Before she goes out to play with the “friend” who bullied her last time, Pastor JACK pulls 12-year old YOUNG DAISY aside to remind her that mistakes don’t define people…there is often good under the bad. Meanwhile, DAISY’s older self appears, feeling equally belittled by her now husband, DIRK. Together, they vent about a shared sense of invisibility.
Meanwhile, singer-songwriter SAM has just finished his final song at a small bar gig in Newport, RI. The audience is begging for an encore, when 24-year old DAISY enters, frantically-looking for her bar-hopping AWOL husband, DIRK. To avoid being rude, she listens to SAM’s encore, where he performsan unfinished song about seeking a new beginning after a recent breakup. Temporarily inspired, DAISY then departs to continue her search. After quickly packing his things to help this stranger, SAM exits the bar and is immediately struck by an out-of-control drunk driver.
Back at home, DIRK ends up stumbling in later than expected, and when she questions him about his whereabouts, he mocks DAISY for not having a job ever since her mother passed away. She confides in her father, JACK, who tells her that, ‘although marriage is tough, commitment is forever.’ He suggests applying for a job opening he saw in the church bulletin: a caretaker position over at Franklin Mills, the local Veteran Health Care facility. She does.
When she gets the job, her first case is SAM, who is 8 days removed from the ICU. Upon arrival, SAM shows up with his self-proclaimed book of empty pages, a journal he has sworn by since his days as a foster kid. It becomes apparent that SAM’s rapidly-spreading infection calls for amputation of his arm. But to salvage his future in music, he chooses the riskier alternative: waiting to see if his labs qualify for a brand new antibiotic — one with an astronomical price tag.
As fate would have it, SAM and DAISY fall madly in-love in the age-old relationship that can’t happen. Meanwhile, several other characters try to either help the relationship or break it up along the way. It is revealed that DIRK was the drunk-driver who hit SAM. And after several twists and turns, some expected and some unexpected, the book is empty no more. It is now filled with the one-of-a-kind love story of SAM and DAISY, for the new beginning they each were seeking was right in front of them, the moment they decided that their scars didn’t define them. As SAM’s fateful lab qualification results come in, the plot to take them down comes to fruition. In the end, everybody learns the lesson:
Long after life’s gone, love lives on.