updated Outline for Taking Pride

1.          Sofie is looking forward to be home after a sales trip to a show in Madison.  On arrival at her house, her gut tightens.  She never knows what mood Herman is going to be in after she’s been away for a few days.  Her husband thinks she should abandon her career to help him with the Hague’s enterprise, a large dairy farm. When he comes in from the barn, she deliberately annoys him by bragging about her success this past week.  Herman remains silent, but she can see he’s angry with her.  Damien, a son she had when she was a teen, witnesses the tension between them. The boy is part African American. On the surface, Herman has accepted Damien as his son, but he really wants to have a boy of his own. 
2.          Herman argues that Sofie is not making any money on the wooden signs that are her craft. She, on the other hand, insists on expanding her workshop so she can fill more orders. They quarrel over money. Despite Herman’s objections, she pushes forward with the plans for the renovations. She will ask Dominic, her brother-in-law to do carpentry work.  Dominic is married to Herman’s sister and works for the Hague’s farm enterprise. He is also gay and refuses to terms with it.
3.          Next to the Hague farm, Mies, Dominic’s mother, has a Bed and Breakfast  Whenever the Hague’s spread manure in the fields, her place smells foul.  This causes tension between her and the Hague family and also between her and Dominic who is married to Marta, Herman’s sister, an excellent farm manager who runs the place along with her brother.  Until now, Mies has kept her contact with the farm where her son is a partner to a minimum.  She’s had Marta, her daughter-in-law, over for dinner on occasion, but mostly she has managed to keep her life separate from that of the Hague family. 
4.          At the meeting room above the cow barn, Mies explains to the crew how difficult it is to have a bed and breakfast when she had to worry about the smells surrounding her house.  She tells them that her guests expect a relaxed holiday atmosphere when they book a room.  She doesn’t get too much sympathy from the men at the farm. 
5.          Among Mies’ regular guests at the B&B are Tom and Helen. She really loves having them. During one stay, they seem troubled about something. They ask if Henri, a priest friend of theirs can come and stay with her for awhile. They do not tell her why he needs a place, just that it would be of great benefit to him, that he needs a retreat away from the world.
6.          Dominic and Sofie work together on the new addition to the workshop. They communicate little and Sofie is used to Dominic’s reticence. After awhile, however, they do start a conversation. One day, they decide to ski cross country in the fields of the farm.  They begin to share confidences.  She talks about the problems she’s experiencing with Herman. Dominic blurts out that he shouldn’t have married.  Sofie is alarmed at the thought of what that means for the partnership and the farm enterprise. 
7.          That winter, Herman and Sofie fly to Cuba in the hope of rekindling some romance between them. While there, Herman spends a lot of time on the phone running the farm from a distance. Sofie is disappointed that his mind is forever on the farm.  She also discovers that Herman wants to fire one of their employees because he is gay.  This causes Sofie more worry about Dominic. What will Herman say when it comes out that Dominic is gay?  What will happen to his and Marta’s marriage and to the dairy enterprise?
8.          When Sofie attends a hockey game where Damien is playing, her son asks questions as to who his real father. He has formed an attachment to Dominic who is more of a father to Damien than Herman is.  It is Dominic who helps Damien with his homework, and it also Dominic who takes him to sport events. 
9.          In the early summer, Sofie goes to the farmer’s market, where a lot of children are present, Herman is again angry with Sofie because she doesn’t want to have any more children.  .Another bone of contention between Herman and Sofie are the Dutch relatives that come to visit their farm each summer. Sofie doesn’t speak Dutch and still she expected to be hostess when she is already so busy with filling orders for her signs.  She doesn’t want them to stay at her house because she needs time to go the gym in the morning before she starts her day. She sees taking care of her husband’s relatives as in imposition. Herman says she can get enough exercise helping him on the farm.  Sofie turns to Mies and asks her to take some of Herman’s relatives off her hands this summer. Mies, however, is thinking of slowing down and taking fewer guests, not more
10.          Sofie and Damien go and visit Jan, Herman’s father who suffered a stroke, in the nursing home. Damien wants them to buy a gator so that Jan can drive around the farm. On her return home, Herman consents to buying the gator for his son. Sofie is furious that Herman doesn’t think twice about spending money on equipment when he is constantly refusing to help her financially with her business. She also worries about her boy driving around the farm.  Damien is excited and says that his school friends will be green with envy. 
