologies and concepts about what is right in mainstream America and what is wrong. Their politics diverge significantly. The third time the three meet is at the funeral of the son of one. This is a reflection of life as we know it at the end of the Twentieth Century.