Winter Sunrises Grand Finale!
Just finished revising the epilogue to Winter Sunrises! I know I still have much work to do in terms of line-editing and proofreading and detail-checking for this book, but I think I may have the style and plot and characters down now.
Here's a link to the previous scene, as I took a week off for Christmas and it's been awhile: http://ladycatherina.livejournal.com/295253.html
Epilogue - basically catches up and follows through with the plot and major characters. Intended to show everyone coming together and finding some form of inclusion/personal fulfillment in line with their basic personality and talents (i.e. Ellen's motherly nature taking a helpful, friendly form rather than a snobbish/controlling one.) And, try as I might, I couldn't make Stefan fit in as one of the Penroses in the end, so he follows his own destiny while earning their respect. I hope the third person omniscient writing is all right with the recent literary trend away from writing in that POV - for an epilogue that can be the best way to catch up with a whole flock of people!
Faye attended the Penrose family’s New Year’s party as Stefan's guest, in a flowing satin sapphire gown with silk lupines in her hair.
She brought over the musicbox, offering to let it rest in Lysa's old room with the remainder of her things.
“Thanks, but please keep it.” Stefan placed it firmly back into her hands. “Just open it up at midnight so we can all hear.”
She watched Stefan kick off his black dress shoes and skip and sing across the backyard like a little boy, then stare up in wonder at the constellations.
Faye's mom had shown her how to identify several of them, and she pointed out the ones she remembered.
“Wow, you’re really smart. What’s that one there?” James asked, setting up his new amateur telescope.
Stefan and Richard chatted rather calmly, asking about each other’s work.
Earlier that night, Stefan had excused himself and left her to chat and make small talk over crackers and hummus and champagne with the Marshalls and some other neighbors who’d dropped by.
“Ellen, this chamomile tea is great! I wish I’d known everyone was bringing something.”
Ellen beamed and chuckled “It’s all right. This isn’t really a potluck. Susan just knows I can’t resist bringing things and taking care of everyone.”
Faye had then noticed Stefan heading towards Richard in the garage.
When both men returned together, she’d seen them shake hands and smile.
Susan hugged Faye and chuckled to hear the story of how she'd met Stefan and Lysa on their surreptitious trip to San Francisco.
"I still can't believe you ran into each other again, after so many years,” she said, wiping her hands and putting out some more hummus. "But then, I suppose everything's possible."
Susan gave Faye a standing invitation to join them at all future Penrose family parties, and received a quiet nod and smile.
Susan's health would never be quite the same after her final stroke, and she lived only another ten years. Stefan, Richard, and Holly all helped her reframe her paintings and redesign some parts of the old family home to be safer and more comfortable.
Months later, with a generous loan from Stefan to help her get started, Faye bought out the old residential hotel and left her old profession behind her forever.
Enlisting the help of the other residents, she rebuilt the place and created a lovely French-style café and bed and breakfast, painted an inviting shade of peach with black cursive lettering. People came from miles around for coffee, pastries, light meals, and a chance to discuss literature and hear readings from new local authors.
Many of the other "working girls" in the old hotel chose to stay on help Faye run her new business, and several of them shared their work at her informal literary gatherings.
They supported themselves as artists by working together - singing, writing, painting, or acting for a while, and then taking a turn at waitressing or accounting or office support.
Holly landed a decent position in a medical clinic and finished her education to become a registered nurse.
She and Richard eventually married, after he received a promotion to upper management and his father’s old parking place. A year after their wedding, Holly gave birth to a beautiful daughter, whom she named Lysandra.
James and Michelle married also, in an outdoor ceremony in the park surrounding Stefan’s castle and James’ army fort. Michelle's taste in wedding décor was similar to Lysandra's, and her bridesmaids carried bouquets of wild lupines and irises while a local orchestra played her favorite classical piece, Pachelbel's Canon.
They lived nearby in a modest rented home and had a son, whom they named Stefan. James took a variety of jobs, working for a while as a forest ranger, and then a marketing specialist, before finally settling down in the construction industry. Michelle became an accomplished novelist, her imagination fueling many complex stories.
