The notes given tome by Korsair1 helped make this a lot better --
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When Dair takes out the garbage, he sees the red fox pounce on a mouse and carry it off...then notices paint the same color as Nelda’s truck is scraped on a tree. He confronts Bobby by Samuels’ church. Bobby denies trying to burn Dair out and snarls he’s sorry Dair wasn’t killed with Adam. Dair jumps him. The fight is vicious and Dair has to be dragged off Bobby by Samuels and others. The sheriff arrests Dair for assault.
Dair is arraigned on Christmas Eve, with Wallace there to fight the ludicrous charges. The paint on the tree by Dair’s house is from Nelda’s truck and there is a history of animosity between Dair and Bobby, but trial is still set for after the first of the year. Wallace feigns anger but is secretly pleased he can use the situation to show how gay men and straight men are treated differently by the legal system. As Marion drives Dair home, he remembers driving with her and Adam and how alive they all once were.
Samuels informs Dair he’s been asked to retire because of the fight. Easter will be his last service. Dair is sorry but is still going through with the ceremony, the next day, to Jacob’s surprise. They argue and Dair lets slip one reason he’s marrying Wallace it to prevent a repeat of what happened with Adam’s parents. Jacob is disgusted by that.
On the wedding day, the lodge is ready. Guests have arrived. Food is being served. Samuels is there but has refused to talk to a couple of men who asked if he would officiate at their wedding. Jacob is pissed. Just before sunset, Wallace shows up with news crews and a couple of State Senators in tow. He’s making this into an event from which to launch his campaign for the legislature.
Unsettled, Dair goes upstairs to finish dressing, but sees a photo of Adam and remembers dressing him for one of Marion’s weddings...and sinks onto the bed.
Wallace waits...and waits...then goes up to Dair’s room to find he has not moved. He sees the photo and snarls that Dair has idolized a thieving ski bum into sainthood. Dair says he can’t be what Wallace needs, nor can Wallace be the right support for him. Wallace asks if Dair and Jacob slept together, to Dair’s indignant shock. He would never do that to someone. Wallace coldly goes down to dismiss the guests.
Marion comes upstairs to tell Dair the guests have gone to her lodge. Jacob and Setsuko are joining them. Then Setsuko comes in to thank Dair for a piece of his artwork he gave her. He tells her how Adam talked him into exhibiting at an art fair, making interest in his work explode. While en route home, Dair asked him to move in with him. He also says he once caught Adam stealing money from him. Other people have told him Adam was no angel, and he asks Setsuko what she thinks. She replies she has never cared what people think; it requires too much from you. Then she leaves.
The trial divides the community, with most people on Dair’s side, till it ends in a hung jury. The DA promises to re-file the charges, but Wallace says that will never happen. As she drives Dair home, Marion tells him his art became beautiful when he met Adam...but Adam is dead, and she fears Dair has given up on both art and life.
It’s snowing. Dair sits outside, unmoving...until the fox reappears. With it is another fox. Snow drifts down on them...and they shake it off. And leave. Dair smiles and returns to his studio, still lost in memories of Adam and the recent events. But there is a calmness to him, now. He begins work on the window his grandfather asked for, and in a gentle montage the project engulfs him as Adam joins him and helps him work and makes him eat and sleep and snuggles with him...and bit by bit he builds a magnificent window showing Christ in a meadow, draped in blues and whites, his arms spread wide above an open Bible whose pages read Matthew 25:31-45.
He sets the finished window into the church in time for Easter. Samuels invites him to sunrise services to start the healing process, but Dair is non-committal; he has never been part of that church. But he does not move until Adam whispers up behind him and holds him to murmur how proud he is of what Dair has done, and how he will always be with him, his face now finally in full view. Dair walks then runs away from the church, signs his house over to Marion to sell and catches a flight to Tokyo.
Cutting back and forth, the church’s pompous Easter services begin just as Dair locates Jacob and Setsuko, in Tokyo. Then as the sun rises over the Cascade Mountains and its light shines through the stained glass window, Dair apologizes to Jacob with a sketch of him that he drew from memory...and the image of Christ in the window does a hologram-like shift to that of Adam...and Samuels and half the congregation are shocked when they see the bible also shift to show Jacob and Dair as they kiss.
And that is when, as Setsuko holds Jacob’s child and watches, they finally do.
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Adair Llewellyn is a stained-glass artist trying to rebuild his life after the death of his lover and years of legal action by the man’s parents.
