(One month later, afternoon. The living room. The easel and paintings are gone. The sofa is not made up as a bed. Bernadette is seated, cradling a teddy bear. Kip rushes in, excited, carrying mail.)
KIP: The mail’s here!
BERNADETTE (In baby voice): Oh. (In natural voice) Oh.
KIP (Sorting through the mail): They better be here—what are you doing?
BERNADETTE: Practicing.
KIP: Practicing what?
BERNADETTE: Talking.
KIP:YOU talk perfectly well—
BERNADETTE: Talking to the baby.
KIP: Don’t you?
BERNADETTE: Sebastian says tests prove that babies respond to tiny, high-pitched, baby voices. And that I shouldn’t talk to him in my natural voice. My natural voice probably gives the baby headaches.
KIP (Handing her a letter): Something for Sebastian.
(She takes the letter, looks at it and puts it on the table.)
KIP: HERE THEY ARE!
BERNADETTE (Flat): Oh good.
KIP: They would wait till the last minute. Everything good comes at the end of something, or maybe things just seem to end when something good happens—it doesn’t matter. THEY’RE HERE! Our passport to a brand new life! We can shed our past and be Adam and Eve. The envelope is vibrating!
BERNADETTE: You’re vibrating.You’re holding the envelope.
KIP: EVERYTHING IS EXCITING! EVERY SENTENCE ENDS IN EXCLAMATION POINTS!
BERNADETTE: Because you’re shouting.
KIP: Sometimes in life things just snap into perspective. What was blurry becomes suddenly clear. My eyes are hungry for new details—look at this house!
BERNADETTE: What’s wrong with it?
KIP: Everything is so mundane! Where did we get this furniture? From a catalogue? We’re about to begin the adventure of our life!
BERNADETTE: I didn’t talk to him.
KIP: I knew it.
BERNADETTE: I meant to—
KIP: You’ve been avoiding it for weeks.
BERNADETTE: That’s not altogether true.
KIP: You’re afraid to tell him.
BERNADETTE: Why is it my job?
KIP: He’s your brother.
BERNADETTE: We could leave him a note.
KIP: That’d be cruel.
BERNADETTE: We could say it with flowers?
KIP: We’ve discussed it, Bernadette. We’ve decided. Plans have been made, bargains struck, vaccines injected and passports updated.
BERNADETTE (Standing): I’m going to finish packing.
KIP: You haven’t packed?!
BERNADETTE: I tried. But I just stand there and stand there with all my dresses laid out on the bed and coordinating accessories draped over the pillows. I study them and stare at them, and I don’t know what to take! Nothing seems to match up! Every time I try, I burst into tears!
KIP: You cry entirely too easily.
BERNADETTE: I like the blue dress with the matching bolero, but it pinches and leaves red welts on my waist. I don’t know if the purple one is dressy enough—
KIP: For what?
BERNADETTE: For dinner.
KIP: In the jungle?
BERNADETTE: What if someone invites us to dinner?
KIP: They won’t!
BERNADETTE: They might. You don’t know that. You can’t tell what’s going to happen. We could get invited to dinner and I’d hate to be embarrassed by my outfit. There’s nothing worse than being underdressed, unless it’s being overdressed.
KIP: I’ll pack for you.
BERNADETTE: You don’t know a thing about fashion.
KIP: I know what I like.
BERNADETTE: Look at yourself. Look at your shoes and belt combination. Do you think they go together? I guess it’s a good thing you only paint white, because you’re obviously colorblind.
KIP: I’m going to pack for you. Now. While you talk to your brother.
(Kip exits. Bernadette kisses the teddy bear, then crosses cautiously to the nursery. She knocks on the door. Sebastian opens it a crack. He is wearing a shirt with pajama bottoms.)
SEBASTIAN: Yes?
BERNADETTE: Sebastian, you’re wearing a shirt!
SEBASTIAN: What do you want?