The Marshall family went on with their cozy little lives and pastel flowers and starched shirts, inside their home, as ordinary as ever. Except for Ellen’s little garden of zinnias and snapdragons. And Charles’ photo album from a business jaunt through the steppes of Central Asia, proudly ensconced with vanilla candles on the middle of the well-dusted walnut coffee table.
No one really knew for sure what became of Stefan Norris. His other tenants had moved out of the Penrose home early, making the family party possible.
When they left the other house in the Marshall neighborhood, he sold much of the things he had there, including a lot of Lysa's things. He also got rid of his Corvette, trading it to Richard and James in a gentleman's exchange for a free ticket to Richard's team's championship game.
Stefan turned the family home back over to Mom, where she lived until her death and the place passed to Richard and Holly. With the mortgage paid off, they inherited no financial responsibilities and lived there comfortably for many years.
Stefan then took an extended leave of absence from the software firm, saying he planned to travel and work on some of his own projects. No one really knew exactly how he spent the time, or many of the following years, when he kept to himself except for the occasional holiday party. Maybe he assisted others like Faye, maybe he got back in touch with his birth family, or perhaps he simply lived a quiet life, enjoyed the outdoors, and thought of Lysandra.
He was lucky to get out of the industries surrounding the internet when he did. The luck of his fellow misfits was about to change, as the Silicon Valley soon entered into recession and many dot-com companies failed. By some unexplainable instinct he knew just when to sell off his stock options and begin a new phase of his life with his financial portfolio intact.
Many years later, on another New Year's Day, the San Francisco Chronicle printed his obituary. A very short piece, as they knew so little of him. He was reported to have been found early one morning, lying dead under the mulberry tree in the park near his childhood home. Investigations revealed no evidence of foul play, and they allowed him a quiet burial without media attention.
A scattering of people, former tenants, coworkers, and acquaintances from San Francisco, showed up at the small memorial service held for him by a local organization for homeless children.
He’d supported the group anonymously for years, until a curious Internet detective found him out and surprised him with thanks.
At the service, some acknowledged that in his younger days Stefan had his stern and harsh moments. He could be a strict landlord or a somewhat distant acquaintance, seemingly gruff and not willing to get too close to anyone.
Still, many people also mentioned recognizing something transcendent, meaningful in his character. They knew him as an obviously successful man, yet clearly never completely satisfied with his material success.
The mourners laid real evergreen branches upon his wooden casket, and planted a row of oaks in the park in his memory.
Miss Miranda folded up his obituary and placed it neatly inside Lysandra’s music box, where she kept her most treasured items.
She also wrote her own version of his last day of life:
It was a cold and blustery early New Year's morning, and a thick mass of clouds stubbornly refused the sun even a peek into our world. Stefan pulled his winter coat tightly around him and stepped out into the small park where he and Lysandra had played together so many years ago. The sycamore and birch trees were still there, although withered from age and the unpredictable, uncharacteristic weather of the past year. The blackberry bushes also remained, intertwined through a mass of ivy.
Stefan walked on along the lawn, following a meandering path between birch groves, smatterings of pyracantha and blackberry bushes, and puddles of water and mud. At last he reached the clearing in the middle, where he and Lysa had built their fanciful castle and escaped the loneliness of their childhoods.
Selecting a relatively dry portion of a concrete bench, he sat down to reflect in solitude. Life's adventures had sapped much of his energy, and he no longer had the strength of his younger days.
Closing his eyes, he bent his head to rest for a few moments. The local community center hosted a New Year celebration, and the group began to sing.
As they performed a surprisingly on-key and resonant version of Auld Lang Syne, Stefan opened his eyes. It was now later in the morning, and the sun pushed through the layers of clouds and shone a faint beam of light into the town.
Stefan joined in his neighbors’ chorus, and reached out his hand to welcome the first light of the New Year. And this was when he passed, with his hand outstretched and his heart open.
In his darker days, when he felt alone and rejected as a child, and later on after Lysa’s death, he had dreamed of returning to that magnificent castle and to the love and devotion it represented.
And, at last, through a love stronger than death itself, and through honoring the same spirit of transcendent, Romantic idealism in others, he had found the way back home.