Adair Llewellyn -- 33, attractive, stained glass artist, sensitive but stubborn about defending himself from bullies and injustice.
Wallace Caruthers -- 38, a lawyer, photogenic, driven, ambitious, passionate about civil rights for all. Defended Dair in the lawsuit.
Jacob Messner -- 27, computer geek, lives and works in Tokyo, Wallace’s Best Man. Has no filter. Can be myopic, but also cuts to the heart of things,.
Setsuko Messner -- 26, pregnant, loves Jacob as he is, writes slash fiction as La Baguette. Speaks Japanese, English, and French. Sees the world for what it is.
Marion Llewellyn -- 55, determinedly beautiful, smart tongue, supremely self-confident, aware of everything. Owns a ski lodge in town.
Adam Ferrier -- 26, ski instructor, French Canadian. Disowned by his family for being gay. Pushed Dair into sharing his art with the world. Died in an avalanche.
Reverend Samuels -- 80, frail, an Episcopal minister. Walked with MLK for civil rights but does not agree with same-sex marriage. Willing to stay quiet because of Dair.
Act One: After 5 years of fighting vicious lawsuits by his dead lover’s parents, Dair returns home to prepare for his Christmas wedding to Wallace, and meets Jacob and Setsuko.
Act Two: Dair faces an arson attack and pushback from family and the community over the wedding. A fight over the attack lands him in jail, setting the whole town on edge.
Act Three: On the wedding day, Dair realizes he has not allowed himself time to grieve. So he cancels it. Instead, he creates a stained glass window for his grandfather’s church.
It’s a cold winter morning in Fairview, Washington. ADAM sings DAIR awake, wanting to fool around, but Dair prefers to snuggle so Adam gets up to make them coffee. Half asleep, Dair hears glass break so goes to check. He wanders into his stained glass studio to find dust sheets over everything, and Adam is outside, naked, calling to him as it snows and --
Dair jolts out of his daydream at the sound of his name. It’s five years later and he looks every minute of it. He stands in his studio. Dust sheets cover everything, including the frame and diagram for an arched stained-glass window. In his hands, he cradles a stained glass portrait of Adam. Memories of the man haunt him.
MARION barges in to tell him, in her usual snark, that REVEREND SAMUELS arrived then leads him back into a living room draped in dust sheets. WALLACE is having a tight discussion with Samuels about encoding same-sex marriage into national law to make the Supreme Court’s ruling binding. Samuels is opposed, as is his assistant, NELDA. Marion mocks their opposition by pointing out inconsistencies in their beliefs, but Dair calms everyone. They discuss plans for the wedding, set for Christmas Day at five minutes to sunset, per Wallace’s request. Samuels has agreed to say a few words though he won’t officiate. Dair doesn’t care; what matters is family.
While having with Wallace lunch in a diner, Dair is greeted by friends...and glared at by a few townsfolk. We learn he almost lost his Fairview home and had to live in Seattle until the legal issues ended. More memories of Adam crash over him as Wallace raises the possibility of running for office. Dair half-jokingly says that would be grounds for divorce. He also agrees to collect Wallace’s best man from the airport, the next day.
As Dair and Marion clean the house, Wallace calls to tell him JACOB and his wife SETSUKO have arrived; Jacob mixed up his days. Wallace is in meetings, so Dair rushes down to take them to his Seattle studio to freshen up, where he finds Jacob has an off-beat way of viewing his art. They meet Wallace for dinner, where Jacob needles Wallace while Setsuko keeps him in check. Dair learns Wallace and Jacob were lovers in Tokyo and Setsuko was fine with it, but he is not happy. Wallace insists it was only temporary...but his actions and attitude suggest otherwise.
En route to Fairview, Setsuko tells Dair that, as a slash fiction author, she has her own view the world. During a stop at a store, Dair runs into Nelda’s husband, BOBBY, who sneers homophobic remarks at him. Dair snipes back. Then when he’s leaving, he sees Bobby throw a bottle of beer at Jacob as he and Nelda drive away in their truck. Dair calls the sheriff but expects nothing will be done.
At home, Marion greets the trio with fresh beds and airy comments then leaves. Jacob and Setsuko see Dair’s more personal art, including Adam’s portrait. Jacob notices that changing the light makes Adam’s expression change, like a hologram. Inspired, he updates Dair’s website as a wedding present, using the portrait as the centerpiece. It’s beautiful, once it’s done, but it triggers Dair’s memories of Adam, which are made worse when Jacob sets one of Adam’s CDs to playing and draws Setsuko into a dance.
