Anna's Vestige

By Stephen Michael Natale

Kendra Cartwright longed to find a new center for her life without falling into the pit of self-destruction. She was twenty-six and totally lost.

Everything Kendra loved and dreamed was taken from her...all a result of harsh fates not of her seeding. She held tightly to one small glimmer of optimism, a hope sustained by a reoccurring dream. In the dream a little girl played on a beach offering Kendra a warm loving gaze, a child's smile assuring her, this loneliness could one day end.

Robert Weinstein and his wife fled California in the wake of crushing bereavement. In Florida they hope to conquer grief and perhaps rekindle their romance obscured by decades of marital duty and mistakes. A chance meeting with a troubled, but extremely talented young woman alters their aspirations in ways they could never have foreseen. An intimate link Robert and this young lady share unveils a revelation shifting the very underpinnings of their Florida retreat. Within their shared secret, a gift of miraculous joy is found hidden within tragedy.

If you reveled in Anna and Jed’s reverie, Visit Kendra’s life in Anna’s Vestige the reader requested sequel to The Reverie of Jedadiah. If you haven't, download them as a set for the perfect weekend pairing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Michael Natale
• Release date: Jul 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310555985

Stephen Michael Natale

Stephen Michael Natale is a semi-retired Construction Manager, now pursuing the Muses as an Author. He is avid Bass fisherman and outdoorsman enjoying what he terms the ‘beer commercial’ lifestyle of Florida. Born and raised in the upscale suburbs of Philadelphia, Stephen moved to Florida just out of high school and began working in the trades. He acquired skilled hands and an enviable work ethic that drove his career into the boardrooms of some of Florida’s most influential developers. After publishing freelance works in print and on the internet in 2009, he decided to transform his career from building to writing, publishing his first novel in 2011. Since, he has published three additional books in multiple genres and is still writing.

Book preview

Anna’s Vestige

A Novella Romantica

By

Stephen Michael Natale

SMASHWORDS EDITION: Edition #1

Published By S. M. NATALE

ISBN- 9781310555985

Copyright 2014 by S. M. Natale – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Smashwords Licensing Agreement:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people or their devices. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a book is work of fiction. Names, Places, Characters, Incidents or Events, real or otherwise are purely a product of the author’s imagination and/or employed fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locations, businesses, entities or persons living or dead, in current or past existence, is purely incidental and/or fictitiously utilized.

As with the Reverie of Jedadiah, music is an important part of Anna’s Vestige as it is within many of our lives and loves. Music can touch our hearts, move our emotions and even open our eyes to their wonders. But only by hearing it, can it work its magic and be felt. The entire collection of music within Anna’s Vestige can be discovered and enjoyed as you read the story by following this Link to the Author’s webpages. It is our hope you enjoy the story and the music provided deepens its meaning. Please support the Artists, Songwriters and Producers of these marvelous works.

ANNA’S VESTIGE

By

Stephen Michael Natale

A Novella Dedicated To Those Readers That

Cared about Kendra

&

Requested Her Story.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

When you're fast asleep

In dreams you will lose your heartaches

Whatever you wish for you keep

From the Walt Disney film Cinderella (1950)

Lyrics & Music Written by Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston

Vestige ~ a mark, trace, or visible evidence of something that is no longer present or in existence.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift, uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

An angel in the Book of Life wrote down my baby's birth.

And whispered as she closed the book, Too beautiful for earth.

Author unknown

Cassandra how long have you been waiting for us? Anna asked.

Since Mommy’s tears made the lake.

Cassandra is your Mommy going to be alright?

Yes Grandpa, Anna gave Mommy her other dream.

The Reverie of Jedadiah

AFTERMATH

‘Whom the gods love, dies young.’

Menander of Athens

Robert Weinstein waved a curt goodbye to his receptionist as he was exiting his Los Angles offices. Pushing open the heavy polished mahogany door, the effort was insubstantial compared to the weight of mourning he felt. He just completed his solemn responsibility as the executor of Anna Holloway’s estate and his sadness was at a depth never experienced.

Anna was Hollywood’s brightness and arguably most beautiful star, tragically taken at the tender age of twenty-nine. She’d collapsed while on set and complications from the ensuing emergency surgery to stem an internal hemorrhage caused Anna to fall into a coma. She never woke up.

