Sycamore

by Bryn Chancellor

  As she stared down now at Jess’s picture, her eyes so blurred she could hardly see the photo, Rachel pictured Maud sitting on her sofa, staring out her large front window with its view of the driveway and street, where she so often sat, waiting. She set down the article, choking off a sob. She never wanted that, even in her darkest hour.

  She ran her hands along the dining table. Her mother’s. A beautiful Mission style with two extra leaves she’d had restained after Adam moved out, when she repainted and rearranged and reupholstered what she could. She couldn’t get rid of this table, but she could change it, make it unrecognizable. That was what she’d done with everything from that time, physical and intangible: removed it, scrubbed it clean, pushed it far away from herself so it was as if it had happened to another person.

  This old table. The place of that last dinner—the Last Supper, ha. A night so ridiculously dramatic that if such a script had shown up in playwriting workshop, she’d have shredded it for its overwrought screeching, its utter over-the-topness. She’d have asked, Do we believe these people? Do we believe this situation? She’d have counseled restraint, razoring the dialogue, slicing away sentimentality to reach sentiment. Perhaps that’s why the moment always returned to her as a play, something she could watch from a distance—something she could critique instead of relive. Something she could rewrite, retell, redo. But of course, she couldn’t change a thing.

  She rubbed the table. She rubbed and rubbed.

  The Last Thanksgiving

  A Play in One Act

  Setting

  1991. Dining table that seats eight.

  Characters

  Adam Newell, 44

  Rachel Fischer-Newell, 42

  Dani Newell, 17

  Iris Overton, 42

  Paul Overton, 17

  Jess Winters, 17

  Maud Winters, 39

  Act 1, Scene 1

  Lights up on dining table. Behind it, sliding glass doors overlooking backyard. Carved turkey in center of table. Kitchen stage right, piled high with dishes. Pies cooling on sideboard stage left. Silverware clinks against china. ALL eating hungrily except PAUL, who toys with his food and watches JESS across from him. ADAM is at one end of table, RACHEL at the other.

  MAUD: Delicious, Rachel.

  ALL (speaking over each other): Yes, thank you, wonderful, delicious, I’m so full!

  ADAM: Yes, lovely, honey.

  (PAUL drops fork on plate with loud sigh.)

  RACHEL: Thank you. There’s plenty. Please.

  DANI: God, I can’t move. I’m going to die, I’m so stuffed.

  JESS (holding stomach): Me, too. So full.

  PAUL (picking up fork and tilting it at JESS): Full of it.

  IRIS: Paul.

  JESS: What’s your problem?

  PAUL: No problem.

  JESS: You’ve been saying shit under your breath to me all day.

  MAUD: Jess. Language.

  DANI: Paul, what’s going on?

  JESS: I don’t know what I did.

  PAUL (laughing): You don’t know what you did. (Leans across table.) How about you, Adam? Do you know what she did? Do you have any idea?

  (ADAM sets down fork and wipes mouth with napkin. Takes drink of water.)

  IRIS: Paul, for Pete’s sake.

  RACHEL: I’m lost. What’s happening here?

  DANI: Paul?

  (PAUL stands up, leans over table, and grabs a roll from a basket. He remains standing and tears roll in half, squeezing it and then dropping it on his plate. He looks at ceiling.)

  PAUL: Adam, how’s it going up there in your studio? Did you get a lot of painting done last night after Rachel went to bed?

  IRIS (tugging on PAUL’s shirt): Sit down. What are you doing?

  ADAM: Some, yes.

  PAUL: Some. (Laughs.)

  ADAM (folding hands on table): Please don’t do this, son.

  PAUL: I am not your son.

  DANI: What is going on?

  (JESS pushes back chair and stands, flapping her hands. MAUD sees this and stands, too. Her chair tips over, and she scrambles to pick it up.)

  JESS: Paul, can I talk to you outside?

  PAUL: Outside. Yes, you do like it outside, don’t you?

  RACHEL: Can someone please tell me what is going on here?

  MAUD: I don’t think she’s well. (Walks around table to JESS.) We should get going. Let’s get on home. Get your coat. Thank you for dinner, Rachel.

  JESS: I need to talk to Paul first.

  PAUL (still standing): Nope. I’m fine right here.

  IRIS: Sit down, Paul. What in the world’s the matter with you?

  (Adam stands, too, looking at JESS.)

  ADAM: It’s okay.

