SYNOPSIS:

Robin Kelsey has been pastor of the only church in the small town of Grace for probably too many years - depending on who you asked. He fathers his five daughters - ages 11 to17. They live on what was once a horse lovers “dream” of a ranch that Anne Kelsey, their deceased mother and wife, inherited from her parents when they were killed two weeks after her and Robin married. A live-in Scottish house keeper and nanny named Tess, selfishly devotes her to the family knowing that she’ll have her reward – “in the sweet by and by”. Our story opens with a Country Gospel Jamboree to both give the town a much needed boost to its self esteem and to raise funds to help the Kelsey girls buy clothes for the new school year. Needless to say Pastor Robin’s salary barely covered the family’s essentials. The girls sing their hearts out but the Jamboree proves just how “bound” and cheap the town is when they raise barely enough for a decent pair of jeans. Back home, Brooklyn, the middle daughter, convinces her father that the solution to the family’s financial woes would be to bring in horses to board in their stables - the same stables that have been shackled and locked up since the death of Anne Kelsey. Despite Robin’s really bad feelings about this decision he reluctantly agrees to allow this. While cleaning and preparing the stables, Sarah, the oldest daughter, finds a locked wooden box that most likely held some old horse tack. Alone, she realizes that she will have to break the lock to see what the box contains. She fidgets with a necklace given to her by her mother that she always wore. She notices a tiny key that dangled alongside a crucifix that she had long since taken for granted – a key that would open the box and start a chain of events that would forever alter the destiny of the Kelsey family and the entire town of Grace! Sarah opens the box Sarah delights in finding her mother’s equestrian ribbons, trophies and pictures. Digging further she five diaries dedicated to each the five daughters. Sarah begins to experience her mother again and decides to include her sister’s Chris and Brook. She leaves out the two youngest sisters to protect them from the fact that their diaries contained considerably fewer entries because of the timing of Anne’s death. As a constant snoop “and pain” to her sisters, Ally, the youngest daughter finds Sarah’s diary and demands to see hers. The two argue and Robin steps in and finds out about the diaries. He orders Sarah to surrender them until the age Anne would have given them to the girls in the first place - when they turned 18. Sarah is crushed by this action by her father and she starts to wonder who this man of God really is. By now the family has horses to care for and they end up housing a handsome young horse trainer named Toby who is “forced” to stays at the ranch until he can get his pathetic old truck back up and running. Nearly all the Kelsey girls develop crushes for this cowboy. Sarah heads out to the stables to gather all five diaries to give to Robin. In tears of frustration she empties the entire contents of the Anne’s box onto the floor but the there still seems to be a rattle of something hidden somewhere inside the container. After careful examination Sarah discovers a false bottom which hid two more diaries only these ones belonged to Anne Kelsey herself – one pre marriage and one post marriage to Robin Kelsey. The three oldest girls begin to share Anne’s life and her words reveal a very different Anne Kelsey then what the girls had been told about her. Robin had brought the girls up with the belief that their mother had been taken from them as a judgement of God. He even went so far as to destroy all pictures and evidence that she was ever part of the Kelsey family. One afternoon Sarah takes the time to completely finish reading the entire diary of Anne’s marriage to Robin including the final page of the diary which told Sarah the shocking, even devastating, truth about her mother. Now she is torn because she knows has no choice but to confront her father but without revealing where she got her information. During a very intense exchange Robin's pride gets the best of him and he ends up slapping Sarah hard across the face. He has never ever laid a hand on any his girls… At this point our story begins a roller coaster ride from the pits of hell itself. Sarah knows Toby has more than a “thing” for her and she convinces him to run away with her to punish Robin - however -there is a serious accident and it is confirmed that Toby’s truck skidded off a nasty icy bend on Omar road and smashed through the ice on Canyon Lake! This was the exact way that Anne Kelsey had died along with her close personal trainer. Due to the danger involved it would be spring time before the truck and two bodies could be retrieved. Ever since marrying this beautiful woman named Anne Marie Keller, Robin could never shake his own feelings of being unworthy of her love. Anne had a passion for life, her family, for God, her horses and for a trainer, Colin Pearson. Robin was jealous of it all - a jealousy that ate at his very being. As the news of the accident permeates the town Robin is finally a truly broken man... He begins to face the truth about himself and in doing so discovers nothing but lies, bitterness, and a non existent relationship to a God he thought he knew so well. At Sarah and Toby’s memorial service Robin's heart is torn apart as he watches his now “four” daughters show more grace than he has ever shown to anyone. The next Sunday Robin knows it is time to resign as pastor and he pours out his heart to his people. He openly forgives Anne for what he feels may have been a misjudgement of some kind. One very hardened deacon named Gladys Cooper calls Robin out on his sudden spiritual epiphany. She charges that the evidence was 100 percent conclusive of the guilt of Anne Kelsey because her suitcase had exploded down the canyon wall revealing all of her best clothes. “ And, like mother, like daughter” both have caused this church nothing but grief! As Gladys petitions anyone, anyone at all, to step up and prove her wrong Sarah and Toby walk into the church and Sarah takes up this challenge. Sarah Kelsey humbly apologizes to everyone and begs their indulgence as she reads from the last page of Anne’s diary… "Dear Diary, in order to save my marriage to my beloved Robin I am giving up my horse training. As of this day I will devote my life to God, my husband, and my daughters. Colin has accepted a position to train horses and future Olympians at a stable near his only sister, who is not well and needs help in beating breast cancer. To cheer her up I am sending Colin home with a suitcase full of some of my favourite things to wear. While Robin is at church I am going to brave the icy roads and drive Colin to the...airport." The church is brought to its knees as Anne's words proved that for the last ten years they all had misjudged her and in doing so brought judgement upon them and the entire town of Grace. In the end lives are restored and the healing finally begins… © Dan Bagan 2012

KELSEY'S GIRLS