by Rajiv Joseph
HANA: Yes.
MICHAEL: Is that right?
HANA: Of course.
MICHAEL: All these years, you said you’d pay one million dollars to the person who found Theresa, and now you are.
HANA: Happily.
MICHAEL: But see, that’s the thing.
It’s what I could never understand—you offering that reward, meant you hadn’t totally given up hope, you still believed somewhere she might be rescued, and if you did believe that, then why would you have given up? Why would you have moved on? A million dollars means you must still have believed, Hana, you still had some faith . . .
HANA: It was something. It was the last thing I could do.
MICHAEL: The last or the least?
HANA: It was something I could do.
MICHAEL: Well what was it? Did you give up on her or not?
HANA: I gave up on her and I also didn’t.
MICHAEL: You can’t have it both ways!
HANA: But I did! I have!
MICHAEL: You did. You have, and now? Now you will forever live in the knowledge that you left her for dead. Because it was easier, because your life mattered more, because you thought there was Peace to be found in This World without Her.
HANA: Yeah, I will. You’re right. I’ll live with that.
MICHAEL: Theresa is my child and I am keeping her here. You don’t get her. You don’t deserve her. You made your choice and it was the wrong one.
HANA: You can’t even speak to her! You wouldn’t allow yourself to speak and now you can’t.
MICHAEL: I will.
HANA: We never would have split up if she hadn’t been taken. You know that. We would have always been together.
MICHAEL: No.
HANA: It is true. And now we get a miracle. We do, you and me.
Because I still love you and you still love me, and our little girl is home.
MICHAEL: (laughs derisively) I don’t love you.
(beat)
We shared a tragic circumstance, and you reacted in a way I find despicable.
I can’t love the mother of my daughter who abandoned her. And I can’t love the wife who divorced me when I needed her. I needed her. I needed my wife and she left me.
(beat)
I will not forgive you, Hana.
You disgust me.
We do have new towels, I just didn’t want to waste them on you.
(Hana laughs; this enrages him)
STOP! DON’T DO THAT, I’M NOT MAKING A JOKE!
HANA: Yes you are.
MICHAEL: I’M NOT!
HANA: Your Aunt Sally gave us these towels. Embroidered with a rose. I loved your Aunt Sally, I was by her side when she died.
I see you, Michael: Picking out a towel for me, picking out Aunt Sally’s wedding gift to us, bringing me Aunt Sally’s towel at 3:00 in the morning. All because I disgust you.
MICHAEL: (turns to leave) Good night, Hana.
HANA: Do you feel as if you are sane?
(beat)
I know that’s weird. Insane people don’t admit to it.
But do you? Are you sane?
MICHAEL: Yes.
HANA: I’m glad. I’m glad you are.
If I didn’t leave . . . If I hadn’t given up like I did, I wouldn’t be sane. I would be nothing. And now, with her back, I would be a lost cause, I would not be able to be a mother to her.
I had to do what I had to do to remain myself, as a person.
I cannot regret that decision.
This whole thing . . . Michael.
You know, everyone’s gotta do something to not keel over.
It killed my mother.
MICHAEL: I know. I’m sorry.
HANA: Her only grandchild.
She spent 12 months saying the rosary and then her teeth fell out. They just fell out one day.
And she kept saying her rosary, and then she died.
But I didn’t die, and neither did you.
So we went about it different ways! We had to choose how to save our lives.
MICHAEL: I didn’t choose to save my life! I chose to find Theresa!
HANA: That is how you saved your life.
None of it matters, because we got a reprieve. Didn’t we? Tell me we didn’t. Whatever decisions we made, whatever we did or didn’t do, Theresa is alive. Our family is back under this roof, the same roof, after 14 awful disgusting ruinous years. Our family is together again.
MICHAEL: That’s not the point.
HANA: Did we get a reprieve?
MICHAEL: We did, in a way, but that doesn’t mean . . . It doesn’t mean the world reverts to what it used to be.
You abandoned me!
A long beat.
HANA: This house is old.
(beat)
You still love me.
MICHAEL: (quietly) I don’t. I don’t.
HANA: You wrote me when you went to Nag’s Head.
All those reports over the years, you never even addressed me, you just sent me information, reports, but then you went to Nag’s Head, because they found that girl there, and they thought it was Theresa, even though she wasn’t the right age, or anything.
Do you remember what letter I’m talking about?
MICHAEL: It was just a report.
HANA: It wasn’t a “report”. It wasn’t. It was . . .
It was this . . .
It was like an echo that came out of nowhere, from a time in my life—our life—when we were happy.
(beat)
Michael, I read it everyday.
(beat)
Nag’s Head.
The water there.
We both were so tan.
We never ate so well.
Every day, it was like God, Yes, Life!
(beat)
We were young.
SCENE 7.
The living room late at night.
Julie sits staring into space.
Theresa is suddenly there.
THERESA: Who are you talking to?
JULIE: You scared me.
THERESA: You were talking to somebody.
JULIE: I don’t think I was.
THERESA: I heard you.
