William Vietinghoff

Long Conversations, Old Regrets William Vietinghoff

A successful, semi-retired executive, Steven Ribman, with a wonderful wife, Evelyn, and a grown son, Robert, wakes up to the realization one morning that he is getting on in years. He worries he might develop a heart condition similar to one that killed his father. He is troubled that there is no record of the life he has lived. Looking through an old family photo album sent by his sister after his father's death years ago, he is painfully reminded that he never gave his father, Arthur, opportunities to tell about his life. Similarly, he has never been asked by Robert to relate his memories. Steven decides to write a novel that will tell the world and Robert who he was. But he has no ideas how to structure a novel. In a dream, a woman, Bernice Batelle, appears who says she overheard him. She convinces him she has a plan for his book. In each chapter they will meet and share memories. She returns in subsequent dreams and he finds himself attracted to her. One day he comes across evidence that a woman, like the one in his dreams, may actually exist. He goes on a search to determine whether he invented her or she found him.