daughter and a beautiful
granddaughter. We should be thankful...
Bonnie: But I left it in the CD drive, Charlie. I know I did.
(Charlie hugs Bonnie, pulling
her toward the box..)
Charlie: Look, I found some of Laura’s drawings from
elementary school, and a clay sculpture.
Bonnie: She was so artistic, such a fine sense of color, even
as a child. No wonder she became a
decorator.
Charlie: Do I smell something burning?
Bonnie: Oh no!
(Bonnie rushes to kitchen)
(Sound of casserole being
placed on stove top.)
Bonnie: (wailing from kitchen) It’s the sweet potato dish.
Laura’s favorite. I made some in her
honor.
(Bonnie re-enters living
room, face tear-streaked.)
Bonnie: (continues) The timer says there’s still ten minutes
to go. It’s ruined. No chart. No sweet
potatoes. I know Emily is behind this.
Emily: (entering living room, approaching Charlie, carrying
bowl.) That’s okay. I never liked sweet
potatoes anyway. (Pause) Look, I’ve made your favorite dessert, Grandpa. Bananas with chocolate sauce.
(Bonnie returns to kitchen.)
Charlie: I haven’t had that since I was a boy. How did...
(Emily cuddles her body
against Charlie, and starts spoon-feeding him.)
Emily: Sit down, Grandpa.
You have to eat that while it’s warm, and the chocolate is still gooey.
(Emily escorts Charlie to
couch, feeding him spoonfuls of dessert en route.)
Charlie: Shall we start the memorial service? Bonnie?
(He sits. Emily sits close beside him. He eats the
bananas she is feeding him.)
(Bonnie comes from kitchen,
fusses with the picture of Laura.)
Bonnie: I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.
(She sits close on Charlie’s
other side.)
Charlie: I’ll start.
Laura was a talented artist, even when she was a little girl. She loved
seeing her artwork on our refrigerator.
Emily: If we’re going to commemorate our dead, we should put
Great Grandma Maddie up there. I’m named for her after all. Emily Madeline.
(Emily stands, and goes to
bedroom hallway door.)
Bonnie: We had a memorial service for her when she died. And we remember her every time we cut the
roses where we scattered her ashes, like she asked in her will.
(Bonnie indicates roses.)
Emily: I want to commemorate her again.
(Emily opens bedroom hallway
door.)
Charlie: Our Laura named you Emily Madeline as a living
commemoration to her.
(Emily enters bedroom
hallway.)
Bonnie: (whispering)
Maddie was the mother-in-law-from hell! She was always stealing Laura
from me. Can’t we have Laura without
Maddie for one day – for her memorial?
Charlie: I loved my mother. I thought you respected that.
Bonnie: You’re a saint to love her. I can’t think of anything nice to say about
Maddie.
Charlie: Today is a day to commemorate our dead – not to speak
ill of them. If it makes Emily feel
better we can commemorate Maddie and Laura together. They’re both family. We
have to try for Emily’s sake. She’s got
to be hurting. Laura was her mother.
(Emily returns with picture
of Madeline in her 20's, topless, posing as a mermaid in a Rolex ad.)
Emily: Here she is.
This was her favorite picture of herself, and mom always said I
resembled her.
(Emily places the picture
beside the one of Laura and arranges the shroud over both pictures.)
Bonnie: Please not that picture. Bring one with clothing on.
Emily: This is how I want to commemorate her.
Charlie: She lost her figure when she had me, but she never
blamed me for it. She said she loved me
anyway.
Emily: I love you, too.
(She walks over to Charlie,
sits beside him and tongue kisses him.)
(Charlie spits, horrified.)
Charlie: You’re too young to do that even with a boyfriend!
Bonnie: That kind of kissing is for a husband and wife.
Emily: Everybody kisses that way now.
Bonnie: Not in my house!
Emily: What! Are you going to throw me out, like you threw
out Maddie?
Charlie: We’re here to remember the good about our dead. Particularly your mother, our Laura.
Bonnie: Laura, your mom, was so good with dogs. They always came up to her and licked her
hands.
Charlie: And she was good with math. She could always figure out a way to save money.
Emily: She was cheap.
Her idea of saving money was to buy last year’s fashions.
