MABLE: Days went by. Nights. All alone. I’d lay there listening to mice scuttle across the roof. Wind. The loon on the lake.

(Timing this with MABLE’s speech, SALLY slowly continues upstage.)

I’d sometimes walk out there and stare at the moon. I’d wander. Walk toward the little town on washboard roads. See the blue lights of television flicker in people’s windows. Middle of the woods. Dogs howling. No cars. Smells of pine and garbage. Dead animals. Bats and owls swooping. I’d keep walking. Listen to my crunching feet. My breath. Not one thought of Whitmore, though. Isn’t that remarkable? Not one thought of him. He’d disappeared completely. Vanished from my life.

(Pause. SALLY reaches the place where LIZ had thrown her camera and equipment, looks down into the abyss, then jumps over the edge, upstage, and disappears into the black. No sound. LIZ continues to stare at the rag on the floor.)

I walked and walked. I came to the edge of town. No people. No people that I could see….(Continuing.) Not one. A drive-in movie in the distance. Maybe—I could just make out the shapes. No voices. No music. Just forms moving. Bodies. Color. The wind picked up. I walked straight toward the movie. I kept walking. As though the movie were pulling me on a string. As though the forms were speaking. I got closer but still no sound. I could see the face now. I could clearly see the face. It was James Dean—lying on his belly in the red ground. His short sleeves rolled up. I climbed a tree to get a better look. I got higher and higher. I could see his black eyebrows twitching. His remarkable eyebrows. He seemed to be talking to somebody but there was nobody—nothing there but a field of beans. His lips moved but no voice. He was talking to the beans. His lips were reaching out to them as though—as though he were trying to—kiss them or—caress them—make them grow. His eyes were so— full of—love. That’s all it was. Pure love. I tried to get closer but the whole branch snapped off. I crashed. Rolled in the night. I was broken into a million pieces. Shattered completely.

LUCY: That’s when we brought you home.

(Pause. Suddenly LIZ leaps up, grabs the washrag off the floor, returns to her chair, crosses her legs, and goes back to wiping her feet. LUCY comes out from behind the wheelchair, very stoned. She approaches LIZ, who continues with her feet, silently. To LIZ, cautiously.)

Did you hear anything my mother was saying to you?