A Faded Cottage about a man with Essential Tremor

Please join me in helping to spread the word about Essential Tremor. March is Essential Tremor month. My novel ‘A faded Cottage’ a South Carolina’, a love story is about a man with Essential Tremor. ‘A Faded Cottage’ is a powerful story blending fact and fiction. It is a story about a famous artist whose life is turned upside down when he learns he has Essential Tremor and begins to shake uncontrollably. He leaves his life in New York and buys a faded cottage on the beach of South Carolina discovering his teenage love after thirty years. This is his journal of only two weeks, a story of endless love, his tale of living with ET, and the strength and power of love. Essential tremor (ET) is a progressive neurological condition that causes a rhythmic trembling of the hands, head, voice, legs, or trunk. An estimated 10 million Americans have ET. A portion of the proceeds from each book sold of “A Faded Cottage” will be donated to Diann Shaddox Foundation to help find a cure. www.diannshaddox.com 

A Faded Cottage

“Happy Birthday, dumb ass!” Brenton Quaid Witherspoon’s words echoed into the roar of the waves. His heart pounded in his chest as the cold mist circled and engulfed him. The wetness he mopped from his face with the sleeve of his jacket revealed the eyes of a world-renowned artist, known for his superb paintings of the sea.

Quaid watched the dark, cumulus clouds as they grew in the threatening sky, showing colors of grey, black, dark blue and a hint of orange bleeding through from the morning sun. His trembling hands reached out in front of him tightening into fists. His throat constricted, anger grew, with the realization he would never bring the beautiful scene to life on canvas ever again, merely in his dreams.

He reached in his pocket  •••                                                                                    click read more below

---

A folded newspaper clipping slid out. Brenton Quaid Witherspoon is a prolific artist, producing over 3,000 original works in his lifetime. The paper crinkled in his fist flying out into the waves. “I was,” he screamed, “a prolific artist!”

On this chilly Saturday morning, December 18th, 1982 Quaid, a man of medium height with gray sprinkled in his thick, dark hair not showing his age, continued his daily walk along the fresh white sand next to the Atlantic Ocean. He rounded the curve and stopped. He stared down the long seashore. He was alone, just him and the one seagull he’d fed so many times. He’d hoped ole Amos would be down past the curve fishing, his morning routine since Amos had retired, but even he hadn’t ventured out on the damp morning. 

Quaid’s hands tucked in his jean pockets and he twirled around in a half circle. The blustery sea breeze hit him straight in his face kissing his lips as he tasted the salt. Quickly, he ducked his head trying to hide from the gust of the cold wind.

A deep breath of salty air sucked into his lungs. A wave of pain came over him, thinking about last year, when his life had screeched to a sudden stop. 

Now, at the age of fifty, this was Quaid’s new life, living in an old framed cottage at 11 Gull Lane, a cottage with a sagging porch, tattered shutters, and worn paint sitting on the beach in the small town of Hathaway Cove. Hathaway Cove, a tiny fishing town of only five hundred including dogs, sat secluded, nestled among the small barrier islands along the coast of South Carolina away from civilization. A quaint, southern town known for its tales of shipwrecks had brought many tourists trying to discover pirate’s treasure that they believe was still hiding in the deep blue waters surround this picturesque island. 

Quaid slowed his pace and his eyes stared up at the old cottage securely tucked in behind the sand dunes. The quaint cottage, it’s once beautiful boards now weathered and timeworn, had sat on the South Carolina coast withstanding hurricanes and storms for over eighty years. Two porches dressed in hand-carved wooden trim spread across the back of the small cottage facing the Atlantic. It was a perfect place to sit and watch the sunrise and a wonderful place to enjoy peaceful evenings listening to the waves serenade the beach.

At the young age of five, Quaid’s love of painting had been born on the quiet beach of Hathaway Cove. Time moved on and his passion for painting grew, as did his ability to bring brilliant colors of the Atlantic Ocean to life. He could turn a lonely wave into a superb painting showing the strength of the wave, its fury, its beauty, bringing nature alive. His yearning to paint never failed him, but his hands had now deserted him...