Dair remembers the support he got from Adam...the joy they shared...how Adam kept him centered, even in the face of homophobia from Bobby and others...but the memories grow darker and more intense until he envisions Adam being caught in an avalanche and vanishing into darkness...and then watching Adam’s body being taken away by his hateful parents, who refused to even let Dair say goodbye.
Dair bolts for his studio, memories of Adam crushing him with one additional horror -- he used to be able to sketch Adam from memory, but he can no longer see his face. He tries to sketch the man...but each piece is wrong...wrong...wrong. He shreds the sketches and takes them outside to burn in the snow. In his distress, he forgot he was barefoot and there are slivers of glass strewn across the floor from previous work he’s done...and they have cut his feet, trailing blood over the snow.
Jacob finds him and coaxes him back inside then removes glass chips from his soles. Dair reveals Adam’s parents sued him for community property, even though the two were not married. He spent five years fighting them, thanks to a homophobic judge who favored the parents, until Wallace took over, got the judge removed, and had the suit tossed out. During this, they grew close.
Jacob gets Dair to bed and snuggles with him, like Adam used to. Dair drifts to sleep. Setsuko finds them and sings Jacob to sleep with a Japanese children’s song.
They wake to find Dair’s studio ablaze. A lot of the artwork is destroyed, including Adam’s portrait, and looks like arson. As the firemen finish up, Dair wanders into the woods, dazed, and sees a young red fox skipping away. He turns to find homophobic remarks painted on the side of his house. The sheriff balks at calling it a hate crime, but Jacob and Marion sneer at his attitude.
Samuels asks Dair to move his wedding to Seattle, but Dair refuses to be driven off. When Samuels is chauffeured away by Nelda, Dair notices her truck is slightly damaged.
Jacob thinks Dair and Wallace are mismatched and counsels against the wedding. Dair, in turn, disparages Jacob’s openness to both sexes as indecisive. Jacob snaps those are Wallace’s words, so maybe they are right for each other.
While Jacob and Dair silently put up Christmas decorations, Marion asks Setsuko why she puts up with Jacob. Her response is simple -- when you love someone, you accept them for who they are, and she thinks Dair will hurt Jacob because he cannot.
Wallace Caruthers -- 38, a lawyer, photogenic, driven, ambitious, passionate about civil rights for all. Defended Dair in the lawsuit.
Jacob Messner -- 27, computer geek, lives and works in Tokyo, Wallace’s Best Man. Has no filter. Can be myopic, but also cuts to the heart of things,.
Setsuko Messner -- 26, pregnant, loves Jacob as he is, writes slash fiction as La Baguette. Speaks Japanese, English, and French. Sees the world for what it is.
Marion Llewellyn -- 55, determinedly beautiful, smart tongue, supremely self-confident, aware of everything. Owns a ski lodge in town.
Adam Ferrier -- 26, ski instructor, French Canadian. Disowned by his family for being gay. Pushed Dair into sharing his art with the world. Died in an avalanche.
Reverend Samuels -- 80, frail, an Episcopal minister. Walked with MLK for civil rights but does not agree with same-sex marriage. Willing to stay quiet because of Dair.
Act One: After 5 years of fighting vicious lawsuits by his dead lover’s parents, Dair returns home to prepare for his Christmas wedding to Wallace, and meets Jacob and Setsuko.
Act Two: Dair faces an arson attack and pushback from family and the community over the wedding. A fight over the attack lands him in jail, setting the whole town on edge.
Act Three: On the wedding day, Dair realizes he has not allowed himself time to grieve. So he cancels it. Instead, he creates a stained glass window for his grandfather’s church.
It’s a cold winter morning in Fairview, Washington. ADAM sings DAIR awake, wanting to fool around, but Dair prefers to snuggle so Adam gets up to make them coffee. Half asleep, Dair hears glass break so goes to check. He wanders into his stained glass studio to find dust sheets over everything, and Adam is outside, naked, calling to him as it snows and --
Dair jolts out of his daydream at the sound of his name. It’s five years later and he looks every minute of it. He stands in his studio. Dust sheets cover everything, including the frame and diagram for an arched stained-glass window. In his hands, he cradles a stained glass portrait of Adam. Memories of the man haunt him.