Bonnie: We’re here to say nice things about your mother. She was also our daughter. We loved her.
Emily: That’s not what she said. She told me how mean you were to her.
Bonnie: Honey, parents discipline their children. It’s not the same as being mean. Now that you
live with us, we’ll do the same for you.
Emily: You hate me, too!
Bonnie: We love you and we loved your mother.
Emily: What for? She
was a mean mother. Maybe you raised her to be a mean mother. Maybe you were a
mean mother. Maybe your mother raised
you to be mean.
Charlie: That’s enough.
Teenagers rebel against their parents.
That’s normal. But today, we are
here to remember what we liked about your mother. This ceremony is supposed to help us grow closer as a family and
remember what we love about each other.
Emily: That’s hypocritical, and phony.
Bonnie: If you don’t want to commemorate your mother today,
you don’t have to sit here with us.
Emily: I want to commemorate Madeline.
Charlie: What would you like to say about your great grandmother?
Emily: She was a good cook.
And she always made nice things for you, like bananas with chocolate
sauce.
Bonnie: How do you know this?
Emily: Like duh! I was Madeline in my last lifetime.
Bonnie: That’s nonsense.
There’s no such thing as reincarnation.
Emily: Mom wouldn’t let me talk about it. But now she’s
dead, nobody can stop me.
Charlie: Emily, honey, can you think of any way in which Great
Grandma Madeline and your mom were alike?
Emily: They were both women who raised children alone.
Charlie: Great Grandma Madeline was married to Great Grandpa
Eddie.
Emily: She only had room in her heart to love one, and she
chose you. She never loved Eddie. She only used him to get a baby, to get you
– only a baby can love you completely!
Bonnie: Where did you get an idea like that?
Emily: Everybody knows that. That’s why you love Charlie and hate Laura and me!
Charlie: Bonnie and I love you, and we loved Laura.
Emily: You’re lying! You never loved anyone but Bonnie!
Charlie: We’re family. We love each other.
Emily: Maddie only loved you.
Charlie: Great Grandma Maddie also loved your mom, her
granddaughter. She spent a lot of time
with your mom. She would have loved you if she’d lived long enough.
Emily: Maddie didn’t love Laura. She used Laura to punish you for not loving her enough.
Charlie: This is giving me the creeps. Let’s talk about Laura. I remember the day Laura’s hamster died, and
she buried him in our yard. She made
him a gravestone. She got out the property engraver and carved a lovely design
in a stone. It’s still out there in our
yard.
Emily: That’s more than you have for
Maddie! You have to go across town to see Maddie’s
plaque. There’s nothing for her here in
your yard– the yard you paid for with her money, but I know her ashes are here,
at least some of them.
Bonnie: She wanted some of her ashes in a rose garden. We planted some for her.
See how healthy the roses are. She loved roses.
(Bonnie indicates roses in
vase on table.)
Emily: She only wanted that because Charlie loves
roses. She loved Charlie so much that
she even gave her ashes to make him happy.
(She pets Charlie’s
knee. He pushes her hand away.)
Charlie: Keep your hands off me! Go, sit over there.
(Indicates chair beside
couch.)
Emily (continues, not moving): That’s right. Push me away like you pushed Maddie
away. I only want to make you happy,
Charlie, I mean Gramps.
(She stands, leans over, feeds him another spoonful of bananas with
chocolate.)
Bonnie: Let’s put Laura’s artwork up on the mantle.
(Charlie and Bonnie rise and
begin taping childish art to the mantle.)
Emily: Aren’t you going to finish the bananas? I made them specially...
(Emily gets up with a marker
in her hand and draws a mustache and horns on Laura’s picture.)
(Bonnie grabs Emily’s hand
and pulls it away from the picture)
Bonnie: Go to your room!
Emily: You can’t make me!
Charlie: Tell Grandma you’re sorry.
Emily: Why should I be sorry? I hated Mom. She hated
you. This whole thing is disgusting!
Charlie: You’ll be staying with us until you go to
college. We have to get along. What would you like to do to honor our dead?
Bonnie: I don’t think I can take four more years of this.
Emily: I want to talk about Maddie. Tell me the nice things you remember about
Maddie.