11.          Damien and his cousins Nathan and Isaac love the farm. They rip around the fields with the gator and at harvest time they drive the tractors and the machinery. They also take turns doing the milking.  The most important thing to them is that they are making money by working and in that way they can save up for a car.  At school, the other kids pester Damien because they envy that he can do all those things.  They also know that Damien is not Herman’s son and they tease him about that too. In his heart, Damien questions Herman’s love for him.  He says to Isaac and Nathan that he is different, that he doesn’t have a real father. He takes chances with the gator.  Sofie wished she’d never seen the thing.
12.          Meanwhile, Mies learns that Henri, her permanent guest is a caring person. He has taken it upon himself to go and see Jan, Herman’s father, at the nursing home. In time Henri tells Mies more of his life story.  Mies mulls over his confidences and the fact that Henri is dealing with his sexual orientation in such a mature and wise manner, while her son Dominic hides behind a very strict religion that bans gays.  She is angry and blames the religious traditions because they do not give guidance and support to people who are gay.
13.          Mies and Dominic quarrel during a second episode with the manure spreading and before Henri and Dominic go to the farm together. During their day on the farm, Dominic senses that Henri is gay and afterward he insists he wants the man away from his mother’s house (and out of his life).  Mies tells him to mind his own business.  Mies reflects that her problems with manure are minor compared the heartache that she faces with Dominic. Because of Henri’s presence in her house, Mies suspects Dominic is headed for a breakdown. She wants to help her son but he refuses her interference. 
14.          Mies tells Henri that she feels that she has been an inadequate mother and that if she had known she should have dealt with Dominic’s sexual orientation earlier. She still fears that Dominic is the way he is because he was conceived by artificial insemination. Henri puts her mind at rest and tells her it is a common misunderstanding among the many misconceptions about people who are gay.  He also says that there is no point in arguing with him because you cannot argue anyone out the particular stage of development that they are at. All you can do is wait for him to grow through this crisis in which he sees everything in black and white until he realizes there is more than one way to look at this.
15.          Helen and Tom have their mind on other things. One of She and Tom have been the ordination conference in Ottawa and to the illegal ordinations in Gananoque. But the strong stances taken by two wise people like Helen and Tom help to convince Mies that Henri is right and that it is her son Dominic who is hiding from his true self.
16.          Dominic’s wife is slowly catching on that the reason her marriage to Dominic is not working is because her husband is gay. The worry about the Farm Corporation of which they are all part adds to the complexity of the many conflicts among the partners.  Sofie’s friendship with Dominic adds more strain to her relationship with Herman.
17.          Jan get another stroke an dies.  Dominic’s marriage ends. The partnership falls apart because Dad hasn’t left a will to safeguard the future of the business. Oma Mieke is overcome with grief and can be manipulated by Herman.  Dominic and Sofie demand half of everything that their spouses have. They once thought that their spouses were super-rich, but actually by the time the loans are paid, the lawyers take off with a great deal of money, the tax-men takes a large chunk and there is little left to be divided and it is doubtful that Herman and Marta will have enough to start over in East Germany without their spouses-.  . 
18.          Luckily for Sofie, her business is doing very well. But since she deals with farmers mostly and it makes her sad that she has lost her connection with the farm. Damien also suffers from the separation. He misses his grandparents, Herman and his cousins Nathan and Isaac. He also misses the farm. He has no longer any men in his life who allow him to drive tractors or the gator. He never visits Dominic anymore because the children at school who were so envious of him before now also tease him about the queer who caused the Hagues to go under.  Deep in his heart, however, he misses the man who has been so good to him and who has been like a father to him.
19.          Sofie goes to see Dominic in the hope that she can talk some sense into him, but to no avail. Now that Marta is gone and has taken the boys with her, Dominic is hell bent on self-destruction. He takes drugs, prescription and otherwise, and he spirals deeper into despair. When the police discover that he grows weed, he sets his trailer on fire so no one would find evidence that he has been dealing in illegal substances. Sofie accepts the fact that there is nothing she can do for Dominic that he has to make his own choices.  Still, she knows that things could have been so different and her heart aches.
20.          Sofie and Mies make it their life’s purpose to see to it that Damien has a good education and that he doesn’t suffer too much because the men in his life have abandoned him.  After the destruction of his trailer, Dominic moves back into his mother’s place for the time being and they search for a solution with the help of the insights that Henri has brought into their lives.
21.          Dominic temporarily moves back with his mother. She tells him that the new neighbours who bought the farm from the Hague’s are very diplomatic. They will never take out manure without consulting her first. While they pretend to be concerned with farm problems, the true purpose of their coming together is their love for Damien.  Mies tells Dominic that thanks to Henri she has found a spirituality that helps her to be compassionate to all. Dominic relaxes and slowly begins to accept himself the way he is. He discovers in his mother a wisdom that he had not known was there before.