by Erin Mallon
Margot: (snapping out of it, but disoriented)
Yes. Margot. What.
Beat.
Tilly: What are you doing?
Margot: Doing? Nothing.
Tilly: Were you... talking to yourself?
Margot: No.
She takes Tilly in for the first time.
Oh hi honeybun. I’m sorry, I was just... remembering. (quick beat.) Could you hear me? Remembering?
Tilly: Yes.
Margot: Oh. That must have seemed...
Tilly: No. I don’t think you’re crazy.
Margot: You don’t?
Tilly: No. I don’t.
Margot beams at her.
She’s missing many of her teeth.
Margot! What! Why is your mouth - ?
Margot: (feeling around her mouth with her fingers)
Oh. This. This is – Your father has been helping me.
Tilly: By pulling your teeth?
Margot: They were infected. I’m infected. But hopefully not for long. Come here, come here come here. It’s been a few days, let’s measure you.
She guides Tilly to the wall, where they’ve marked her height previously.
Tilly: It’s been three days since our first one. I don’t think I’ve grown any yet.
Margot: Pish posh, you’re a weed! Let’s see.
She measures her and puts a new mark on the wall.
Oh! Well, will you look at that! That’s another millimeter there!
Tilly: Really???
Margot: Yes ma’am. I told you! You’re a weed!
Tilly stares at her mouth a moment.
Tilly: Your mouth – Does it hurt?
Margot: First day it did, but I’m better now. Quick healer, me.
Tilly: Really?
Margot: Really. (quick beat.) So what’s new little big girl? Besides being a whopping millimeter taller?
Tilly: Why do you think you’re like this?
Margot: Like what? Beautiful? Intelligent? Fascinating?
Tilly: Just... the way you are.
Margot: I don’t know.
Beat.
You think I should change?
Tilly: No. Please don’t.
Margot: Alright. I won’t.
Tilly: How can you smile when you are here?
Margot: It’s natural to smile, isn’t it?
Tilly: I don’t know.
Margot smiles.
It makes Tilly smile.
Margot: It is a strange reaction to joy, isn’t it? A big, toothy mouth stretch?
Margot demonstrates a rapid succession of smiles.
Weee-oh-weeee-oh-weeee-oh-weeeee-oh-weeeeeeeeeeeee.
Tilly laughs.
Tilly: Yes.
Beat.
Margot: Can you help me with something?
Tilly: Sure. What do you-
Margot: I need to brush my teeth. The ones that are still... (quick beat.) And I’ve been afraid to go in there myself and – (quick beat.) Can you do it for me?
Tilly: Oh.
Margot You can say no.
Tilly: No. Of course I can.
Margot produces a toothbrush.
Margot: I’ve been clutching this toothbrush in my hand all day, afraid of it. This tiny little brush. Silly isn’t it?
Tilly: I have tooth powder we can –
Margot: No, just - (quick beat) Water. Just water for now.
Tilly dips Margot’s toothbrush into her water glass.
Margot: Such a sweet girl, you. Thank you.
Tilly brushes Margot’s teeth.
It’s quiet except for the sound of brushing.
Margot flinches.
Tilly: Did I hurt you? I’m sorry!
Margot: I’m fine, I’m fine.
Tilly continues brushing. Very carefully.
Margot strokes her face.
Tilly: There. All done.
They finish brushing.
Margot: Thank you honeybun.
Tilly: You’re welcome.
Silence.
Margot: Honeybun?
Tilly: Yes?
Margot: You did not kill your mother. You know that, right?
Beat.
Tilly: I created a ruckus on my way out.
Margot: You didn’t know how to get out.
Tilly: But-
Margot: Did you know how to get out?
Tilly: ...No.
Margot: No. If we knew how to get out of the difficult spots we find ourselves in without hurting anyone, of course we would. (quick beat.) Sometimes things just happen and people need someone to blame. But that person is most definitely not you.
Tilly: No?
Margot: No. I’ll bet your Mama was never happier than the day she found out she was having you. I felt that way every single time, even when I knew that they wouldn’t... (quick beat.) Well.
Beat.
Tilly: I saved my tea for you.
Margot: Such a sweetheart, you.
Tilly: I wasn’t sure when you’d come back, but I saved it the past three nights just in case.
Margot: Shall we picnic then?
Tilly: We shall.
Tilly spreads a blanket on the floor.
They sit down on it.
Margot: Cheers honeybun.
Tilly: Cheers.
They share the cup of tea.
Silence a moment while they sip back and forth.
Margot: Did you know that when someone you love dies they turn into the moon?
Tilly: Is that true?
Margot: Yes.
Tilly: But lots of people die. How can they all be the moon?
Margot: Well-
Tilly: My mama died, my grandmother died, my grandfathers died. Everyone who’s not here but used to be has died, so.... they’re all the moon?
Margot: Sure, if you believe that they are.
Tilly: That doesn’t make any sense.
Margot: Who’s talking about sense?
Silence.