Bonnie: If you remember being Maddie in your last lifetime,
you tell us.
Charlie: Let’s play along. If we tell her nice things about
Maddie, maybe she’ll remember nice things about her mom.
Emily: I’ll start. Maddie gave you candy when Eddie sent you
to your room.
Charlie: (surprised) Yes, she did. How did you...
Bonnie: Is that why Maddie went to your mom’s room when she
was being punished? To give her candy?
Emily: You are so dumb!
Maddie didn’t just go into Laura’s room. She snuck Laura out and took her to the ice cream shop. Laura used to be bad on purpose so Maddie
would take her to the ice cream shop.
Bonnie: See, Charlie – she’s not remembering another
lifetime. She’s remembering what her
mother told her.
Charlie: Maddie was a great story teller. Before she married Eddie, she was a story
lady at the libraries, and she rode bareback through the streets to draw a
crowd.
Emily: And she was gorgeous. She posed for this topless mermaid picture when she was pregnant
with Grandpa Charlie, just so she could show off how big her breasts had grown.
Bonnie: That picture has always made me uncomfortable. I wish you’d get one with clothes on.
Emily: You never looked at the picture properly.
Bonnie: I really don’t want to look at my mother-in-law’s
naked breasts.
Charlie: I thought we were going to tell happy stories.
Emily: You didn’t like it when she taught Laura how to
masturbate in the bathtub, either. You’re such a prude, I don’t know why
Charlie loves you!
Charlie: Your mom told you about that!
Emily: No! I remember.
Bonnie: You couldn’t.
Emily: I’ll prove it.
Charlie, remember how I kept your secret about the broken saw blade so
Eddie wouldn’t make you pay for it out of your allowance? I’m sure that’s something you never told
Laura or even Bonnie.
Charlie: Yes. I do
remember. This is getting spooky.
Emily: And that melted bowl in your oven that you blamed
Laura for – I did that, so you’d send Laura to her room, so I could take her
out for ice cream.
Bonnie: You could have made that up.
Emily: I wanted Charlie to love me. I tried being nice. I bought him things. I preferred him to my husband. I kept his secrets. And he just used me. It was always, “Mom, can I have money? Mom,
can you pick me up after school? Mom, I need new shoes.” Never, “Mom, I love you.” Never, “Mom, lets go somewhere, just the two
of us.”
Bonnie: (To Emily) Did you ever say those things to your mom?
Emily: Laura didn’t deserve it. But Maddie did. I did! I
even bought nice things for you to inherit.
That table. That candelabra. And
Bonnie, I bought you that ivory necklace you never wear.
Bonnie: That necklace was pure cruelty. It was cruel to kill the elephant to steal
its ivory. And you knew I belonged to
the Save the Elephants society. You
bought that necklace to insult me.
Charlie: Madeline did that. Not Emily.
Emily: You didn’t even say thank you for the gift or thank
you for the thought. You threw that
necklace in the trash. But I saved
it. I snuck it into your drawer. And you found it there and you didn’t throw
it away again. I know because I
checked.
Charlie: You have no business in our bedroom.
Emily: Why? Because
that’s where you had sex right after you killed me?
Bonnie: Emily, you’re talking crazy. You’re not dead, and nobody killed Maddie.
Emily: (to Bonnie) Did he tell you how Maddie died? I know you weren’t there, you hated her so
much you wouldn’t even go see her in the hospital.
Bonnie: She had a heart attack.
Emily: He lied to you.
Charlie: Maddie drank too much. She smoked too much. She
ran around with a motorcycle gang and slept with most of them. One night they dumped her at a bar, where
she drank herself into a stupor and had a heart attack. She slumped over her table for about half an
hour until the bar owner noticed her and called the medics. The medics got her heart started again and
took her to a hospital, where she had another heart attack and died.
Bonnie: This is ridiculous.
Let’s speak well of the dead.
That’s why we’re here.
Emily: Charlie killed me.
But I loved him and I forgave him and I came back to be your
granddaughter so I could be with him again.
He loved Laura when she was tiny and drew cute pictures and wore frilly
dresses. So I wore frilly dresses and
drew cute pictures for him and climbed in his lap. But he always preferred you to me. He preferred you when I was his mom. And he prefers you now. But I’m the one who deserves the
love. I’m the one who does everything
for him!
