MARJORIE: I don’t smile much, you said.

TESS: Not with your mouth open. Towards the end. You were embarrassed about your teeth.

MARJORIE: I’m vain.

TESS (Smiling slightly): A little.

MARJORIE: That’s helpful.

TESS: You had a bit of a temper.

MARJORIE: I sound wonderful.

(Beat.)

Do I have other children, besides you?

TESS (The slightest hesitation): Just me.

MARJORIE: What a lot of pressure for you!

(Tess is strangely moved by this. Marjorie wouldn’t have offered this.)

Did I say something wrong again?

TESS: No. You didn’t.

MARJORIE: You were saying, just you.

TESS: And you have three grandchildren, all grown. Well, ish.

MARJORIE: What do they do?

TESS: Micah is a chef. Mitchell does financial something. Raping and pillaging. I gave up trying to understand.

MARJORIE (Committing this to memory): “Raping and pillaging.”

TESS: Oh I didn’t mean he really— Delete, delete!

Raina is the youngest. She’s twenty-three. She’s in a band.

MARJORIE: That’s a job?

TESS: No it is not.

MARJORIE: Who do I like the most?

(Tess smiles a little.)

TESS: That was very Marjorie.

MARJORIE: Well?

TESS: Micah is the best about keeping in touch. Conscientious. Mitchell not so much, but he makes up for it with charisma. But I think you liked Raina the most.

MARJORIE: She’s musical, like me.

TESS: If you can call it music. I went to one of her concerts. She was playing a bag of broken glass.

MARJORIE: Do they visit?

(Beat.)

TESS: Raina doesn’t talk to me. Her therapist said it would be better, for now. Someone I’ve never met has advised my daughter not to talk to me. So she calls Jon and he fills me in. It’s humiliating.

MARJORIE: She’s twenty-three. Give her room. She’ll work through it.

TESS (Faintly suspicious): That sounds more like Jon.

MARJORIE: Oh yes. You’re not done telling me what I’m like.

TESS: Well, you would never accept the silent treatment from your daughter.

(Beat.)

You like card games. You like to win. You aren’t always the best winner. We had some family Monopoly games that . . . deteriorated.

You thought women should be women. That they should be feminine.

MARJORIE: Naturally.

TESS: One time we passed a girl on the street with short hair and you asked her if she was in the Navy.

MARJORIE: I’m rude too.

TESS: No, just—direct. You were very good with flowers. A wizard with flowers. But you didn’t—

MARJORIE: Don’t—

TESS: Sorry, you don’t like to wear strong scents. You said fabric softener was all the perfume anyone needed. This isn’t important.

MARJORIE: It’s all important.

(Beat.)

TESS: You would always order things in restaurants that you cooked at home. Lamb shanks, risotto. And then you would say that it was good, but not as good as you would make. You would always do this.