Farewell, Stefan and Heathcliff! You who believe in the eternal New Year! Now at last you are both free to embrace your deathless partners as when you were children, and finally consummate your long-awaited dream.
Here's a link to the previous scene, as I took a week off for Christmas and it's been awhile: http://ladycatherina.livejournal.com/295253.html
Epilogue - basically catches up and follows through with the plot and major characters. Intended to show everyone coming together and finding some form of inclusion/personal fulfillment in line with their basic personality and talents (i.e. Ellen's motherly nature taking a helpful, friendly form rather than a snobbish/controlling one.) And, try as I might, I couldn't make Stefan fit in as one of the Penroses in the end, so he follows his own destiny while earning their respect. I hope the third person omniscient writing is all right with the recent literary trend away from writing in that POV - for an epilogue that can be the best way to catch up with a whole flock of people!
Faye attended the Penrose family’s New Year’s party as Stefan's guest, in a flowing satin sapphire gown with silk lupines in her hair.
She brought over the musicbox, offering to let it rest in Lysa's old room with the remainder of her things.
“Thanks, but please keep it.” Stefan placed it firmly back into her hands. “Just open it up at midnight so we can all hear.”
She watched Stefan kick off his black dress shoes and skip and sing across the backyard like a little boy, then stare up in wonder at the constellations.
Faye's mom had shown her how to identify several of them, and she pointed out the ones she remembered.
“Wow, you’re really smart. What’s that one there?” James asked, setting up his new amateur telescope.
Stefan and Richard chatted rather calmly, asking about each other’s work.
Earlier that night, Stefan had excused himself and left her to chat and make small talk over crackers and hummus and champagne with the Marshalls and some other neighbors who’d dropped by.
“Ellen, this chamomile tea is great! I wish I’d known everyone was bringing something.”
Ellen beamed and chuckled “It’s all right. This isn’t really a potluck. Susan just knows I can’t resist bringing things and taking care of everyone.”
Faye had then noticed Stefan heading towards Richard in the garage.
When both men returned together, she’d seen them shake hands and smile.
Susan hugged Faye and chuckled to hear the story of how she'd met Stefan and Lysa on their surreptitious trip to San Francisco.
"I still can't believe you ran into each other again, after so many years,” she said, wiping her hands and putting out some more hummus. "But then, I suppose everything's possible."
Susan gave Faye a standing invitation to join them at all future Penrose family parties, and received a quiet nod and smile.
Susan's health would never be quite the same after her final stroke, and she lived only another ten years. Stefan, Richard, and Holly all helped her reframe her paintings and redesign some parts of the old family home to be safer and more comfortable.
Months later, with a generous loan from Stefan to help her get started, Faye bought out the old residential hotel and left her old profession behind her forever.
Enlisting the help of the other residents, she rebuilt the place and created a lovely French-style café and bed and breakfast, painted an inviting shade of peach with black cursive lettering. People came from miles around for coffee, pastries, light meals, and a chance to discuss literature and hear readings from new local authors.
Many of the other "working girls" in the old hotel chose to stay on help Faye run her new business, and several of them shared their work at her informal literary gatherings.
They supported themselves as artists by working together - singing, writing, painting, or acting for a while, and then taking a turn at waitressing or accounting or office support.
Holly landed a decent position in a medical clinic and finished her education to become a registered nurse.
She and Richard eventually married, after he received a promotion to upper management and his father’s old parking place. A year after their wedding, Holly gave birth to a beautiful daughter, whom she named Lysandra.
James and Michelle married also, in an outdoor ceremony in the park surrounding Stefan’s castle and James’ army fort. Michelle's taste in wedding décor was similar to Lysandra's, and her bridesmaids carried bouquets of wild lupines and irises while a local orchestra played her favorite classical piece, Pachelbel's Canon.
They lived nearby in a modest rented home and had a son, whom they named Stefan. James took a variety of jobs, working for a while as a forest ranger, and then a marketing specialist, before finally settling down in the construction industry. Michelle became an accomplished novelist, her imagination fueling many complex stories.
The Marshall family went on with their cozy little lives and pastel flowers and starched shirts, inside their home, as ordinary as ever. Except for Ellen’s little garden of zinnias and snapdragons. And Charles’ photo album from a business jaunt through the steppes of Central Asia, proudly ensconced with vanilla candles on the middle of the well-dusted walnut coffee table.