(Bonnie walks around Charlie
and hugs Emily. Emily struggles.)
Bonnie: Husbands are supposed to love their wives. That’s normal. Charlie loved you as his mom, and he loves you as his
granddaughter.
(Emily throws Bonnie off her
and hugs Charlie.)
Emily: Love me! I
deserve it! I dedicated my life to you
twice! I kept your secrets. I didn’t
let your dad dock your allowance. I
didn’t turn you in to the police for killing me. I can get the hospital records.
They show my eyes still dilated to light when you unplugged me. There is
no statute of limitations on murder!
Bonnie: Emily, honey, you’re talking crazy.
Emily: All I have to do is call the cops.
(Pause)
Emily: Or you could love me as I deserve!
Charlie: We do love you.
(Emily picks up the phone.
She dials.)
Emily: There’s been a murder. I want you to send a squad car
with lots of police and guns and clubs and handcuffs, and cart this monster
away...
Scene 2.
(Gentle knocks at the door.)
Emily: That’s the police – come to arrest you.
Charlie: Fine. Open the door.
(Emily goes to door. Opens
it. Sunshine enters.)
Sunshine: I’m Sunshine, from the Alameda County Family Support
Division. I understand there’s been a
death in the family. Death is such an
important passage – a moving on for all of us. I feel so privileged to work with people who are making this
passage along with their families.
Emily: This is my Grandpa Charlie. He killed his mother. And
this is Gramma Bonnie. She tortured and
abused my mother. I want you to arrest them and take them away.
Sunshine: Nice to meet you.
(Sunshine extends her
hand. Nobody takes it.)
Bonnie: Emily is upset.
Her mother died in that plane crash.
Sunshine: I see two photos on the mantel piece. Who are those attractive women?
Emily: Are you listening to me? These people are killers.
Arrest them.
Charlie: The one on the left is my mom, Maddie. And the other is our daughter, Emily’s mom,
Laura.
Sunshine: They’re both lovely.
They must have been beautiful spirits. How recently did they die? I might still be able to contact their
souls.
Charlie: Maddie’s been dead for over twenty years. Laura just
died yesterday in a plane crash. She was on a business trip to pick out new
items for her decorator showroom.
Sunshine: How sweet of you to celebrate them together. Now, if you’ll make a pot of tea with plenty
of loose leaves in it, I’ll do what I can to contact them. Here, I always bring my favorite mixture –
camomile and peppermint with just a pinch of sage...
(Sunshine offers bag to
Bonnie.)
Bonnie: May I see your ID to prove that you were sent here by
the State of California?
Sunshine: Oh dear, did I forget to give show you my badge? Actually, I don’t like to show it – it seems
so official, and I do like to make these visits as soothing as possible. Could you start the tea? That’s usually soothing.
Bonnie: No ID, no tea.
Emily: I don’t want tea.
I want you to arrest them and cart them off to jail – separate
jails! If it weren’t for Bonnie,
Charlie would have loved me!
(Sunshine fishes in her huge
purse, and finally pulls out an ID card on a beaded chain.)
Sunshine: Here’s my ID card. The picture doesn’t capture my aura very well.
(Bonnie looks closely at it.)
Bonnie: Okay that’s you.
I’ll make the tea.
(Bonnie takes the bag and
goes back to the kitchen.)
Charlie: Emily is taking the death of her mother rather hard.
Emily: No, I’m not.
I’m glad she’s dead! I hated
her.
Sunshine: Are you afraid that maybe your thoughts killed your
mother? Lots of children feel guilty
when a parent dies because they worry about their angry thoughts.
Emily: Have you listened to anything I’ve said? I hated my mother. I’m glad she’s dead.
Sunshine: You want me to arrest your grandparents. And you’re glad your mother is dead. I hear you.
Emily: I hated her!
She deserved to be dead.
Sunshine: Everybody dies.
Why did your mom deserve to be dead?
Charlie: You don’t want to stir her up.
Sunshine: It’s bad to suppress our emotions, and worse to deny
them. She needs to let it all out.
Charlie: Are you new at your job?
Sunshine: Are you angry about Laura’s death, too?
