I’d like to find her. When she starts crying, I walk and walk. My joints are getting stiffer. Sometimes I have to stop. I wait for her voice to get closer but it hasn’t yet.

(listens)

Oh! There she goes.

He walks off.

Scene Four

MORGAN’S house. The basement.

A single window, high up, at ground level.

Dirt floor. Dim.

MORGAN, despondent, in her bathrobe, sits on the floor. ELENA sits with her.

MORGAN I did everything right.

ELENA I know.

MORGAN The things I ate. The things I didn’t eat. The things I drank or didn’t drink. Nine months without wine. Water aerobics. Everything you told me to do. Why is it my fault?

ELENA It’s not your—

MORGAN Why do I feel like it’s my fault?

(cuts ELENA off)

Don’t answer that.

I don’t want to see anybody. Ever again.

ELENA OK.

MORGAN I just want to sit here. Moss will grow. Up over my face. Like a burka of moss. Moss will grow over the basement. Over the door. Over the house. I’ll just sit here forever in a subterranean pocket of moss. It will get hard to breathe and everything will be very green but at least nobody will drop by with casseroles.

ELENA Morgan …

MORGAN What.

ELENA The casseroles are people being nice. It’s a midwestern thing I guess.

MORGAN Fuck nice. I don’t feel nice. I don’t want anybody else to feel nice. I want everybody to be miserable. More miserable than me. I know I’m competitive, but this time I want everybody else to win.

(beat)

Don’t you have somewhere to be?

ELENA Do you want me to go?

MORGAN I didn’t say that, I just asked if you had somewhere to be.

Don’t answer that.

I feel crazy. I’m sorry.

ELENA Do you want some casserole?

MORGAN Which kind?

ELENA The one with the pink stuff in it.

MORGAN Bacon, that’s bacon.

ELENA No, the gray stuff is bacon.

MORGAN The pink stuff is also bacon.

Beat.

ELENA Is that a yes?

MORGAN Yeah, whatever, no, OK.

ELENA gets MORGAN casserole.

MORGAN holds it throughout but doesn’t eat.

ELENA Maybe we could go eat upstairs.

In the dining room. Or the kitchen. Or the living room.

Or you could take a hot shower? Change your clothes?

MORGAN They didn’t want to see the photos. I said: Wanna see the photos? But none of them did.

ELENA I know.

MORGAN He was beautiful.

ELENA I know.

MORGAN He was dead but he was beautiful.

(beat)

They think it’s my fault.

ELENA Nobody—