The Comet Night

The Comet Night (a play in two acts)

“Will they ever know the truth about the Comet Night?

That night that shattered their lives.”

John Sagamore was a devout Christian, a successful attorney, and lived with his family in an old Victorian home on several acres in the country - a very lonely estate. He had a wife and four children and they were very happy. When the oldest, a boy, was about 14, John’s wife died and he was left to raise the kids on his own. Although being single parent with a demanding job was difficult, he always treated his family with love and respect. Until the night the comet illuminated the dark, starry sky. The oldest son was 17 then, and John came within a couple blows of beating his son to death. Battered and angry, the 17-year old boy leaves the next morning, never to return. The other kids, a girl 15, a boy 13, and a girl 10, have no idea what’s happened. But they roll out of bed to plunge into the worst kind of uncertain future.

They, of course, want to know why it happened, but neither their father nor their old brother will tell them. Now alone with a father who might explode the same way at them, the three kids settle into the terrifying life of wondering if, or when, it will happen to them. As it turns out, it never does, but each escapes from the house and their father at the soonest possible moment. But even so, the emotionally scars run deep. As the curtain rises, their father has died and they’re gathering at the house to read the will. If the older brother shows, they may finally get their questions answered. But will He? And if he does will he tell them what happened that comet night so many years before? And if he does tell them, will it be the truth?

Will they ever know what happened that night, that night the comet illuminated the heavens; that night that shattered their lives?