Can you play that song you were practicing the first time I visited you?
Tilly: Beethoven? The Moonlight-
Margot: That’s the one.
Tilly: Sure.
Tilly goes to set up the gramophone.
Do you play any instruments?
Margot: Yes. I play the belly drums.
Tilly: Really?
Margot: Hahahahahahaha. That means I don’t play anything, honeybun.
Tilly: Oh.
Margot: I sing though. God, I miss singing.
Beat.
Go on. And play along with your violin again for me, will you?
Tilly: I’m not very good.
Margot: That’s right, you’re not. You’re wonderful.
The music begins to play.
They listen together a moment.
Tilly starts playing along with her violin.
Margot closes her eyes and sings along with the violin melody.
Margot: (singing)
I’m afraid I’m afraid I’m
Gone
I am gone.
I am free
I am me
I’m alone
You are not my friend I’m young and frail I’m old and stale
Pale-
(dropping the singing)
Turn it off, turn it off, can you turn it off?
Tilly: Sure sure sure.
The recording shuts off.
Silence.
They sit and breathe together for a moment.
Tilly: Are you okay?
Margot: I think so.
Tilly: Okay.
Beat.
I didn’t know ther
e were words to that song.
Margot: Neither did I.
Beat.
It’s hard being in a corporeal body, isn’t it?
Tilly: What?
Margot: I’ve always thought it would be much easier if we could skip the physical and exist only as ideas of ourselves.
Tilly: Are you saying you were a... corporal in the army?
Margot: Hahahahaha. No. But that would be something, wouldn’t it?
Beat.
I’m saying that living in a body – living in a woman’s body is hard.
Tilly: Oh. (Beat) I don’t know what you’re saying a lot of the time.
Margot: That’s okay.
Tilly: But you make more sense to me than anyone I’ve ever met.
Margot smiles.
Margot: Hmm.
Tilly stands.
There is blood on the blanket.
Tilly: Well, I should probably get ready for-
Margot: What is-? Oh god, honeybun, no.
Tilly: (looking around)
What?
Margot: There’s blood on the blanket. It’s your time! You’ve gotten your time!
Tilly: My what?
Margot: Your time! Quick! Change your clothes! Go go go, change your clothes.!
Tilly: Why? What’s wrong? What’s happening?
Margot bunches up the blanket in a panic.
Margot: We need to burn this blanket!
She throws it behind the dressing screen.
Tilly: What’s going on? Why are you-?
Margot: You can’t let your father know! Don’t tell your father! You can’t end up like me! He’ll hurt you, he’ll hurt you, he’ll hurt you, he’ll-
Tilly: My father? Why? Why would he-?
The locked door starts to rattle.
Henry’s voice comes from the other side.
Henry: Tilly? Tilly! Who’s in there with you?? Tilly!
Beat.
Margot: He’ll hurt you.
SCENE NINE
The sound of waves.
Susan and Ilda are on the beach, looking out over the water.
Ilda: Ooh look up. There she is. Looks like a swirly white marble up there in the daytime, doesn’t she?
Susan: You know for the longest time I thought that was the Earth I was looking at.
Ilda: How could it be the Earth? We’re standing on the Earth.
Susan: I’m aware of that, mother.
Ilda: That there is the moon.
Susan: I know. I’m talking about when I was a kid. It didn’t make sense to me that you could see the moon in the daytime.
Ilda: But it did make sense to you that the Earth could be in two places at once? I didn’t realize you were such a moron as a child. Dolphins! Oh dolphins look!
Susan: Wow!
They watch a moment.
Ilda: I just love seeing that! Doop – ahhh - Doop – ahhh - Doop! (she mimics the gesture of their jumps with her hands) You know that dolphins spin out their young, don’t you?
Susan: Spin out their-? Oh, I think that’s whales you’re talking about. Whales spin out their young.
Ilda: You’rerightyou’reright. Dolphins fornicate for pleasure. Whales spin out their young. I always mix those up. I need to remember that for the future.
Susan: Do you though?
Ilda: Sure!
Susan: Ok.
Beat.
You know wearing high heels on the beach is a bit depressing.
Ilda: What can I tell you, darling. You do what you have to do in this world.
They listen to the sound of the waves for a few moments.
What is that contraption you brought with you?
Susan: Portable radio. I want to tune into the moon landing. They’re estimating it to be around 4:30.
Ilda: Why?
Susan: Why do I want to listen? Oh I don’t know. Perhaps because this is the biggest, most exciting, terrifying, hopeful thing to happen in our country in years?
Ilda: Bullcrackers! Vietnam. Bay of Pigs. Kennedy assassination. Stonewall riots.
Susan: I said “hopeful.”
Ilda: The invention of the birth control pill, then! Now talk about hopeful! (quick beat.) Oh, if only could have spun you out. Giving birth to you was such an ordeal.
Susan: Mom-
Ilda: Just brutal.
Susan: Mom? We both know you didn’t give birth to me.
Beat.