Charlie: She was my daughter.
I dreamed of being with her into my old age. Children are supposed to outlive their parents.
Emily: Is that why you killed Maddie? So she could die first?
Sunshine: Which of these women is Maddie, again?
Emily: The beautiful one on the left.
Sunshine: And you say your grandpa here, killed her?
Emily: He killed her so he could take her stuff. See, it’s all around you – the table, the
candelabra, that photo of her as a mermaid.
Sunshine: How did he kill her?
(Bonnie re-enters with the
pot of tea and cups and a sliced apple with a knife on a tray, which she places
on the table.)
Bonnie: Why are you encouraging her to say such horrid
things?
Sunshine: She’s thinking them – so she may as well say them
here, in a safe environment.
(Bonnie pours the tea, using
a strainer.)
Sunshine: Don’t use the strainer. I want to read our leaves. (Pause) Now, Emily, you were about to
tell us how Grandpa Charlie killed Maddie.
(Bonnie re-pours the tea,
distributes cups to every one and begins drinking her cup. Charlie and Emily also take sips. Sunshine does not.)
Emily: He unplugged her at the hospital.
Sunshine: All by himself – he unplugged her – just like that?
Emily: She was on a breathing machine. He convinced the doctors she was dead, so
they unplugged her.
Sunshine: That’s horrible.
Was she awake and talking when he did it?
Emily: No, she was just quietly watching – testing him to
see what he’d do. And he killed her.
Sunshine: How long had she been watching?
Emily: At least a week.
Sunshine: Could she eat? Did she look around?
Emily: She just lay there.
She wasn’t really in her body.
She was up on the ceiling watching to see what everybody would do.
Sunshine: How do you know all this?
Emily: I was Maddie in my last lifetime.
Bonnie: She just started this fantasy today. Maybe pretending
to be Maddie is part of her grief process.
Sunshine: You must really love your family to come back to be
with them again.
Charlie: Why are you encouraging this nonsense?
Sunshine: It’s not nonsense.
I’m sure she believes everything she’s saying. Emily, you must have loved Charlie very much to come back to him
in this lifetime. Why do you want me to
take him away?
Emily: I want him to love me above all others. When he was
my son, I was a fat old lady. So of course he left me for Bonnie. Then he had Laura. And he loved Laura when she was a small, cute little girl. So, I
came back as a small, cute little girl.
But Charlie didn’t hug me and cuddle me like he did Bonnie. Even when I
was small and cute, he preferred Bonnie.
If he won’t love me, he doesn’t deserve to live!
Sunshine: I would arrest him and take him away if he sexually
abused you. Did Charlie do that to you?
Emily: He tongue-kissed me earlier today.
Sunshine: Is that true?
Charlie: She tried to kiss and fondle me. I pushed her away.
Sunshine: Sexual aggressiveness is often a sign of grief. That’s a good thing.
Emily: You don’t understand. Look closely at the mermaid picture. Then you’ll see.
(Emily gets picture from
mantle. Shroud falls on floor.)
Bonnie: She thinks there’s something special about the
picture of Maddie as a mermaid.
Emily: Maddie had a gypsy bewitch this picture. If you look
– I mean really look – at her nipples you’ll fall in love with her. She paid the gypsy $200 for that spell – her
entire fee for making this ad.
(Sunshine looks flustered.)
Emily: It’s okay. I
know you’re gay. I can always
tell. I know you’ll look. And then you’ll understand.
(Bonnie takes a draining gulp
of her tea and puts the cup down in front of Sunshine.)
(Sunshine looks deeply into
her teacup.)
Sunshine: The leaves are still swirling. I can’t contact the dead yet. They are
perturbed.
Bonnie: Here, read my tea leaves. I’m finished.
Charlie: Honey, are you sure you want to do this?
Bonnie: Maybe if Emily sees she’s not the only one suffering
here, she might calm down.
Emily: Call me Madeline.
My full name is Emily Madeline.
Laura knew who I was. But she didn’t treat me right.
Sunshine: I’m reading your Grandma’s leaves now. If you’re quiet and watch, you’ll learn how
to do it, too.
(Sunshine peers into Bonnie’s
cup.)
