No Sad Songs for Me

In a small central California town, engineer Brad Scott, who operates his own burgeoning surveying company, and his wife Mary Scott have been married for ten years, they with an adolescent daughter Polly Scott. This happy family could be even happier if their belief that Mary is pregnant is true. But on Mary's visit to the family doctor and friend Dr. Ralph Frene for the test results, she not only learns that she is not only not pregnant, but that she can no longer have children. Believing there more to the situation, Mary is able to get out of him news that he was going to inform Brad: that she has a terminal case of cancer. The prognosis: she will begin to feel ill effects in about six months, and will pass away in about ten months. Beyond going through a roller coaster of emotions, she decides not to tell Brad and Polly until she necessarily has to, something she is able to convince Ralph to keep from Brad. Within that roller coaster is the deep valley of learning that the rumors that Brad is having an affair with his recently hired draftsperson Chris Radna are true. But as that six months nears and she is beginning to feel ill, Mary begins to look at life holistically in a different way, that it is not the time, but what one does with it, meaning that what is best for Brad and Polly after she is gone becomes her priority.