Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

Isabelle doesn’t move. Something makes her stay where she is, hidden by the trees. She’s waiting, but she doesn’t know why.

And then Alina dusts the earth off the knees of her jeans and walks across the meadow with her long and determined steps. She doesn’t hesitate at the door of Daniel’s cottage. She simply opens it, bends her head to enter, and closes it behind her.

And when Isabelle walks past, to get to the path through the trees that leads to town, she can see, through the two tall windows next to Daniel’s bed, that Alina is doing exactly what Isabelle had hoped she would do. She’s taken a kitchen chair and positioned it beside the hospital bed. She is sitting beside her father and she has his hand in hers.

Isabelle turns away — this intimacy isn’t hers to witness — and starts on the path into town that she first walked alone so many years ago, the day she came looking for Daniel. The very path they walked many times together after that. The path that will take her back to the bounty of her present life in Oakland, with Michael, who is waiting, eager for her always. The man she chose. The man who makes all the good things in her life possible.

—

IN THE SPRING OF THE NEXT YEAR, the first copies of Daniel’s final book arrive at Noah’s Ark. Isabelle has been waiting for them, and she opens the cardboard box with eagerness, Julian by her side.

“Ah,” he says as she hands him the first copy, “a gorgeous book.”

The cover is a photo of Daniel’s cabin on the bank of Foyle’s Pond, sheltered by the birch trees. It was taken in late afternoon, and shards of waning sunlight are sprinkled across the water. The title, Daniel’s title— Regrets of a Grateful Man —is printed in clean, crisp black type across the tops of the trees, and his name is spread across the water at the bottom, almost as if it will disappear in an instant.

“Maybe Deepti is right,” Isabelle muses as she takes a second book from the carton and holds it with two hands. “Maybe souls migrate.” Memories flood her. They will for the rest of her life, she knows. “Isn’t Daniel’s soul here, in this book?”

It’s a rhetorical question, which Julian knows enough not to answer. Of course Daniel’s soul is in his writing. Why else write?

Isabelle opens the book to the back flap, and there is Daniel’s face looking back at her. This is Daniel in Winnock. Daniel smiling. Daniel with some measure of peace. She sees that Bev is credited with the photo, and she immediately knows that it was taken during the ten good years they had together. And that makes her happy.

It was Bev, of course, who called her the night Daniel died, less than two weeks after Isabelle returned to California. She tells her Stefan arrived a day after Isabelle left. He lives in Michigan now, and is married to a woman with two young children.

“He works as an orderly in a hospital,” Bev says, “and Daniel was very glad to see him. They talked for days — well, Stefan talked, and Daniel mostly smiled at him and nodded. They both were happy with that.”

There’s a silence as Bev gathers herself, and then she adds, “We were all with him at the end — Stefan, Alina, and of course I was there.” Bev pauses again before she makes her final statement. Her voice is confident; this is what she will remember. “I know he felt surrounded by love.”

“Oh, yes,” Isabelle says softly in response, “he was loved.”

Three determined women have guided my writing career: Lynn Pleshette recognized the writer within me before I ever allowed myself to believe in that possibility. Marly Rusoff guided my transition from weary screenwriter to wide-eyed fiction writer. And the intrepid, courageous Nan Talese reached out her hand to me and made it all happen. I am grateful beyond all words to all three.

I also want to thank the Sundance Institute and Michelle Satter, in particular, for inviting me to be part of their Screenwriting Lab. It is in the glorious mountains of Utah that I have learned what it is to be a mentor to young screenwriters from the world over. My experiences there have translated into a better understanding of Daniel here, in this book.

And finally, of course, without the unwavering love and complete support of my husband, Marty, and my daughter, Eva, this book would never exist. They have all my love.

Deena Goldstone is the author of the short-story collection Tell Me One Thing and a screenwriter of feature films and television movies. She lives in Pasadena, California, with her family. This is her first novel.