PONY (Picking up a CD audiobook from the table): Is this any good? “Every House Is a Halfway House.”

JENNIFER: It’s supposed to be a memoir. We never listened. Those are from, Bob had trouble with his vision, a few months ago. I mean, he couldn’t see. I got some audiobooks, because I thought it’d be nice to listen to a story, but then he just got better.

PONY: Does he work with, like, insulation and heating stuff?

JENNIFER: No. Why?

PONY: Because John just had that, for a few days.

JOHN: Guilty. Actually, guilty’s not what I mean— I just couldn’t see anything.

PONY: It turned out it was from this material they used to use inside wood stoves.

JENNIFER: Really? No, this was nothing like that. It was called cortical blindness, and it comes from high blood pressure. Bob thought it was from a dinner I made. So now he’s never eating artichokes again. It’s scary, though. Losing your eyesight. I mean, I imagine.

JOHN: Yeah. It’s highly personal, going blind.

PONY: It was only a few days. Thank God.

JOHN (Picking up the audiobook): I found this company that’ll send you the transcript of any audiobook.

JENNIFER (Brief pause): Wouldn’t that just be the book?

JOHN: You know what, you’re right. That would just be the book.

PONY (To John): Afterward, remember? (To Jennifer) He went into kind of a thing.

JENNIFER: What do you mean?

JOHN: I guess I was trying to—

PONY (Interrupting): Just, he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep. You were really weird.

JENNIFER: Well, you were probably pretty shaken up. (Bob returns with wine glasses)

JOHN: I probably was.

PONY: Then he went down to the ocean. (To John) You said you wanted to be near something really vast.

JENNIFER: Vast.

PONY: That was his exact words. (Brief pause) I wasn’t very supportive. I’m just not, I mean, that whole stuff . . . luckily we had a good neighbor.

JOHN: No, come on, you were great.

JENNIFER: What whole stuff?

JOHN: People getting moody and going blind. It’s just not really her thing. (To Pony) Not your thang.

PONY (To John): It really isn’t my thang. (Brief pause) When you took that trip, I thought you were leaving me. I thought he was leaving.

JOHN: But I wasn’t. Or, I was, and I didn’t do a very good job at it. (Brief pause. To Bob) The topic is: things that have happened.

BOB: I can see wanting to go down by the ocean.

JENNIFER: You don’t even know what we’re talking about.

BOB: Well, whatever you’re talking about, I can see wanting to go down to the ocean. Being near something vast.

JOHN: See? He knows.

BOB: Where’d you go, exactly?

JOHN: I guess about a week and half.

BOB: I said, where.