Emily: I don’t believe in tea leaf reading.
Sunshine: Your belief is not necessary. Watch and learn.
Sunshine: I see two distinct groups of leaves here. You loved Laura – those are the leaves on
the right. And you hated Maddie. Those are the leaves on the left – just like
the pictures.
Emily: You got that right.
Sunshine: I’m reading for Bonnie now. She needs your silence so she can talk.
Bonnie: Yes, I hated Maddie.
She was the mother-in-law from hell.
She never let me discipline Laura.
She was always criticizing me.
My cooking wasn’t good enough.
My cleaning wasn’t good enough. Nothing I said was good enough.
Sunshine: That must have been rough. Did you stand up for yourself?
Tell her this was your home and you like it the way you make it?
Bonnie: I could never do that. Charlie loved her. And
Laura loved her. And they wanted her
around. I couldn’t risk making her
angry and sending her away. Then
Charlie and Laura would have hated me.
Sunshine: But you had the right to live the way you want in
your own home.
Bonnie: (crying) I should have. I should have done so many
things. But she was always testing me.
And they were always tests designed for me to fail. One time the three
of us, Charlie, Maddie and I, went for a walk in the mountains, and she hid in
the bushes. I figured maybe she needed
to go, so I didn’t look at her. I just
kept walking. Later she caught up with
me and said she’d been hiding – to see if I’d notice she was missing. And I didn’t do anything, so I failed.
Emily: She could at least have offered me some paper to wipe
myself. She’s so self-centered.
Sunshine: Bonnie is talking now. Go on Bonnie.
Bonnie: This is silly.
She was a horrible woman. She started fights, she tried to get between
me and Charlie. She stole my stuff and hid it. She melted my plastic dishes in
my oven. She rewarded Laura for disobeying me. She deprived me of
motherhood. She ran my home.
She’d have been in my bed if she could.
Sunshine: That’s right.
Let it out.
Charlie: Come on, honey.
She wasn’t that bad. She may
have gotten on your nerves a bit, but she was trying to be nice.
Emily: And she was better at everything than you are!
Sunshine: Bonnie is entitled to her emotions. She’s just saying how she felt things. Go on Bonnie. Tell us how you saw it!
Bonnie: (crying) Maddie took it all. And when Laura got pregnant and moved out, she said it was
because she missed Maddie. She didn’t
want to be around me – she wanted Maddie.
She said Maddie loved her and I didn’t. She thought the baby would love
her.
Sunshine: But you loved Laura.
Bonnie: Laura was my daughter. Of course I loved her. When
Maddie wasn’t around we had fun together.
Laura was talented, and clever.
I enjoyed hearing her stories at the end of every day, watching her
grow. It’s so hard for me to believe
I’ll never see her again. We even
started to grow closer when Emily became a teenager. She started to appreciate some of what I went through.
(Bonnie wipes more tears from
her face.)
Emily: That’s not true.
She didn’t love Laura. Not like
she should.
Sunshine: Let Bonnie talk about Laura. You’ll get your turn. Bonnie needs to talk to help her heal, just
like you do.
Bonnie: Never mind.
Read Emily’s leaves now. She’s
getting impatient.
Emily: See, she never reveals herself. She never makes herself vulnerable. She always has to be perfect.
Sunshine: I see your leaves are divided into two groups,
also. You loved Maddie. And you hated
Laura.
Emily: That’s what I’ve been telling you. Maddie was wonderful – the sort of mom
everybody wants to have. She danced and
rode motorbikes and horses. She was
always doing fun stuff.
Charlie: She never knew Maddie. Maddie died before she was born.
Emily: You never listen to me! It’s my turn. You have to be
quiet. My leaves are being read.
Sunshine: And what about Laura?
Emily: Laura was a drudge.
She worked hard. She took trips
without me – leaving me with these two murdering drudges. She made me do my
homework before I could go out and have fun.
After all the times I rescued her – this is how she repaid me!
Sunshine: Do you think Laura, your mom, was trying to be mean
to you?
Emily: She only had a baby so she could have somebody to
make miserable like she was! She should have gone partying with me. Instead she tried to turn me into a drudge.
Sunshine: Do you really think that you shouldn’t do homework?