No one really knew for sure what became of Stefan Norris. His other tenants had moved out of the Penrose home early, making the family party possible.
When they left the other house in the Marshall neighborhood, he sold much of the things he had there, including a lot of Lysa's things. He also got rid of his Corvette, trading it to Richard and James in a gentleman's exchange for a free ticket to Richard's team's championship game.
Stefan turned the family home back over to Mom, where she lived until her death and the place passed to Richard and Holly. With the mortgage paid off, they inherited no financial responsibilities and lived there comfortably for many years.
Stefan then took an extended leave of absence from the software firm, saying he planned to travel and work on some of his own projects. No one really knew exactly how he spent the time, or many of the following years, when he kept to himself except for the occasional holiday party. Maybe he assisted others like Faye, maybe he got back in touch with his birth family, or perhaps he simply lived a quiet life, enjoyed the outdoors, and thought of Lysandra.
He was lucky to get out of the industries surrounding the internet when he did. The luck of his fellow misfits was about to change, as the Silicon Valley soon entered into recession and many dot-com companies failed. By some unexplainable instinct he knew just when to sell off his stock options and begin a new phase of his life with his financial portfolio intact.
Many years later, on another New Year's Day, the San Francisco Chronicle printed his obituary. A very short piece, as they knew so little of him. He was reported to have been found early one morning, lying dead under the mulberry tree in the park near his childhood home. Investigations revealed no evidence of foul play, and they allowed him a quiet burial without media attention.
A scattering of people, former tenants, coworkers, and acquaintances from San Francisco, showed up at the small memorial service held for him by a local organization for homeless children.
He’d supported the group anonymously for years, until a curious Internet detective found him out and surprised him with thanks.
At the service, some acknowledged that in his younger days Stefan had his stern and harsh moments. He could be a strict landlord or a somewhat distant acquaintance, seemingly gruff and not willing to get too close to anyone.
Still, many people also mentioned recognizing something transcendent, meaningful in his character. They knew him as an obviously successful man, yet clearly never completely satisfied with his material success.
The mourners laid real evergreen branches upon his wooden casket, and planted a row of oaks in the park in his memory.
Miss Miranda folded up his obituary and placed it neatly inside Lysandra’s music box, where she kept her most treasured items.
She also wrote her own version of his last day of life:
It was a cold and blustery early New Year's morning, and a thick mass of clouds stubbornly refused the sun even a peek into our world. Stefan pulled his winter coat tightly around him and stepped out into the small park where he and Lysandra had played together so many years ago. The sycamore and birch trees were still there, although withered from age and the unpredictable, uncharacteristic weather of the past year. The blackberry bushes also remained, intertwined through a mass of ivy.
Stefan walked on along the lawn, following a meandering path between birch groves, smatterings of pyracantha and blackberry bushes, and puddles of water and mud. At last he reached the clearing in the middle, where he and Lysa had built their fanciful castle and escaped the loneliness of their childhoods.
Selecting a relatively dry portion of a concrete bench, he sat down to reflect in solitude. Life's adventures had sapped much of his energy, and he no longer had the strength of his younger days.
Closing his eyes, he bent his head to rest for a few moments. The local community center hosted a New Year celebration, and the group began to sing.
As they performed a surprisingly on-key and resonant version of Auld Lang Syne, Stefan opened his eyes. It was now later in the morning, and the sun pushed through the layers of clouds and shone a faint beam of light into the town.
Stefan joined in his neighbors’ chorus, and reached out his hand to welcome the first light of the New Year. And this was when he passed, with his hand outstretched and his heart open.
In his darker days, when he felt alone and rejected as a child, and later on after Lysa’s death, he had dreamed of returning to that magnificent castle and to the love and devotion it represented.
And, at last, through a love stronger than death itself, and through honoring the same spirit of transcendent, Romantic idealism in others, he had found the way back home.
Farewell, Stefan and Heathcliff! You who believe in the eternal New Year! Now at last you are both free to embrace your deathless partners as when you were children, and finally consummate your long-awaited dream.