Story Of Hope

Just going to say a few things because I have a little bit of time.

It's been nearly a year since I put on this show. I played the man during a difficult time. When I saw this competition, I went back and forth between putting this story in or not. But I think I'm ready.

This is a rewrite of the scene from "Almost Maine". I know that there's a book of it, (It came out a few months after I wrote this, but still) and I have yet to read the scene of it. I'm a few chapters away, btw.

This story is for the people who think that they failed everybody. The people who fall after every mistake.

I'm getting better. You are too.

Hope knocked on the door and sighed. She had waited so long to say it, those small words that he needed to hear. This had to be it.

“Just a moment,” a small voice cried out from the interior of the house. She let out a small sigh. Maybe his parents hadn’t died after all? It didn’t matter. She just needed to see him. She rolled around on the balls of her feet until the door opened.

“I know this isn’t going to be very easy,” Hope started, not even looking up at the man whose legs were barely covered by his bathrobe, her mouth moving rapid-fire, “But I was just out there all alone in this world, and I got so scared, because all I could think about was how I had no place in this world, but then I just outta nowhere realized that there was one place in this world that I did have, and that was with you, so I flew and I took a taxi to get to you. I just had to see you, thank god you’re-”

Her eyes finally made there way up the body, revealing a diminished man, shrunken into the wall, his eyes a dull gray. He looked at her in an almost scared way, and she drew into herself a little bit. “Oh... Wait” she took a step back as the man finally cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Your not... I’m...” Breathe Hope she thought as she collected her thoughts. “I’m looking for Daniel Harding. Does he live here?”

She craned her neck around the side, trying to see if she really got the right place. The man cleared his throat once more and looked out over the snowy hills. “You’re looking for...”

Hope interrupted him with a laugh, starting to feel herself slip away into the cold, plushy snow. “Looking for Daniel Harding, yeah. He lives here. I think. But... oh. I am so sorry. He doesn’t, does he?” She looked at the man, his short form and small body eased slowly into the shadows, away from the bitter cold “Do you know him? Big, big tall guy. Played basketball. All eastern Maine?” she looked through her collective conscience for more. “Strong. Do you know him?”

He let out a small sigh, “Well...”

Hope laughed again, trying to cheer up the blank atmosphere. “Oh, don’t even answer that! That was...” She knew that she felt guilty for assuming the man knew him “I know that’s a horrible question to ask a person who lives in a small town, as if everybody in small towns knows everyone else”. She smiled and put her hands up in the sky for exaggeration, giving a smile to the poor man’s face “Gah! I can’t believe I asked that. I don’t live here anymore, but when I did, I hated it when people assumed I knew everybody in town just because it was small. I mean, almost, Maine is just like other towns. It’s even worse when they asked if we had” she produced air quotes from her pockets, shivering from her naked hands touching freezing snowflakes “‘Plumbing way up there’. ‘Cause, you know, people in small towns don’t really know each other  any better than in big towns, you know that?” The man gave a small nod. “I mean, you know who you know, and you don’t know who you don’t know, just like anywhere else”

The man turned around to go back in, but she stopped him, eager for conversation. “I’m... I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I was just so sure... When his parents passed away, he kept the house, at least, that was what I heard. He lived here. He stayed here. He was one of the ones that stayed.” She looked behind herself, toward the town center where Sandrine and all of her friends would probably be having their bachelorette party, with some beers and laughter. Maybe she could join them.

The man piped up finally. “Most people do,” he said solemnly, with some sort of memories lingering at his throat.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, drawing it out. “And I guess he did too. I never thought he would. I guess I lost track... You gotta hold onto people or you lose ‘em. Wish there was something you could keep ‘em in for when you need ‘em”

After an uncomfortable silence, she reached into her purse. “Oh look!” she said with a short lived laugh. “There he is!”

Her fingers rested on a small photograph, but she ignored the familiar scrape. No. He wasn’t here.

The man turned to go back inside, but Hope stopped him, desperate. “Boy... It’s cold. I forgot”

“Yeah.”

She started to back up, slowly breaking off. “I just can’t even believe it... I took a taxi, all the way from Bangor.”

The man stared at her in disbelief, or maybe even admiration. “That’s far.”

“Yeah.”

He whistled. “That’s a hundred sixty-three miles”

“Yeah. This place is a little farther away from things than I remembered.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Go back,” the man said, suddenly seeming interested.

“Oh. Because I needed to answer his question. The last question he asked me.”

The man motioned for her to go on, looking happy, yet almost sentimental. His eyes were alight with curiosity.

“The last time I saw him, he asked me a very important question,” Hope struggled to get it out. “And I didn’t answer him, and well... that just not a very nice thing to do to a person.”

“Well,” the man said, his voice filled with reverence. “That’s being a little hard on yourself, isn’t it?”

She began talking in a fast rush directly when he finished. “He asked me to marry him.”

“Oh,” the man looked down at his socks, white and red. “And you...”

“Didn’t answer him,” Hope forced it out. “No. That’s’ why I’m here. I want to answer him.”

The man smiled, and Hope felt herself feel better. “I mean, I didn’t answer him in the first place because I didn’t really, you know... have an answer at the time.” She looked at the man, laughing, yet feeling incredibly guilty about the whole mess. “I mean, I was going to college.” She heightened the word with an uncomfortable laugh “and then, the night before I’m about to go off into the world and do what I hope and dream, he asks me, ‘Will you marry me?’ I mean, come on! I was leaving in the morning... what was I supposed to do?”

The man looked at her hesitantly and responded blandly and apathetically. “I don’t know.”

