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Barbara's Scripts Grace Wolansky, is being pressed lifeless by a small South Texas community, an uncompromising Catholic religion, and a dreary marriage with Floyd. That is until salvation breezes into town in the form of Ceil Dollard, a wealthy, business woman from Los Angeles. In 1939, Los Angeles was about as exotic to Grace as you could get. Ceil is liberated, gutsy, and fun; in short, everything Grace wants to be. Even though Ceil hates this town that holds only bad memories, she returns to care for her equally hated mother, now incapacitated with a stroke. Grace assists Ceil with her mother, and a friendship soon develops between this unlikely pair. Ceil helps Grace rediscover her incredible artistic talent. She buys paints, easels, art books, and encourages Grace’s every brush stroke. She becomes Grace’s mentor, and unbeknownst to Grace, falls deeply in love with her. When Grace realizes this, she tries to reject Ceil but is compelled by feelings she doesn’t understand to accept her love. With Ceil, she experiences affection and passion that she has never known. However, Grace’s religious conditioning soon begins to erode her happiness. Plus her son, Sonny, is leaving the church to marry a divorcee with a son, and her daughter, Regina, trapped in an abusive marriage with a Ku Klux Klan member, is talking about having an abortion. The unnatural love affair, the non-Catholic marriage, and a possible abortion plunge Grace into the dark night of the soul and a complete breakdown. Ceil and Regina, along with the help of Mayphelia, a black woman who was the only real mother Ceil ever had, nurse Grace back to health. Grace emerges from this illness more independent and talented than ever. As her art begins to sell, she begins making her own money for the first time in her life. But after a while, she realizes that she’s also responsible for the shortcomings in the relationship with Floyd. She still cares for him and realizes that an alternative life-style is not for her. Ceil senses this and decides to go back to LA. Her mother has died, the Klan has killed Mayphelia, blaming her for the death of Regina’s baby, and Grace, her lover, has gone back to her husband; nothing is holding her to this town she despises. Tearfully, Grace bids her farewell, knowing that this woman was the most instrumental in effecting her spiritual birth.
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