May I just add a brief postscript to all of this?
All of the people on this board who have commented on this story have, *without exception*, been kind, encouraging and supportive.
Thanks go out to Irene D., Jenni Debb, TriciaW, SNL, groobie, lynnm, and julia. Thanks for being there.
But, special thanks go to mariadferdez
Thanks to LabRat, for helping me with a technical problem or two. (Hope I didn't get too annoying.)
And again, thanks to lynnm, for her kind e-mail which gave me the nerve to post this.
I'd love to hear from any of you who wish to drop me a line, with private thoughts on the story, or whatever. Remember that the challenge in the Part Four comments still holds, at least for the next few days until these posts expire.
The upshot: You've all been so positive in your responses, that I'm gonna go for it, and post this to the archive! Thanks to all!
Snave
PS: About the mention of gender in two of my posts -- that was because I *fully* expected to get branded as a chauvinist for my treatment of Karen in Part 5 (which, by the way, was already written before I began to post any of this); and I just wanted to lay the cards on the table in advance.
I have nothing but the highest opinion of Karen. I visualize her as intelligent, caring and sensitive. But she (like everyone in the story at one time or another) got a wrong idea somewhere, and ran with it. She just ran further than anyone else before getting all the facts. (This story could be subtitled "How They All Got It Wrong Before They Got It Right".)