“I mean, I told him I’d have to think about it, that I’d think it about that night, and that I’d be back before the sun came up with an answer.” Hope took a deep breath in. “And then I left. Left him standing... right there. And I didn’t make it back with an answer before the sun came up... Or at all.”

The man looked down at his feet, planted deep above the snow, set directly on the grey planked porch, where the man had been long before. “That sounds like an answer to me.”

“No!” Hope yelled, suddenly territorial, “That wasn’t my answer! I just... went off into the world, and that’s not an answer, and I think...”

The man interrupted her short pause, “What?”

She looked him directly in the eyes, hurt. “I think he thought I was gonna say ‘yes.’”

The man gave a simple laugh. “Well, a guy’s probably not gonna aska girl that question unless he thinks she’s gonna say, ‘yes’.”

“I know, and I’m afraid he probably waited up all night, hoping for me to come by, and I just want to tell him that I know now that you just can’t do a thing like that to a person. Especially to someone you love.”

This stopped the man’s easy pace. “You... loved him?”

“Well, I don’t know if.” She breathed in again, exasperated. “I mean, we were kids.” After a while, Hope realized what was still true. “Yes. I did. I do.”

The man smiled warmly at her, and she continued, eased by his face. “I feel like I dashed his hopes and dreams”

This took the man on a different turn. “Oh come on. You give yourself too much credit. He was young. That’s all you need to get your hopes dashed. Be young, and everyone starts out young... so everybody gets their hopes dashed, and besides....” He took a pause, starting to make his argument more severe, yet not wanting to break the woman’s fragile heart.  “I don’t think you really dashed his hopes. Because if you dash somebody’s hopes, well that’s...” He struggled to find a phrase that wouldn’t crush her, “Well, that’s kind of a nice way to let them down, ‘cause it hurts, but it’s quick. If you’d have said ‘No’ that would’ve been dashing his hopes.” He looked at her face, and decided to take this in a new direction. She needed to know directly how that man had felt. “But you didn’t say ‘No’. You said nothing. You just didn’t answer him. At all. And that’s... that’s killin’ hope the long, slow, painful way, ‘cause it’s still there just hangin’ on, never really going away. And that’s... it’s kinda like givin’ somebody a little less air to breathe.”

“...”

“Till they die.”

“Well.” Hope huffed and started to gather her things. After a long, uncomfortable pause, her eyes met the man’s. “Yeah... Thank you.”

The man’s words were blunt, breaking her heart. “For what?”

“...” Hope was at a loss for words. “I don’t even know.”

Hope brushed away her tears. She couldn’t cry in front of a stranger. That would have been the worst thing to do. No. She had to just not feel. She barely even cared where Danny was at that moment. He could have died. from what the man said, that had made sense to her. There was no point in staying in this town anymore. She put her purse high up on her shoulder again and decided to walk back to the moose paddy. Maybe she could get a couple of beers, live at Ma Dudley’s for a while. It was always a place to get your feet on the ground; right now, Hope didn’t know where he was.

“Goodbye,” the man said, a solemn heartbeat ripping at the words. “Hope.”

“Goodbye,” she called over her shoulder, the snow snuffling their words. “Agh! I’m so sorry to have bothered you... it’s just, I was all alone out there in the world, with no place in it, and I realized what I’d done to him, to Danny, and that was my place in the world.”

She trudged up the snow, before realizing something. “Wait...” Hope walked back down the frostbitten hill. “You called me Hope. How did you know my name?”

The man removed his glasses slowly, doubling the effect. “Danny!?!” Hope cried out, her voice filled with glee.

“Hello...” he said calmly as she hugged his small form, “Hope.”

“Danny, I didn’t rec-”

“I know.”

“I didn’t even-”

“I know!”

“You’re so...”

Daniel Harding gave out an exasperated breath. “I know.”

“...Small.”

He looked her directly in her eyes. “Yeah... Uh... I kind of lost a lot of hope, when you left” He caught her looking at his body again. “That’ll do a number on ya.”

They both stared at each other, unknowing of where they stood.

“Danny, I’m so sorry, I never-”

Daniel finally embraced his love. “Shh. It’s okay. Cause you know something?’ She peered up at him with wondering eyes. “You’re early.”

“What?”

“You’re early!” he said, brightening the mood. “You said you’d be back with an answer before the sun came up and, Jeezum crow!” He looked over the dark landscape “The sun’s not even close to being up yet! It only went down a few hours ago. Look how early you are!” They separated, and he held her hands, looking down to show his true love. “That’s good of you.”

They both stood for a little bit, enjoying his speech. “So” Danny said breaking the silence. “A taxi all the way from Bangor?”

“Yup,” Hope said, excited and proud. 

“To tell me...”

Suddenly, an ear-piercing shriek broke the air. “Danny? Hon? Who’s there?”

They both stared at each other, devastated. “Just...” Daniel started to say “Somebody needs directions.”

“It’s awful late for directions,” Suzette, Daniel Harding’s wife, inquisited.

“Yeah...” Danny choked out his words. “Suzette, listen.” He looked one time at Hope. “I’ll be right in.”

“Okay...” Suzette’s presence left the deck, and Danny went right back to looking at his love.

“I-”

“What?”

“I hope you find it, Hope. Your place in this world.” They caught each other’s gaze for what could have been the last time in their lives. “Bye.”

“Goodbye,” Hope said to the slammed door. She walked away, brazen with tears. She finally answered him when she got to the top. “Yes” and then deeper, into herself. 

“Yes”

The aurora flew over her love, and she set off, ready

To spread Hope

Onto others, ready to

Help others find what they truly needed.

Those green streaks in the sky had never heard a more beautiful vendetta.