JULIE: I don’t know, maybe I was. Maybe talking to my daughter.
THERESA: Why were you talking to her if she isn’t here?
JULIE: I don’t know.
If you miss someone very much, sometimes you just start talking. Do you want some milk? Or a sandwich? Are you hungry?
THERESA: Does she ever talk back?
JULIE: No.
THERESA: Do you ever see her?
Do you ever think you see her?
JULIE: No . . . I . . . why?
THERESA: I saw Mr. Wolf.
JULIE: Where? When?
THERESA: At the doctor’s office.
He was there. He was the doctor.
JULIE: The doctor?
THERESA: He didn’t know he was, but he was Mr. Wolf. He was a policeman, too. I thought I saw him at the gas station, too. I think I see him everywhere.
JULIE: I don’t think they are actually Mr. Wolf.
THERESA: Of course they are not actually Mr. Wolf, but they are possible Mr. Wolfs, because now that the universe has broken open and I am on the other side of something, there are infinite possible replications of every thing I have ever known, and there are infinite possible Mr. Wolfs, and they may not know who they are, but they speak to me, and I hear him, and his voice is there, like I always knew it, and it tells me things.
JULIE: I don’t think . . .
I think you’re in shock.
THERESA: I at least have a theory why I see him.
You don’t have a theory why you talk to your daughter.
JULIE: It makes me feel better.
THERESA: That’s not a theory.
And I don’t know why that would make you feel better, anyway.
JULIE: You will.
THERESA: I’m not like you.
JULIE: You’re like me in some way
s.
THERESA: My life is specific to me.
JULIE: Yes. It is.
THERESA: This house makes noises.
JULIE: It’s old. It creaks and moans.
THERESA: I hear voices.
JULIE: That’s your father. And your mother. They were speaking in the bedroom. Sounds travel through the vents, and amplify throughout the house. It can sound like ghosts.
They were talking.
THERESA: What were they talking about?
JULIE: You. Them.
THERESA: I want to go home.
JULIE: I understand.
THERESA: What do you understand?
JULIE: I understand that you want to go home.
THERESA: My home is specific to me. My wanting is specific to me.
JULIE: What do you miss the most about your home?
THERESA: That’s an abstract question.
JULIE: I’m sorry. We are all very curious about what your life was like. What your home was like. Who you are, who Mr. Wolf was, what happened to you.
(beat; legitimately asking)
What did happen to you?
Theresa ignores this question, goes to the framed photograph of Julie’s daughter.
THERESA: Your daughter has weird eyes.
JULIE: They’re blue.
THERESA: She doesn’t look real.
JULIE: She is.
THERESA: She is, but this is not her, it’s not real, it’s a photograph, which is an image made by a chemical reaction. It’s an assembly of chemicals and light, that’s all this is, it’s not real, which is maybe why her eyes look weird.
JULIE: Her eyes are blue, that’s all.
THERESA: What do you miss the most about her?
Beat.
JULIE: I don’t know. I miss her, all of her.
THERESA: It’s hard to separate parts of something that operates as a whole, like your daughter or my home. Do you understand what I mean when I say something is an abstract question?
JULIE: I suppose I do.
THERESA: Are you going to find your daughter?
JULIE: I hope so.
THERESA: You don’t know anything, do you?
JULIE: What?
THERESA: What do you know? What have you studied? What do you understand?
(beat)
I know a lot.
I study the heavens.
JULIE: That’s good, I guess.
THERESA: What do you study?
JULIE: I’m not in school.
THERESA: I’m a prophet.
I know about God.
JULIE: You know about God.
THERESA: Yes.
JULIE: What do you know?
THERESA: A lot.
JULIE: Tell me about God. I want to know.
THERESA: God is the collection of absence. He’s the nothing in the universe, which is to say, he’s emptiness, which is to say, he’s everywhere at once. Anything that has nothing? That is God.
I figured that out on my own.
JULIE: That’s so impressive.
THERESA: Your eyes aren’t hot.
JULIE: What?
THERESA: Your eyes aren’t hot, you’re not particularly engaged with what I’m saying, you are not emotionally moved, even though what I told you was true. But you don’t care, you’re impressed because I’m young and use big words, but you don’t actually comprehend me. You don’t comprehend that I am connected to God. Anything that has nothing is God, and everything has nothing and so everything is God, but only in the places where the something is nothing—only in the places where it lacks. God exists in absence!
This is why He’s so hard to find! I figured that out on my own.
What have you ever figured out? That you’re sad?
What else?
Your daughter’s dead.
She’s dead.
A painful silence. Julie recoils, but doesn’t otherwise react.
JULIE: How did she die?
THERESA: She was killed. By the man who took her.
JULIE: How was she killed?
THERESA: I don’t know.
JULIE: How was she killed?
THERESA: He drowned her in water. She was little and he was big and he held her face under water. In a bathtub, he did.
JULIE: When. How long ago? How old was she when she died?
THERESA: She was . . . she was twelve . . .
JULIE: She would only be nine now.