Ilda: Don’t hurt my feelings.
Susan: I’m not. It’s just a fact.
Ilda: There’s nothing wrong with being adopted!
Susan: I know there’s not, but-
Ilda: I was adopted. Eventually.
Susan: Why have you always been so weird about it then?
Ilda: How? How have I been weird about it?
Susan: How about making me guess? (quick beat.) You didn’t’ tell me. You made me guess. I think things would have been easier for me if -
Ilda: Well, I thought it would have been obvious! Why make me talk about it?
Susan: Why make me ask about it? You made me hurt you by asking.
Ilda: You didn’t hurt me.
Susan: You wept when I confronted you. For days.
Ilda: You have no idea why I weep.
Silence.
I birthed you, believe me. It may not have been through my body, but I birthed you! You turned my world upside down and dropped me on my ass sideways.
Susan: I’m sorry being my mother has been so traumatic for you.
Ilda: Not for a second. You’re the greatest gift I’ve ever been given and there’s not a day goes by that I don’t praise the god above that I don’t believe in that you’re mine.
Susan: Really?
Ilda: Really.
Beat.
Susan: You’re hard to talk to, you know that? You swing in such- I’ve never known which you I’m going to get.
Ilda: Well, I don’t know what you want me-
Susan: When I was a little kid, there was practically no parenting happening. I was feral.
Ilda: Feral is good! Especially for a woman.
Susan: I wasn’t a woman though. I was eight.
Ilda: I believed in you and what you were capable of. That makes me a bad mother?
Susan: No. But it made you an uninvolved mother. Then I turned 13 and it was like you suddenly realized there was another living being in your house and You. Smothered. The. Shit. Out of me.
Ilda: You were puberty-ing. You needed me more than before.
Susan: Puberty-ing is not a verb.
Ilda: It should be. (quick beat.) Bodies are so strange. And specific. And spiteful.
Susan: Spiteful?
Ilda: It’s like they’re on a constant quest to make sure you’re humble. I remember learning as a child that I was a mammal. It blew my mind. The nursing your young thing I could get behind. But the “covered in hair?” No. A monkey was covered in hair. A possum was covered in hair. I wasn’t covered in hair. One day I noticed my eyebrows grew in funny in the corners. Stuck straight out. These two little pieces of stick-straight hair pointing out into the void. One day your father caught me plucking them at the bathroom mirror. “Plucking your horns, huh?” he said. My “horns.” He’d noticed something about me. He was making fun of me and it should have made me mad, but all I could feel was grateful that he saw something specific about me... and, for the moment at least, despite what he saw... he loved me.
Beat.
Bodies can be amazing too though. I nursed you, you know.
Susan: You did?
Ilda: Oh yes, I nursed the hell out of you. Until you were practically a pre-schooler. You begged for my “noo-noos” constantly.
Susan: But how did you-
Ilda: Mind over matter. I noo-noo you were my daughter. So my body noo-noo you were my daughter. Milk flowed accordingly. Hahahahahaha.
Susan: ...
Ilda: Sweetheart. Things were different back then. They encouraged parents not to say anything. You were supposed to “pass” as our biological child. It was “distressing” for the child and shameful for the adoptive parents if anyone knew. But I was never ashamed. Never.
Susan: Dad was though. Ashamed.
Beat.
Ilda: That had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. (quick beat.) I wasn’t honest with him. About a lot of things.
Beat.
Susan: Well I hope one day you feel like you can be honest with me.
Ilda: Me too.
Beat.
Susan: Oh! Oh. What time is it what time is it what time is it?
Ilda: You know I don’t wear a watch. I transcend time.
Susan: Of course you do.
Susan turns on the radio and frantically searches the dials.
Static sounds.
Susan: Oh here we go, here we go, here we go!
Note: Actual audio from the moon landing plays. Susan and Ilda listen along with the audience. Actors have freedom to improvise and react a small bit under the audio. Though once we hear “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind,” Ilda jumps in and the audio fades.
Ilda: Oh what a bunch of hogwash! “One small step for man...” Did he practice that nonsense??!
Susan: Mom, relax. This is an amazing moment.
Ilda: No it is not! (into the radio) Get off her! Get off her right this second! (shouting up to the moon itself) Get off her! Don’t you touch her!!!!!
Susan: Mom, you’re acting crazy!
Ilda: DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT! DON’T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT!
Susan: I’m sorry! I’m worried about you, I’m-
Ilda: No. You will not do that to me. I’ve had a life! I’ve had a long life! Decades before you were even a blip on my radar. You don’t get to show up now and treat me like a child.
Susan: Mom, I’m sorry, I-
Ilda: I am not a simple person.
Susan: I didn’t say you were a –
Ilda: I am an intelligent person. I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things!
Susan: Mom, please...
Ilda: I know things! I know things! I know things! I know things!
Susan: STOP!!!!
Silence.
Shhhh. I’m – Are you ok?
Ilda: I don’t know.
Beat.
I’m tired.