BERNADETTE: It’s a sign. You’re on the road to recovery. You’re getting better.
SEBASTIAN: Better than what?
BERNADETTE: You’re out of pajamas.
SEBASTIAN: The baby spit up on me.
BERNADETTE: Oh.
SEBASTIAN: He’s walking now.
BERNADETTE: He can’t walk.
SEBASTIAN: He is.
BERNADETTE: He’s four months old.
SEBASTIAN: You’re extremely negative. Your low expectations are bound to be met by life.
BERNADETTE: Don’t lecture me.
SEBASTIAN: People can do anything they put their minds to.
BERNADETTE: Not babies.
SEBASTIAN: Look for yourself!
(She looks into the nursery.)
BERNADETTE: He’s sleeping.
SEBASTIAN (Spinning around): What!?
BERNADETTE: The baby is sound asleep. And thank goodness.
SEBASTIAN: Well, he’s tired. He must’ve walked miles, so naturally he’s tired. But he was walking!
BERNADETTE: Sleepwalking?
SEBASTIAN: Leave me alone. Is she here?
BERNADETTE: No.
SEBASTIAN: Thank God. I’m starved. (He rushes out of the nursery to the fruit bowl on the table. He takes a bite from an apple)
BERNADETTE: I have to talk to you, Sebastian.
SEBASTIAN: Where is she anyway?
BERNADETTE: I don’t know. She called a taxi early this morning.
SEBASTIAN: Is she coming back?
BERNADETTE: Of course.
SEBASTIAN: Damn. (He notices the letter on the table) What’s this?
BERNADETTE: It came today. Please sit down and listen to me.
(He drops the apple and tears open the letter quite excitedly. He doesn’t hear her at all.)
BERNADETTE: Kip and I have made plans. This affects you, Sebastian. We’re—
(The general lighting abruptly goes out, leaving Sebastian isolated in a pool of light. He reads the letter.)
SEBASTIAN: “Dear Sebastian, I haven’t written you in quite a while, several months really. Because I wasn’t sure how to respond to the letters I have received.
(A second pool of light comes up on Dylan, who looks straight ahead as he speaks.)
SEBASTIAN AND DYLAN: You have written to me so much. So often. I have nearly been crowded out of my cell by the thousands of pages you have sent.
DYLAN: I have burned my eyes reading the millions of words you have written. I hope you do not think I didn’t write because I was not sorry about what happened to you. I was. Sincerely. But I think, I find your letters have changed. And I did not know what to think. You write me that—
SEBASTIAN: I lie on the floor at night, in the dark, by myself
DYLAN: In my nephew’s nursery
SEBASTIAN: And I imagine that you are lying next to me. I imagine I can hear your breathing and feel it cool on my face.”
DYLAN: You write:
SEBASTIAN: “I can feel your skin and your arms around me.
DYLAN: I can see you
SEBASTIAN: When the room is dark enough. And you look peaceful. Like a child, asleep next to me. I wish you would be peaceful. I would love you and protect you. I would take away everything that hurts you. I would have you curl up, inside of me, and stay there forever.”
DYLAN: You write:
SEBASTIAN: “I run my fingers over your face and your skin is smooth. Your hair smells clean. I put my mouth on your mouth and on your neck and your cock and I taste you. You smile, groggy, because you are happy and safe. You taste salty to my tongue.”
DYLAN (After a moment): And you say:
SEBASTIAN: “I love you.”
DYLAN: In thousands of ways and hundreds of languages.
(Sebastian now looks at Dylan, who looks ahead.)
SEBASTIAN: I love you.
(Pause.)
DYLAN (A powerful command): DO NOT.
SEBASTIAN: I love you.
DYLAN: I look at my hands. They are just hands. They are like your hands.—They have taken a life.
SEBASTIAN: So?
DYLAN: You don’t want to know so many things.
SEBASTIAN: I love you.
