Show Synopsis:
Francesca, an Italian war bride, loves her family but feels unfulfilled. Her family leaves for the national 4H fair and she looks forward to a little relaxation and solitude. A National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid, comes to her house to ask directions to Roseman Bridge so he can finish photographing the county?s covered bridges. Francesca goes with him and later invites him for dinner, though she realizes she is quickly developing feelings for him. The next day, Francesca buys a new dress and follows Robert to the bridge, where they connect over his photographs of Naples. Francesca invites him to dinner again, and her husband Bud calls to tell her they will be staying an extra day at the fair. They separately reflect over their love and marriage. Robert and Francesca kiss, dance, and sleep together while Francesca?s daughter Carolyn worries about her competing steer and her son Michael fights with Bud over his adulthood responsibilities. Francesca and Robert take a day trip to Des Moines and Francesca ponders leaving her family for a life on the road with Bud. The day afterwards, she promises him that she will meet him in town by six o?clock. Francesca?s neighbor Marge shows up and implies that though she knows about Francesca?s affair, she will not tell anybody. Francesca finds she cannot tell Bud about her affair and the entire family heads into town, where Francesca says goodbye to Robert from afar and chooses to stay with her family. Years later, Carolyn is a wife and mother, Michael is a doctor, and Bud dies of illness. Francesca is alone and wonders if the silent phone calls she occasionally receives are Robert. Robert, who is ill himself, packs his belongings, having given up hope that he will ever speak with Francesca again. After he dies, Francesca returns to the bridge with a letter delivered from him posthumously and the picture he took of her at the bridge at the beginning of their romance.
There's a boat that leaves from Napoli
Every Thursday in the morning
And a nervous bride can share a bed
With her soldier from the States.
For a week, the ocean carries them
Over lost and churning water
And they land in New York Harbor
Then to Pennsylvania Station
Where they board a train
That slices like a scythe
Through the fields of America.
This is Albany
This is Buffalo
This is Cleveland
This is South bend
This is Chicago
This is Osceola Station
Where a truck will take them
Deeper into Iowa
To Winterset
And three hundred Acres
Waiting to be tamed.
And blade of grass by blade of grass
And ear of corn by ear of corn
And bale of Hay by day by day
They build themselves a home.
And day by day and year by year,
From boy to man, from calf to steer,
What's lost from there may not grow here,
But comes the sun,
Look what they've done:
They've built themselves a home.
At Twenty-one, a girl begins
To grasp the world and how it spins.
She grabs a box of safety pins
And builds herself a home.
And home is safe, and home is fair,
The porch, the bath, the kitchen chair,
The sharp and unfamiliar air
That blow by blow
She comes to know
To build herself a home.
With a son.
And a daughter.
And a million miles between
The fires she used to set
The hearts she used to break
The lies she used to tell
And the woman she grew up
to be.