LIAM

Please …

MELODY

Liam.

DAPHNA

So for two years, Poppy kept his father’s chai under his tongue, like, he kept it in his mouth for two years while he was in the camps.

JONAH

Daphna—

DAPHNA

(Genuinely confused.)

I don’t know why they don’t want me to tell you about this, it’s an incredible story.

JONAH

Daphna, don’t.

DAPHNA

Don’t what? So then after the war, Poppy looked for the rest of his family but they had been killed, all of them. Poppy had three sisters, and a little brother and his parents and his grandparents and aunts and uncles: all gone. All killed. So then the camp was liberated and Poppy left and came to America and that’s where he met our grandma, in America, who was a total bitch but that’s a totally separate story, but Poppy didn’t have any money when he came here and he couldn’t buy her a ring—

LIAM

I’m begging you, Daphna, please?

DAPHNA

Um, ok, no.

MELODY

No, keep going. This is …

DAPHNA

So he couldn’t buy her a ring, but he wanted to marry her, so he proposed with the only piece of jewelry he had, and so she wore his chai until he could afford to buy her a real ring and then he wore it again, and it’s this amazing artifact of our family and the power of like our grandfather surviving and he always loved putting it on me when I was little and when you look at his three grandchildren, I think we can all agree that the one who is clearly, like, the one who is without question the most connected with what that chai represents and what it means, is me, which we can all agree on, and so, clearly I upset … I was out of line. I admit it. And, I’m sorry. I apologize. Sincerely. And it’s no excuse, but you really upset me too with what I overheard, and that’s not what the spirit of this whole thing is supposed to be about, so I just wanted to say that, you know? But, by the same token, we need to make a decision, and I think this can just be very simple, and Jonah said he agreed I should—

JONAH

I didn’t say that.

DAPHNA

Jonah! Yes you did.

JONAH

I said I didn’t want to get in the middle of it so don’t put me there.

DAPHNA

Jonah!

JONAH

I said I don’t want it, so leave me out.

DAPHNA

Actually, you said—

JONAH

Leave me out.

DAPHNA

But you—

JONAH

Leave me out!

DAPHNA

Wow. Ok. Wow. Fine. Stay out. Just— wow.

Beat.

So Liam. What do you say? Is it cool with you, if I …?

Beat.

I really, it’s just the most important thing to me, and …

Beat.

Liam?

Liam?

Um, Liam?

MELODY

Liam?

DAPHNA

Hi, Liam?

MELODY

Honey?

Honey?

Liam!

LIAM

You would have to murder me.

DAPHNA

Um, what?

MELODY

Liam?

LIAM

Not just over my dead body. You would have to make me dead. You would have to kill me before I let you have Poppy’s chai.