DYLAN: I have done horrible things! I have done things I wish I had only imagined. Things beyond my ability to believe! And I can blame forever. I can blame my parents and God, and drugs, and you, and be right every time!!—But they are my hands. I own them. They do what I tell them.
SEBASTIAN: I love you!
DYLAN: When I came here, it was like a dream. I have watched myself for a very long time. I have hated me for years. I lie, awake, at night and I am sick, truly sick, with poison in my bowels because I am me. I am dying, knowing there is something wrong in me. Something missing in me!!
SEBASTIAN: Me!
DYLAN: I have thought I am not human when I wanted to cry and found I could not. And who will feel pity for me?! I have what I earned.
SEBASTIAN: No!
DYLAN: I have wanted to die and tried to! But whatever I am, I am incapable or unwilling to accomplish that. And no one will help me! I am trapped in the person of myself!!
SEBASTIAN: I love you!
DYLAN: I WANT IT TO STOP! The only thing I feel is a terrible, black, sick, hate! I have been punished and punished myself! And it does not work! It does not stop! I want to cut off my hands! I cannot undo what they have done! BUT I CAN DO SOMETHING
ELSE!
SEBASTIAN: Don’t!
DYLAN: Do not write me anymore, Sebastian. I am killing you.
SEBASTIAN: NO!
DYLAN: You have written me too much! You’re a sad, lonely human being!
SEBASTIAN: NO!
DYLAN: I AM KILLING YOU!
SEBASTIAN: NO!
DYLAN: You have nothing else and see nothing else and want nothing else, because I am everything and it is KILLING YOU. I AM KILLING YOU! AND I WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN!
SEBASTIAN: PLEASE NO!!!!
DYLAN (Still): You have been kind to me and you will think I am cruel, but I am trying to save you...
SEBASTIAN: No.
DYLAN: Do not write me again. I will not open your letters. And I will never respond.
(Pause. He looks at Sebastian) I release you.
(Dylan leaves his pool of light and crosses to Sebastian. They look at each other for a moment, very close. Then they kiss. After a moment Dylan breaks the embrace. He turns and slowly exits, leaving Sebastian alone in his pool of light. Sebastian is shattered and slowly turns his back to the audience. The general lighting returns abruptly. Kip and Hillary have joined Sebastian and Bernadette in the room. Kip is standing at one end with suitcases. Hillary is standing in the doorway. Her arms are extended and party hats hang from her wrists.)
HILLARY: Bon voyage!
KIP: How wonderful!
HILLARY: I couldn’t let you leave without a proper send-off!
KIP: That’s extremely generous of you, Hillary. Isn’t that sweet of Hillary?
BERNADETTE: You packed?
KIP: Two pairs of pants and plenty of T-shirts. You’ll fit in anywhere.
BERNADETTE: I hope not.
HILLARY: Bon voyage! Good voyage!
(Kip takes the hats from Hillary. He puts one on and proceeds to put hats on Hillary, Bernadette and Sebastian.)
KIP: Isn’t this exciting? This is festive.
BERNADETTE: The hats say “happy birthday.”
HILLARY: Do they? I’m so sorry.
KIP: It doesn’t matter. (To Bernadette) You look beautiful!
HILLARY: I tried to make a cake last night. I stayed up all night long. But I kept burning my fingers.
KIP: The effort was sweet.
HILLARY: I wouldn’t’ve been able to write on the cake anyway.
KIP (Putting a hat on Sebastian): It’s the thought that counts.
HILLARY: I did get noisemakers!
KIP: I love noisemakers!
(Hillary blows her noisemaker.)
BERNADETTE: You’ll wake the baby.
HILLARY: Sorry.
KIP: They always remind me of New Year’s Eve when everything is full of hope for fresh beginnings, a chance to redesign yourself!
BERNADETTE: NewYear’s Eve makes me nervous. No matter where I go, I’m dressed inappropriately. I wear something simple, everyone’s in black tie and vice versa.