MARION barges in to tell him, in her usual snark, that REVEREND SAMUELS arrived then leads him back into a living room draped in dust sheets. WALLACE is having a tight discussion with Samuels about encoding same-sex marriage into national law to make the Supreme Court’s ruling binding. Samuels is opposed, as is his assistant, NELDA. Marion mocks their opposition by pointing out inconsistencies in their beliefs, but Dair calms everyone. They discuss plans for the wedding, set for Christmas Day at five minutes to sunset, per Wallace’s request. Samuels has agreed to say a few words though he won’t officiate. Dair doesn’t care; what matters is family.
While having with Wallace lunch in a diner, Dair is greeted by friends...and glared at by a few townsfolk. We learn he almost lost his Fairview home and had to live in Seattle until the legal issues ended. More memories of Adam crash over him as Wallace raises the possibility of running for office. Dair half-jokingly says that would be grounds for divorce. He also agrees to collect Wallace’s best man from the airport, the next day.
As Dair and Marion clean the house, Wallace calls to tell him JACOB and his wife SETSUKO have arrived; Jacob mixed up his days. Wallace is in meetings, so Dair rushes down to take them to his Seattle studio to freshen up, where he finds Jacob has an off-beat way of viewing his art. They meet Wallace for dinner, where Jacob needles Wallace while Setsuko keeps him in check. Dair learns Wallace and Jacob were lovers in Tokyo and Setsuko was fine with it, but he is not happy. Wallace insists it was only temporary...but his actions and attitude suggest otherwise.
En route to Fairview, Setsuko tells Dair that, as a slash fiction author, she has her own view the world. During a stop at a store, Dair runs into Nelda’s husband, BOBBY, who sneers homophobic remarks at him. Dair snipes back. Then when he’s leaving, he sees Bobby throw a bottle of beer at Jacob as he and Nelda drive away in their truck. Dair calls the sheriff but expects nothing will be done.
At home, Marion greets the trio with fresh beds and airy comments then leaves. Jacob and Setsuko see Dair’s more personal art, including Adam’s portrait. Jacob notices that changing the light makes Adam’s expression change, like a hologram. Inspired, he updates Dair’s website as a wedding present, using the portrait as the centerpiece. It’s beautiful, once it’s done, but it triggers Dair’s memories of Adam, which are made worse when Jacob sets one of Adam’s CDs to playing and draws Setsuko into a dance.
Dair remembers the support he got from Adam...the joy they shared...how Adam kept him centered, even in the face of homophobia from Bobby and others...but the memories grow darker and more intense until he envisions Adam being caught in an avalanche and vanishing into darkness...and then watching Adam’s body being taken away by his hateful parents, who refused to even let Dair say goodbye.
Dair bolts for his studio, memories of Adam crushing him with one additional horror -- he used to be able to sketch Adam from memory, but he can no longer see his face. He tries to sketch the man...but each piece is wrong...wrong...wrong. He shreds the sketches and takes them outside to burn in the snow. In his distress, he forgot he was barefoot and there are slivers of glass strewn across the floor from previous work he’s done...and they have cut his feet, trailing blood over the snow.
Jacob finds him and coaxes him back inside then removes glass chips from his soles. Dair reveals Adam’s parents sued him for community property, even though the two were not married. He spent five years fighting them, thanks to a homophobic judge who favored the parents, until Wallace took over, got the judge removed, and had the suit tossed out. During this, they grew close.
Jacob gets Dair to bed and snuggles with him, like Adam used to. Dair drifts to sleep. Setsuko finds them and sings Jacob to sleep with a Japanese children’s song.
They wake to find Dair’s studio ablaze. A lot of the artwork is destroyed, including Adam’s portrait, and looks like arson. As the firemen finish up, Dair wanders into the woods, dazed, and sees a young red fox skipping away. He turns to find homophobic remarks painted on the side of his house. The sheriff balks at calling it a hate crime, but Jacob and Marion sneer at his attitude.
Samuels asks Dair to move his wedding to Seattle, but Dair refuses to be driven off. When Samuels is chauffeured away by Nelda, Dair notices her truck is slightly damaged.
Jacob thinks Dair and Wallace are mismatched and counsels against the wedding. Dair, in turn, disparages Jacob’s openness to both sexes as indecisive. Jacob snaps those are Wallace’s words, so maybe they are right for each other.
