TESS: One time I came home and found you sitting here in the dark. Just sitting in the dark in the middle of the morning. You didn’t even know it was morning. So it’s just a little fucking frustrating that the same Julie who forgets your daily quality of LIFE is selling you her fairy tale now that you have a little more reason to believe in it. (To Jon now, without pausing) You hear things like this—people preying upon the elderly

MARJORIE: I’m not / prey.

JON: She’s not prey.

TESS (To Jon): Can you not—

JON: What?

TESS: Take sides like always.

MARJORIE: Oh no.

TESS: What is it?

(Marjorie’s face crumples. She shakes her head.)

Mom what is it?

(Beat.)

Did you have an accident?

(Marjorie gives a small nod, eyes down, deeply ashamed.)

(Gentle) Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.

(They help Marjorie to her feet. Tess leads her off down the hallway.)

MARJORIE: I’m sorry.

TESS: Don’t be sorry.

MARJORIE: I’m so sorry.

TESS: It’s okay—it’s Shower Day after all.

(And they’re gone.)

JON (In no direction in particular): Walter.

Walter?

WALTER: Here I am.

(Jon sees Walter now—although he’s always been there.)

JON: I want to tell you about the time you took Marjorie to New York at Christmas.

WALTER: I’m listening.

JON (Glancing at his notes): You sat on a bench in Central Park and looked at all these saffron-colored flags in the snow. It must have been some kind of installation?

(Beat.)

This wouldn’t have been long after your son died.

WALTER: My son?

JON: Your son, Damian.

You took a trip to New York, and you took Marjorie along—I think you were hoping to get her mind off it. You looked at the shop windows, you tried to start living again.

WALTER: How did he die?

(Short pause.)

JON: He did it himself. That was the hardest part. You thought you had made a nice life for him.

(Beat.)

WALTER: But I hadn’t?

JON: Tess got the sense that he was always a little . . .

WALTER: A little?

JON: He spent a lot of time in his room. He got into fights at school. Not fights he started, but kids would tease him and he fought back. He liked snakes and lizards. He was thirteen. You didn’t always know how to show that you loved him.

WALTER: Why not?

JON: That’s the way people are sometimes. So lucky Toni was around—he spent a lot of time with her. That’s what was so hard to understand, that he did that to Toni.

WALTER: Did what?

JON (Not looking at Walter): He must have wanted— Maybe he thought she could come with him that way? I shouldn’t be—

(He glances down the hallway where Marjorie and Tess exited.)

But if you’re Walter, you would know, wouldn’t you.