HILLARY: I’m very sorry the hats say “happy birthday.” The man at the store told me they said “bon voyage.” I can’t read glitter.
BERNADETTE: I always get indigestion on NewYear’s Eve.
HILLARY: I think he hated me. He had terrible body odor and I’m hypersensitive to that kind of thing lately.
KIP: It doesn’t matter one bit and I won’t tolerate your feeling bad about it. In a way, this is our birthday. We’ve been in utero for years. But tonight we’ll soar, like Pegasus, across the sky, among the stars and be finally born!
BERNADETTE (Tugging her hat): The elastic hurts my neck.
HILLARY: I feel sad. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. The house will seem so empty without you.
KIP: We’ll miss you too.
BERNADETTE (Removing her hat): I can’t breathe. I’m not wearing this.
KIP: We’ll write you postcards every fifteen minutes.
HILLARY: Please don’t. I couldn’t read them anyway.
KIP: We’ll write in Braille.
(Sebastian finally turns around.)
SEBASTIAN: What’s going on?
HILLARY: Sebastian! You’re out!?
SEBASTIAN: What’s going on here?
KIP (To Bernadette): Did you tell him?
BERNADETTE: I couldn’t.
HILLARY: Sebastian, I’m so glad you’re out.
(Hillary walks towards Sebastian, who dashes away from her.)
KIP: What do you mean you couldn’t?
HILLARY: Where are you?
BERNADETTE: I tried to, but—
SEBASTIAN: Tell me what? What does everyone know but me?
KIP: Tell him.
SEBASTIAN: What kind of plot’s been hatched? What is everyone talking about? And why am I wearing this idiotic hat!? (He throws his hat on the floor)
BERNADETTE: It’s nothing—
KIP: We’re going away.
(Hillary blows her noisemaker.)
BERNADETTE: Please don’t do that!
HILLARY: Sorry.
SEBASTIAN: What do you mean “going away”? Going where?
BERNADETTE: Kip and I are going to Africa.
KIP: You should’ve told him before now.
SEBASTIAN: Africa? What are you talking about? For how long?!
KIP: Forever.
BERNADETTE: To live.
KIP: Your sister and I are going to live in Africa.
SEBASTIAN: When?! When are you going?
KIP: Tonight.
BERNADETTE: In a little while.
SEBASTIAN: Why on earth?
KIP: Human beings and plants, the earth unspoiled!! We can lose our neuroses and fears. We’ll shed our psychology with our clothes in Africa!! It’s New Year’s Eve and we can remake ourselves—drunk on beauty that burns the eyes!!
SEBASTIAN: Are you having a seizure of some kind?!!
KIP: We’re going to die, Sebastian. We’re all going to die—at least I am—and I will not spend what’s left in regret. Opportunities are all around us! We’re just too blind to see—sorry.
HILLARY: Forget it.
SEBASTIAN: Are you sick?
KIP: I’m fine thanks.
SEBASTIAN: What do you mean, you’re going to die?
KIP: Well, someday—
SEBASTIAN: SOMEDAY! Big news! Your life has a beginning, a middle and end.
KIP: I have only beginnings now.
HILLARY: That’s beautiful. You should write for Hallmark. You speak in verse.
SEBASTIAN (To Bernadette): Do you want this? Do you want to go?
BERNADETTE: I don’t know! I want to be an alcoholic again!
KIP: Again?!
BERNADETTE: I mean I want it again!
SEBASTIAN: This is very upsetting. I’m going to be sick.
KIP (To Hillary): Can you write a prescription?
HILLARY (Shaking her head): I’m a psychologist.
SEBASTIAN: What about the baby?
BERNADETTE: We’re taking the baby.
KIP: Of course.
SEBASTIAN (Exploding): You can’t! YOU JUST CAN’T!
KIP: We can do anything we want!
BERNADETTE: I’m sorry!
