My Sister's Keeper
Page 9
I never trusted myself after that…with anybody. I think I was all right up to then. I mean I liked myself up to then, liking who I was and what I was becoming. I felt closer to you than anyone else. We were such good friends, such good loving friends.
SARAH
More. Face it! Finally face it!
ROBERT
Yes, all right! Yes. I was in love with you. Yes. And it terrified me. I felt…dirty.
SARAH
You felt all women were dirty. Mother. Sister. Women.
ROBERT
Yes.
SARAH
And you stopped yourself from loving me.
ROBERT
Yes. Yes. It’s true. And there was another reason I felt guilty.
(She waits)
I thought you became sick because of the way I felt about you.
SARAH
So now it’s all out. I hope you feel better for it.
ROBERT
No. I see now that there is only one way to stop feeling guilty, to make up for what I did to you. That’s the decision I came to…I must give myself completely. It isn’t a matter of thirty days or one day. I must give myself to you totally and do now what I was incapable of ever doing before. We must sleep together. That is the only way I can get rid of my guilt. We must make love…Now. It’s the only way we can both be cured.
(She moves toward her suitcase and starts putting her clothes in)
What are you doing?
SARAH
If you’re sane I want to be with the nuts. I’m going to a hospital.
ROBERT
What’s got into you? I’ve finally admitted everything…seen everything, just as you’ve been saying.
SARAH
Make love to me so you can get rid of your guilt? Make love to me so you can prove what a man you are! You don’t want to make love…You don’t even want to fuck! You want to fuck me up! It is not because I’m your sister that you couldn’t love me. Agnes was your wife. Were you any different with her? And the twenty to thirty girl friends you’ve had in between. Didn’t you always run the minute they needed you, the minute you started to feel something. You can’t love anybody. Not just me. You make all the familiar sounds of being human but you’re afraid to feel anything. That’s your terror, and it makes you the cruellest man I know.
ROBERT
That’s not true.
SARAH
Then you haven’t understood a word I’d said. Your image of yourself is that of a good, kind, but weak person who really tries.
ROBERT
I do try.
SARAH
You don’t. You want to. But you don’t. You say you feel. You say you love. But you don’t. You’re like all the rest out there…Words. No feelings! If you faced that there might be some hope for you. I will be going into a hospital and you will return to work and your crap. Will anything have changed for you?
ROBERT
I don’t know. I hope so.
SARAH
What?
ROBERT
I’ll at least think of what you said.
SARAH
Hurray! The so-called sane have begun to listen to the so-called insane. There’s hope for the world.
ROBERT
I’ll help take you to the hospital.
SARAH
No. I will have to learn to do things on my own …even going to a nut house. Goodbye…
(She leaves.
He sits there…stunned, thinking…)