  RACHEL: Everyone should sit. Sit down, please. I’ll make some coffee.

  DANI: No one wants coffee, Mom. Jesus. (To PAUL) Just say it. Tell me.

  JESS: No. It’s over. It’s over.

  MAUD (pulling on JESS’s arm): Get your coat. Now. We’re leaving now.

  (PAUL picks up a butter knife and points it at ADAM.)

  PAUL: Are you going to tell them, or am I?

  ADAM: Please. Not like this.

  PAUL: Like what? You mean like this?

  (PAUL throws butter knife against wall. He turns around, grabs a pie, and turns it upside down, shaking it over tablecloth.)

  IRIS (grabbing PAUL’s arm): What the hell are you doing?

  MAUD: Now, Jess. Let’s go.

  PAUL: Him (points at ADAM) and her (points at JESS). See? Get it? Your husband (points at RACHEL) and your father (points at DANI) is sneaking around the orchard in the middle of the night confessing his undying love to your daughter (points at MAUD). To your best friend (points at DANI). Kissing her against trees. That is the matter. Are we all clear now? Is everybody clear now about what the matter is?

  (PAUL sits, slumping in chair. ADAM stands frozen. MAUD pulls on JESS, who is crying now.)

  JESS (to DANI): Nothing happened. I swear it.

  (DANI scoots chair away from table, puts forehead on tablecloth, and retches onto carpet. RACHEL stays seated, looking at ruined pie.)

  RACHEL: That was a beautiful pie. I was really proud of that pie. Lattice crust. (To ADAM) Is this true?

  ADAM: Not exactly.

  PAUL: You fucking liar. I saw you.

  ADAM (to JESS): Go home now. It’s okay. This is mine to do.

  (MAUD lets go of JESS and runs at ADAM. She pushes him, and he stumbles.)

  MAUD: You don’t tell her where to go. Who do you think you are? She’s mine. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look at her.

  RACHEL (To MAUD): Please get your daughter out of my house.

  ADAM (pulling himself upright, straightening his collar): It’s true. I fell in love with her.

  JESS: Wait. No, please—

  RACHEL (laughing): You fell in love. Isn’t that sweet. Isn’t that a fairy tale.

  ADAM: I’m sorry. It’s not what you think.

  RACHEL: You sick, pathetic man. She could be your daughter.

  JESS: I’m not his daughter.

  DANI: I’m his daughter.

  RACHEL (slowly): Get out of my house.

  IRIS: Let’s go, Paul.

  PAUL: Dani? (Touches her back.) Come on. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.

  (DANI stands up, wipes her eyes and mouth.)

  DANI (to PAUL): Don’t touch me.

  JESS: Dani, please, wait. It’s not what you think.

  DANI: What I think. (Laughs.) My father loves you? Are you, I mean, are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do with that?

  ADAM: Dani, please. Listen.

  JESS: I didn’t do anything. You have to believe me.

  DANI: Well, I don’t. I don’t believe you.

  (DANI exits.)

  IRIS: Dani, wait.

  RACHEL: Oh, shut up, Iris. Let her go. All of you, get the hell out of my house. Dinner’s over. It’s all over.

  (MAUD grabs a red coat off rack and pu
lls JESS out door. IRIS and PAUL shuffle out behind them. ADAM sits next to RACHEL.)

  ADAM: I wasn’t looking for this. I wasn’t looking at all.

  RACHEL: Is that supposed to make it okay? She’s seventeen years old.

  ADAM: Nothing happened.

  RACHEL: What does that mean, nothing happened? Clearly something happened. Clearly.

  ADAM: I didn’t touch her. Not like that.

  RACHEL: Like that. Like what? Like you didn’t fuck her? You didn’t stick your dick in a seventeen-year-old girl? You didn’t lick her little teenage cunt?

  ADAM: Jesus Christ.

  RACHEL: What? Too much? Worse than finding out your husband is in love with a seventeen-year-old girl? Having his cake and eating it, his sweet little seventeen-year-old cake and his dried out forty-two-year-old cake. All the cake, all for him. Man, I hope you choke on it.

  ADAM: I wish you would listen for a minute. Let me explain. Nothing happened. Yes, I feel something for her. Yes, I’m sorting it out. But it’s not like you’re making it out to be. We can talk about this.

  RACHEL: What is there to talk about? You think you’re in love with a seventeen-year-old girl. You should be talking to a prosecutor, not to me.

  ADAM: I didn’t touch her. And she’s almost eighteen.