KIP: It’s our baby.
SEBASTIAN: I love him!!!
BERNADETTE: Oh God.
KIP: When you’re better you can come and visit.
SEBASTIAN: I’m fine now! There’s nothing wrong with me! I know what this is. This is some kind of plot. I hear you gossiping and scheming. “He doesn’t come out. He never leaves the nursery.” Why should I? I love the baby and I don’t like you!!
KIP: Well!
SEBASTIAN: “He doesn’t get dressed. He lives in pajamas.” Tell me. Where am I going that I should get dressed?!!
BERNADETTE: I knew there’d be a scene!
SEBASTIAN: YOU CANNOT TAKE THE BABY! He’s special! He needs special attention! He has gifts you don’t understand. He’s BRILLIANT!!
KIP: He’s four months old!
SEBASTIAN (Quite bitter): And he’s more intelligent right now than you’ll ever be! He loves me. I play with him and teach him things. He stares at me with no judgment, or fear, or anything. He looks at me like sad dogs playing poker. Total acceptance. You don’t even know him. Did you know that he walked today?
KIP: That’s impossible.
SEBASTIAN: Of course you didn’t!! You were on some “inner journey.” Your psychic pretensions are pathological. Your gestalts are greed in sheep’s clothing!!
KIP: You hallucinate!!
SEBASTIAN: And what’s supposed to happen to me? Do I get carted off, back to the loony bin? Why am I being punished?!!
HILLARY (To the heavens): Why is anyone?!!
SEBASTIAN (To Bernadette): I’m not crazy. You’re the crazy one. Weeping all the time like a broken doll, vomiting after every meal.
BERNADETTE: I gave that up.
SEBASTIAN: Next to you, I’m sanity’s poster boy. You, with all your nerve endings swollen and exposed, dragging an innocent baby off to Africa, where it simply cannot be safe!
KIP: Tell it to the Africans!
SEBASTIAN: When I get to the mental ward, I’m going straight to leather shop and make a gun and kill myself.
BERNADETTE: No one is sending you anywhere. You can stay here.
HILLARY: With me!
SEBASTIAN: Is this April Fools’?!!
HILLARY: I’m going to stay and work with you.
SEBASTIAN (Flat): I hate her.
HILLARY: Give me another chance! That’s all I ask! I’ve eschewed the traditional science of the mind! Take my hand and walk with me to God!!
(Hillary is groping for Sebastian, chasing him, staggering blindly.)
SEBASTIAN: You’re crazy!
HILLARY: Doctors are lucky. Parents never get another chance. They slash their children with knives and the wounds never heal. Doctors get to try again and again.
SEBASTIAN: I’d cut out my tongue rather than tell you the time!
HILLARY: Be my eyes. I’ll be your soul.
SEBASTIAN: How can you leave me with her?!
BERNADETTE: She means well.
SEBASTIAN: She does not. She’s evil! She’s been sleeping with Kip!!!
KIP: What?!
SEBASTIAN: Didn’t you know that? He comes out in the middle of the night and they make love right here. It’s true!
KIP: It’s not!
SEBASTIAN: Hot, sweaty, clandestine sex, in the missionary position, on this sofa, in your house!
KIP: Can there be a point to these masturbatory fantasies?
SEBASTIAN: They fuck in your living room! And now you want to make the room and ME a gift to HER?
KIP: I don’t think Hillary can help you. You’re beyond repair!!
HILLARY: It’s true! WE DID! WE HAVE! WE DID!
KIP: Hillary!?
HILLARY: Make a clean breast of things! It’s better, Kip!!
KIP: I don’t know what she’s talking about.
HILLARY: I can live with it no longer!!
KIP (To Hillary): Be quiet!
HILLARY: I sinned! I was weak! I am weak! What can I expect of me? I have always been so bad! When I was a little girl my parents were mean to me, so I was mean to Scraps—I burned his skin with cigarettes. I want to die!!