THERESA: She was nine.
JULIE: No she wasn’t.
THERESA: It was the same week. The same week she was taken. She was three. He killed her then.
JULIE: Who was he?
THERESA: Just a man.
JULIE: No, not just a man, who. Who was he? Who took Casey? Who drowned her in a bathtub?
THERESA: Somebody.
JULIE: WHO?
THERESA: I don’t know, just a man.
JULIE: You don’t know anything.
THERESA: I know things.
JULIE: You’re not a prophet.
THERESA: My life is specific to me . . .
JULIE: Yes, it is, it is so specific to you.
You are alive after fourteen years.
You were never raped.
You’ve been educated, well-nourished, cared for . . . loved.
Don’t you know that Mr. Wolf is gone? And that nobody will ever love you like he did ever again? Your mother will not. Your father will not.
Not because they don’t love you, because they do love you, but they will never see you like Mr. Wolf saw you. They will never think of you as a prophet. Nobody ever will.
Nobody will ever look at you like that again.
Or listen to you.
Or think you have anything interesting to say, except that you were a prisoner.
You should have killed yourself with him.
(beat)
My daughter’s not dead.
Long beat. It’s tense, but also not tense. As if they’ve both passed through something now, and can experience a tenuous bond.
JULIE: She liked to clench gravel in her fist.
Our back patio had gravel in between some rocks. She would sit and clench gravel in her little fists. I hated it because I always thought she was going to eat the gravel, but she never did, she just squeezed. Squeeze squeeze squeeze, Casey would have little fists . . . !
And just . . . Clench. Fists!
Her first word was juice. Although she said “jews”. She would point and say “jews,” and very demanding, like she was some little nazi, pointing to where my husband and I were hiding Anne Frank.
Jews!
She had a little duck, a little rubber duck, that was her, you know, her teddy bear, she wanted to sleep with. We had all these plush, stuffed animals, but she liked to cuddle with her rubber duck she named “Andrew.”
She liked the name Andrew because there was a big boy next door named Andrew.
(beat; this is what gets her)
She had a little crush on him I think!
(beat; she recovers)
She had an attitude, I tell you, she was a stubborn little fighter.
She was gonna be trouble one day, we always said. For us, for the boys . . .
(beat; it’s too much, she stops)
She’s not dead.
She can’t be.
She’s alive and she’s happy, she’s being taken care of by someone, just like you were, just like you.
You . . .
You’re more than a prophet, Theresa, you’re a savior, you’re a promise of salvation, you’re the patron saint of lost children.
(beat; a disjointed memory)
My mother always told me when I had misplaced something . . . “Pray to Saint Anthony.”
(beat)
Pray to Saint Anthony.
Long beat.
JULIE: You should never kill yourself, never think about it, never do that. It was a terrible thing to say.
I’m so sorry.
But I just . . .
&n
bsp; I don’t know why you would tell me that, tell me that Casey was dead, why would you say that to me?
That she was drowned in a bathtub.
Where do you . . . ?
Where would you get an idea like that?
Almost imperceptibly, Theresa begins to tense up. After a moment, Julie looks at her, wonders something. Notices something . . .
JULIE: Is that something you saw? Theresa?
THERESA: I didn’t see anything.
JULIE: Did you see . . . ? Did the man who took you . . .
THERESA: Mr. Wolf.
JULIE: Did Mr. Wolf . . . were there other children? Did you ever see anyone else at his house?
THERESA: (getting more nervous) I didn’t see anything!
JULIE: Theresa, look at me . . . look at me . . .
Who else was there? Did you see Mr. Wolf drown a . . .
Did he drown someone in a bathtub?
THERESA: The door was closed! He wouldn’t let me . . .
He wouldn’t let me . . .
I wasn’t supposed to see anything. I peeked.
There was only me, only me and Mr. Wolf.
JULIE: Look at me . . . Theresa, look at me . . . !
THERESA: (frightened) I’m sorry! I peeked . . . I saw him. I saw her . . .
JULIE: Was it Casey? Theresa was it my Casey.
THERESA: It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her, she was older than me . . . and . . . And there was another one . . . and he said I couldn’t look . . .
JULIE: Oh my God . . . Theresa . . .
THERESA: I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .
JULIE: I have to tell your father . . . I have to . . .
Oh my God . . .
THERESA: I’m sorry! I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .
Everything fades around her, as she steps into darkness, continuing to apologize . . .
THERESA: I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .
SCENE 8.
A field at night.
There’s a deep fog that settles over everything.
THERESA: I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .
MR. WOLF: Stop it. Stop apologizing.
THERESA: I was scared . . .
MR. WOLF: I know . . . shhhh . . .
THERESA: You gave her a bath and it was splashy and then it wasn’t splashy and you told me not to look, but I peeked, and I saw . . .
MR. WOLF: Shhhh . . .
THERESA: I won’t run again, I promise I won’t run again . . .
MR. WOLF: I want you to be quiet . . .
THERESA: And now, you’ve taken me so far away. Out to this field. I’ve never been away like this.