While Jacob and Dair silently put up Christmas decorations, Marion asks Setsuko why she puts up with Jacob. Her response is simple -- when you love someone, you accept them for who they are, and she thinks Dair will hurt Jacob because he cannot.
When Dair takes out the garbage, he sees the red fox pounce on a mouse and carry it off...then notices paint the same color as Nelda’s truck is scraped on a tree. He confronts Bobby by Samuels’ church. Bobby denies trying to burn Dair out and snarls he’s sorry Dair wasn’t killed with Adam. Dair jumps him. The fight is vicious and Dair has to be dragged off Bobby by Samuels and others. The sheriff arrests Dair for assault.
Dair is arraigned on Christmas Eve, with Wallace there to fight the ludicrous charges. The paint on the tree by Dair’s house is from Nelda’s truck and there is a history of animosity between Dair and Bobby, but trial is still set for after the first of the year. Wallace feigns anger but is secretly pleased he can use the situation to show how gay men and straight men are treated differently by the legal system. As Marion drives Dair home, he remembers driving with her and Adam and how alive they all once were.
Samuels informs Dair he’s been asked to retire because of the fight. Easter will be his last service. Dair is sorry but is still going through with the ceremony, the next day, to Jacob’s surprise. They argue and Dair lets slip one reason he’s marrying Wallace it to prevent a repeat of what happened with Adam’s parents. Jacob is disgusted by that.
On the wedding day, the lodge is ready. Guests have arrived. Food is being served. Samuels is there but has refused to talk to a couple of men who asked if he would officiate at their wedding. Jacob is pissed. Just before sunset, Wallace shows up with news crews and a couple of State Senators in tow. He’s making this into an event from which to launch his campaign for the legislature.
Unsettled, Dair goes upstairs to finish dressing, but sees a photo of Adam and remembers dressing him for one of Marion’s weddings...and sinks onto the bed.
Wallace waits...and waits...then goes up to Dair’s room to find he has not moved. He sees the photo and snarls that Dair has idolized a thieving ski bum into sainthood. Dair says he can’t be what Wallace needs, nor can Wallace be the right support for him. Wallace asks if Dair and Jacob slept together, to Dair’s indignant shock. He would never do that to someone. Wallace coldly goes down to dismiss the guests.
Marion comes upstairs to tell Dair the guests have gone to her lodge. Jacob and Setsuko are joining them. Then Setsuko comes in to thank Dair for a piece of his artwork he gave her. He tells her how Adam talked him into exhibiting at an art fair, making interest in his work explode. While en route home, Dair asked him to move in with him. He also says he once caught Adam stealing money from him. Other people have told him Adam was no angel, and he asks Setsuko what she thinks. She replies she has never cared what people think; it requires too much from you. Then she leaves.
The trial divides the community, with most people on Dair’s side, till it ends in a hung jury. The DA promises to re-file the charges, but Wallace says that will never happen. As she drives Dair home, Marion tells him his art became beautiful when he met Adam...but Adam is dead, and she fears Dair has given up on both art and life.
It’s snowing. Dair sits outside, unmoving...until the fox reappears. With it is another fox. Snow drifts down on them...and they shake it off. And leave. Dair smiles and returns to his studio, still lost in memories of Adam and the recent events. But there is a calmness to him, now. He begins work on the window his grandfather asked for, and in a gentle montage the project engulfs him as Adam joins him and helps him work and makes him eat and sleep and snuggles with him...and bit by bit he builds a magnificent window showing Christ in a meadow, draped in blues and whites, his arms spread wide above an open Bible whose pages read Matthew 25:31-45.
He sets the finished window into the church in time for Easter. Samuels invites him to sunrise services to start the healing process, but Dair is non-committal; he has never been part of that church. But he does not move until Adam whispers up behind him and holds him to murmur how proud he is of what Dair has done, and how he will always be with him, his face now finally in full view. Dair walks then runs away from the church, signs his house over to Marion to sell and catches a flight to Tokyo.
Cutting back and forth, the church’s pompous Easter services begin just as Dair locates Jacob and Setsuko, in Tokyo. Then as the sun rises over the Cascade Mountains and its light shines through the stained glass window, Dair apologizes to Jacob with a sketch of him that he drew from memory...and the image of Christ in the window does a hologram-like shift to that of Adam...and Samuels and half the congregation are shocked when they see the bible also shift to show Jacob and Dair as they kiss.
And that is when, as Setsuko holds Jacob’s child and watches, they finally do.
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