Anna was not only Weinstein’s best client she was also cherished as the daughter he’d never had. He and his wife watched over her from the time she was eleven, perhaps even more protectively than their own sons. Dutifully accepting the responsibility of his best friend’s daughter as Godparents; an oath sworn when her father passed, and honored as Anna blossomed from gifted child to the incomparable woman she became. Their grief for Anna’s loss was cavernous.

Anna’s entire estate and all her holdings were transferred to her children’s foundation. He was unanimously elected by Anna’s hand chosen board members to replace her as chairman of the foundation but he refused to accept appointment until his mind and sense of loss subsided to a manageable level. At sixty-six years old, he had been contemplating semi-retirement and allowing his sons to control one of the most influential entertainment legal firms in the nation. These new responsibilities would preclude any consideration of retirement. He also recognized there was no more fitting memorial to Anna’s life and he could not refuse, but he needed time.

As he walked across the parking lot to his car his thoughts turned to his wife of thirty three years, Cara. She’d been Anna’s second mother; the one Anna brought her troubles and feelings to, the confidant, the one who would just listen without the automatic judgment of a biological mother’s maternal prejudices. Anna was Cara’s little girl, the one a woman dreams of having, of dressing for Easter Sunday and the prom, of consoling after that first puppy love.

Cara’s surrogate motherhood was welcomed and needed when Anna’s work in local commercials in Sacramento at nine led to a possible career in Hollywood at eleven. That opportunity brought Anna into the Weinstein’s Beverly Hills home and deeper into their hearts. Cara’s proxy was happily shared with her by Anna’s mother as if they were blood sisters; in so her grief was just as real and penetrating had she given birth to Anna. Cara’s tears were a near endless stream flowing from Anna’s initial collapse, somehow she’d known her little girl was gone, and Cara was inconsolable.

The Weinsteins had to get out of Southern California for a while. Everywhere they turned Anna was there. If not her picture, larger than life on a billboard, her essence that indeed was all encompassing. They really needed to just separate themselves from the entertainment industry in general. As he was driving home contemplating where he and Cara could possibly go to deal with their anguish he thought of an old friend and client. A popular singer from the seventies, which as a result of a common love of fishing, a deep friendship developed over the years.

He picked up his cell phone and called his eldest son, Bobby you and your brother need to handle the firm for a while.

What’s up Pop?

Your Mom and I need to get away.

Anna?

Weinstein’s voice broke when he started to speak and after a moment managing only a weak and choked, Yeah.

I understand Pop, we all loved her. We’ll take care of everything. Where are you gonna go?

Florida I think, maybe do a little fishing.

*****

Kendra Cartwright was desperately trying to find her car keys…and a new center for her life. She was twenty-six and totally lost. Everything she loved and dreamed was gone. Her last loss….her father, just weeks ago and perhaps this was the most devastating. Her father was always there for her. Her shield against the world, even when his own life betrayed him, he was her protector. Now in the cruelest turn of all, a massive stroke stole him from her without warning and thirty years before she was ready.

All of her life she’d been a princess, graced with beauty, ability, and middle class advantage. She could have been anything, but at nineteen she chose to be a bride and at twenty-one a mother. Now with the events of the past five years, she was heartbroken and alone, all a result of harsh fates not of her seeding.

Searching her small rented cottage she was running late for a Monday morning appointment to settle her father’s affairs and hoping the remains of his estate would cover the costs of his modest funeral. The economic downturn succeeding the elections of 2008 stole his career, wiped out his marriage and his retirement plans. She suspected it was the pressures caused by these occurrences that robbed him of life, and pushed her into the depths of anguish. Her inheritance that at one time might have been considered substantial, she hoped would not leave her laden with debt. But her care was not focused on the financial; it was taking the next step in life without falling into the pit of self-destruction.

She held tightly to one small glimmer of optimism and she didn’t know what it was, but promise was represented by a reoccurring dream. A dream of a little girl she’d seen in the hospital ward the night her father passed. This little golden haired girl revisited her every night, assuring her, all was not as it seemed and life was about to swerve onto unexpected path. In the dream the little girl never said a word or indicated what Kendra should do, she just offered her a warm loving smile as Kendra watched her play on a beach. Kendra had no idea of what the significance would be, just that within, there was a benevolence that would one day embrace her. And oddly, that