Emily: I think I should party and have fun. It’s bad enough I have to go to school. The teachers shouldn’t take up any more of
my time once the bell rings. The whole
point of life is to have fun! School is
just free babysitting for mom so she can run her business without looking after
me. And the only reason they give homework is so you won’t have time for fun.
Sunshine: Have you loved anybody in this lifetime?
Emily: I love Charlie.
Sunshine: And that’s why you came back to this family? So you could love Charlie?
Emily: That’s what I’ve been saying. But he doesn’t love me!
Sunshine: I think it’s time to read Charlie’s tea leaves.
Emily: I’m not done yet!
(Sunshine takes Charlie’s
cup, and peers into it.)
Sunshine: Charlie loved both these women. What a happy man! What a loving man!
Emily: You’re lying.
Charlie: I’ve never understood why the women I love don’t
notice. (Pause) Bonnie excepted.
Emily: Maybe because you kill them! Laura was only on that plane to please you.
She only became a decorator to please you. You killed her, too.
Sunshine: Emily, let’s do an exercise to help you heal. Something to help you separate your lifetime
as Charlie’s mother from your lifetime now as his granddaughter.
(She picks up an apple
slice.)
Sunshine: See this slice.
This is your spirit, whole and clean and pure as it continues from life
to life. But in different lifetimes, we
take on different roles. Last time you
were Charlie’s mom. This time you are
his granddaughter. Now, take the knife
and cut this apple slice in half, to separate the two lifetimes.
Emily: I remember being both. I will always be his mother.
Sunshine: That’s just a memory. Do you know what a memory is?
Emily: Memories are how I know things. Are you dumb?
Sunshine: Memories lie.
Everybody remembers things that never happened. You can’t judge the
present by the past because your memories might be wrong.
Emily: My memories are true.
Sunshine: Even if your memories are true, they are keeping you
from living this life – you are still wrapped up in the last one. You have to let go, or there was no point in
your coming back. You don’t want to
waste this lifetime, do you?
Emily: Remembering who I love is not a waste! I called you here to arrest them. Are you
going to do it or not?
Sunshine: Just try this experiment. You be the judge. Go ahead
cut the apple slice. Live this life
with a fresh beginning.
(She hands the knife to
Emily. Emily takes the blade, and cuts
the apple slice.)
Sunshine: See! You did
it! You’re free now. The past can’t attach itself to you any
more. When you remember being Madeline,
that’s just a memory. It’s not attached to you.
(Sunshine picks up half of
the apple slice, and hands it to Emily.)
Sunshine: Go ahead – eat it, chew it, swallow it. It’s in the
past.
Emily: Look at Maddie’s nipples. Really look at them.
Sunshine: I didn’t come here to...
Emily: I did your experiment. Now you do mine! Look at them!
(Sunshine looks.) (Emily cuts up more apple slices.)
Bonnie: I can’t do four more years of this. Can we give her to an orphanage?
(Sunshine looks back and
forth between the mermaid picture and Emily.)
Charlie: You’re upset about Laura. It’s not fair to take it out on Emily.
Bonnie: I mean it.
I’m willing to give up custody.
Emily: She’s always tried to get between us. Now you see the truth! I’m the one who really loves you!
(Sunshine puts down the
mermaid picture, puts arm around Emily’s shoulders.)
Sunshine: You don’t deserve her. I’ll take her home with me.
She’s such a beautiful spirit!
Sweet Maddie, dearest Maddie.
Get your things and come with me.
I’ll never let these horrid people hurt you again.
Emily: No! No!
(Emily grabs Charlie.)
Emily: I want Charlie to love me. Don’t take me away from Charlie!
Sunshine: Tell him that, to his face. Tell him you love him,
and he can come with us. Say everything that’s in your heart. You’re safe now, you beautiful spirit!
(Emily pushes Charlie down on
the couch, still holding knife.)
Emily: I want you to love me!
Charlie: I do love you, Emily.
Emily: Love me like you should!
Sunshine: More, Maddie!
More!
(Emily stabs Charlie
repeatedly while she shouts.)
Emily: Love me! I
want you to love me!!! Love me! Love
me! I want you to love me!
Sunshine:
(simultaneously): More, Maddie, More!
End.
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