Synopsis ...
When a middle-aged woman seeks to satisfy her own neglected needs, her tidy world turns amusingly complicated. At fifty-five years old, Nan Marino is totally content watching her grandchildren, tending her garden, taking weekly walks with her two best friends, and keeping a clean house. Oh, and talking to Martin, her dead ex-husband. She either confides in him with all her problems or rails against him for leaving her for a younger woman. Nan’s tidy life is ticking away just fine until an unexpected trip to Kauai with her friend Myra takes her out of her comfort zone and propels her into the company of Myra’s forty-one-year-old son, Jake. The attraction between them is palpable. Despite every effort to dampen her feelings, Nan cannot resist him, and her predictable world turns upside down when she tries to keep her love life to herself. Confiding in Martin is not just a romantic comedy. It is also a story about a woman who, as a result of her association with a younger man, comes to realize by taking care of everyone else’s needs over the years, she has failed to take care of her own. |
Chapter 1 (excerpt) ... “I talk to dead people. Actually, I only talk to one dead person, my ex-husband.” Sure, Martin, that’s just what I’m going to tell Myra and Joan. I can share my most intimate thoughts with my best friends, but I have not had the courage to tell them about our conversations, albeit one-sided as they are. I don’t think I could stand seeing Myra’s wrinkled forehead or Joan’s raised artificial eyebrows. As for telling the children, that’s out of the question. Sara is busy with the grandkids, and besides, if she knew I was talking to her dead father, she would have me committed, even if I am her mother. I wouldn’t put it past her. I would have to swear on a stack of Bibles that I, Nanette Louise Marino, am in my right mind. Sure, there’s Michael. I have always been close to our son. But he’s busy with his dissertation, and he has enough on his mind. It has been a year now, and I wonder how it has come to this, my talking to you. Oh, yes, I remember. Six months after you died, strange things started happening, like the lights flickering on and off for no apparent reason. I thought the house was having electrical problems, but when I smelled the faint odor of cigar smoke, that’s when I guessed it was you, and we (I) began having these little chats. And why is it I talk to you? I suppose it makes me feel as though you never left me. But for now, I will keep our conversations to myself. You know, Martin, it has taken me a long time to come to this conclusion. I hated that you ran off with another woman, but at least you had the decency to die from a heart attack in her arms and not mine. |