SEBASTIAN: This is who’s to take care of me?
HILLARY: I feel better having admitted things, but dirty having done them.
SEBASTIAN: Well, of course you do. You never bathe.
HILLARY: I have to be punished.
KIP (To Bernadette): Don’t believe her. She’s lying, or confused. Maybe it was Sebastian. She’s blind. She could be wrong.
HILLARY (To Sebastian): Will you punish me?
KIP (To Bernadette): Let’s go now.
SEBASTIAN (To Hillary): Gladly.
KIP: Let’s just leave them. We’ll watch the planes take off, carrying all kinds of people to all kinds of places. Flight 708 leaving now for tomorrow. Flight 801 boarding for new beginnings.
HILLARY (On her knees): Bernadette, I’m sorry. Believe me. I am. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt anyone.
BERNADETTE: Apology accepted.
SEBASTIAN: WHAT!?
BERNADETTE: So they had an affair. So what? What am I supposed to do? Fly into rage? Burst into tears? Why?!
HILLARY: I can’t help what I feel for Kip.
BERNADETTE: What do you feel?
HILLARY: I hate him for leaving me.
KIP (To Bernadette): Flight 905 boarding now for forgotten pasts!
HILLARY (To the heavens): Everyone leaves me!
SEBASTIAN: Dear God! Not that song and dance.
HILLARY: My mother put teddy bears in my line of vision and out of my reach. I should never’ve been born.
KIP: Can we please go now, Bernadette?
BERNADETTE: Quiet. I’m listening to Hillary.
HILLARY (Standing): I’m sorry Kip. I am. You can hate me if you want, but I can’t help it—I tried to adopt a brave front and pretend I was thrilled—I bought hats!—
KIP (To Bernadette): Flight 101 away from lunatics.
HILLARY: It’s not your fault, Kip. You never mislead me.You never made promises, or swore oaths or whispered you loved me while lying on top of me. I thought I could be strong, BUT I CAN’T!! You held me in your arms and I thought I’d explode!! How am I supposed to let you walk away? What am I left with but Sebastian, who loathes me with a bottomless venom?
SEBASTIAN: You got that right.
HILLARY: I CAN FIND NO PEACE!!! I’ve tortured myself like the Spanish Inquisition and still I’m mired in the muck of self-hate! I refuse to continue....YOU WILL NOT LEAVE ME, KIP! I can’t survive it. I’ll leave! I’LL LEAVE YOU! I’LL GO FIRST! Let me walk away, do me that favor—I’m sorry, Sebastian, I wanted to help you, but I can’t do it, and I won’t do it at my own expense. Goodbye.
(Hillary exits. Sebastian goes to the nursery and stands in the doorway.)
KIP: Believe me, Bernadette, it was nothing. It meant less than nothing.
BERNADETTE: Don’t speak.
KIP: She blew everything out of proportion.
BERNADETTE (Powerful): Go after her.
KIP: What?
BERNADETTE: Go. Get her.
KIP: I love you.
BERNADETTE: I doubt that. I doubt it very much.
KIP: We’ll put this behind us.
BERNADETTE (Calm, without rancor): In any event, I don’t love you.
KIP: I don’t understand.
BERNADETTE: A simpler sentence has seldom been uttered.
KIP: What are you saying?
BERNADETTE: Can’t we be honest, at last, for once? How long can we possibly pretend we’re happy? A year? Many years? The rest of our lives, I suppose. But one more day will break me.... Go after her. We’re strangers, really. You see a world in dreams and I don’t want to. I have to find some happiness in things, things I can touch, my things, my child, my skin. So go.
KIP: You’re angry with me.
BERNADETTE: No. You rescued me. I’m aware of that. And I you.
KIP: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
BERNADETTE: I was a prisoner in my mother’s life and I was miserable. I was raised underwater and I couldn’t breathe. I needed an escape and you provided.
KIP: Flight 707 leaving for tonight—
BERNADETTE: I no longer need you. We’ve made so many compromises and told so many lies. I thought I only deserved crumbs—Don’t worry, Kip. You’ll have money. I’ll see to that. You helped me escape, and more than that, you gave me what I wanted when I didn’t know I wanted it. A child, the chance to do something right. But don’t insult me with feelings. I think, I always knew, you didn’t love me either. You simply hated your life as much as I hated mine. So can’t we call things even and go our separate ways? You’ll never be poor. I owe you everything. Here. (She holds out the tickets to Kip)
KIP (After a moment): What about the baby?
BERNADETTE: He’ll be fine.
KIP: He needs a father.
SEBASTIAN: I’ll be the father.
KIP: You?
SEBASTIAN: I love him.
BERNADETTE: Did you ever really want the baby? Do you want the baby?
KIP: Yes.
BERNADETTE: Do you hold him?
(No response.)
BERNADETTE: Do you let him know?
(No response.)
SEBASTIAN: I’ll be the father. I’ll do a good job. I’ll do my best.
BERNADETTE: Here. Take Hillary.
KIP: I don’t know where she went.
(Bernadette goes to the door and looks out.)
BERNADETTE: She’s a blind woman. She’s standing on the lawn.
(Kip goes to the nursery and looks in for a moment. Then he picks up the luggage and approaches Bernadette.)
KIP: Thank you.
BERNADETTE: Thank you.
(He takes the tickets and kisses her goodbye. It is not passionate but, rather, loving and gentle. He exits. Bernadette closes the door behind him.)
SEBASTIAN: Are you alright?
(She nods.)
SEBASTIAN: Upset?
(She shakes her head “no.”)
SEBASTIAN: Sad?
BERNADETTE: I feel like taking off my clothes and singing.
SEBASTIAN: Please don’t. (He looks into the nursery) Bernadette! Come here! Come here quickly!
(She goes to the nursery door.)
BERNADETTE: What is it?
SEBASTIAN: He’s walking.
BERNADETTE: My God.
SEBASTIAN: I told you.
BERNADETTE: He’s walking.
(Sebastian leaves the nursery door and picks up his discarded party hat.)
SEBASTIAN: He’s brilliant.
BERNADETTE: It’s a miracle.
SEBASTIAN: Bernadette?
BERNADETTE: He’s lying down.
SEBASTIAN: Can I ask you something?
BERNADETTE: What?
SEBASTIAN: Can we call him, Simon?
BERNADETTE: (Turning to him): Simon?
SEBASTIAN: I’d like to name the baby Simon.
BERNADETTE: Who’s Simon?
SEBASTIAN: Someone I loved.
BERNADETTE: Oh.
SEBASTIAN: Who died.
BERNADETTE: I’m sorry.
SEBASTIAN: I held his hand and helped him. And I really cared for him. He was very smart. And very beautiful. To me.
BERNADETTE: He sounds very nice.
SEBASTIAN: He wasn’t. Really. Before he died, he slept with several people. I think. Willfully.
BERNADETTE: Oh?
SEBASTIAN: I think he killed them. (He turns away from her)
BERNADETTE: Oh.
SEBASTIAN: I never said that before. I think he did. I think he meant to. (He starts to cry) But I loved...(Inaudible) him.
BERNADETTE: Well...people—
SEBASTIAN: I miss him.
BERNADETTE: Are you crying?
SEBASTIAN (Hiding): I miss him.
(She goes to him and holds him.)
BERNADETTE: Good.
SEBASTIAN: I miss him.
BERNADETTE: Cry.
SEBASTIAN: I miss everyone.
BERNADETTE: I know.
SEBASTIAN: I do.
BERNADETTE: Ssshh. Everything is fine.
SEBASTIAN: I miss Mother.
BERNADETTE: Everything is wonderful.
(She comforts him. Fadeout.)
END OF PLAY