  RACHEL: Oh, eighteen. (Laughs.) Well, okay, then.

  ADAM: Rachel, please. Please. I’m sorry. I never meant for you to find out this way.

  RACHEL: You never meant for me to find out, period.

  ADAM: No. I never meant for it to happen. This is—I don’t know what this is.

  RACHEL: Is this about your mother?

  ADAM: No. Jesus. No, of course not. Why would you ask that? Don’t be ridiculous.

  RACHEL: It’s not ridiculous. You never—

  ADAM: This has nothing to do with her. You don’t know anything about her.

  RACHEL: Well, that’s true.

  ADAM: This is not about her.

  RACHEL: Can you hear yourself? Poor Adam—

  ADAM: Shut up, Rachel. Leave it alone.

  RACHEL: Don’t you dare tell me to shut up.

  ADAM: I’m sorry. Jesus. I’m not—I didn’t plan this. I swear, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.

  RACHEL: Like the birds.

  ADAM: What birds?

  RACHEL (pointing at back window): They used to smack into the glass before we put the glaze on. Flying along, everything clear as a bell, and then bam. Lights out.

  ADAM: What are you talking about?

  RACHEL: Nothing. None of your business. You’re pathetic. Seventeen years old. Get out, Adam. Go. Leave your things. I don’t want to see you here again.

  (ADAM exits. RACHEL stands up. She holds edge of table, looking out window.)

  (Lights out. End scene.)

  Rachel blinked at the dining table, at the sweating bottle of wine. She was standing up, out of her chair. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the edge of the wood. She saw herself sitting at this table eighteen years ago, writing that poisoned letter in the heat of the moment. Dear Sycamore Friends: I write to tell you some news. Adam and I are no longer living together as a married couple since he has decided he is in love with an underage girl. I will be filing for divorce and returning to my maiden name. Sincerely, Rachel Fischer. She saw herself flipping through her address book and the phone book, emptying a box of envelopes, fueled with vengeance instead of thinking of her daughter weeping in her room, of her daughter’s best friend up the street, huddled in her own bed. She saw herself scratching and scratching and scratching through his name on the mailing labels. She tasted the too-sweet paste of the stamps.

  Mama, are you back yet?

  I’m at the front door. I’m inside the front door. Boo.

  The timer on the oven dinged, and she smelled smoke. She called, “Hugh!” She turned off the oven and pulled out the lasagna, which was bubbling and crisp around the edges. Where was he? She thought, Oh. I’ve pushed him away, too. She ran to their bedroom, pulling open the closet. She let out a pent-up breath. All his clothes and shoes were there. The suitcases, still there. Unlike that day when she’d ripped every last piece of Adam’s clothing from the closet and thrown it on the lawn. When she’d shoved Frances Barnes’s exquisite paintings out the attic window, watching them plummet onto the driveway like shot geese. She saw herself as she must have looked, screaming and wild-haired, an actress chewing the scenery in a B movie. She saw Adam on his knees, begging Dani, Please, please, please. She remembered thinking, Beg me to forgive you. Beg me, knowing somewhere in her deepest heart she might have. But he never had.

  The kitchen smoke alarm started to blare. She climbed on a chair and yanked at it. She couldn’t get the battery out, so she pulled the entire disc off and threw it to the floor. The plastic shattered across the tile. She turned on the ceiling fan and slid open the glass door to the deck, fanning at the smoke.

  “Rachel!” Hugh called.

  Rachel stepped out onto the deck. Hugh stood in the almost dark yard near the back fence, holding a glass of wine and a flashlight. He flashed it at her.

  “There you are,” she said. “Have you been here the whole time?”

  “Sure. I was waiting for you. I saw movement, and I thought something was digging out here by the fence.” He shone the beam at a patch of dirt in the corner. “But come here and see. Oh, the lasagna!”

  “I got it.” She walked over to him. “I’m sorry I was late. I really am.”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled and waved her closer. “Come see.”

  He pointed the light near the base of the velvet mesquite, where dried grass and weeds grew dense beneath the low bushy limbs. “There.”

  She heard the alarm call—pit pit pit pit—as she saw the nest in the brush. Gambel’s quail. A covey, a female and her young brood. The male was somewhere in the branches.

  “I’m surprised they’re on the ground,” he said.

  “They like the ground. They nest in low brush. They’re good at hiding,” she said, remembering it was Dani who’d taught her that.

  “Isn’t that dangerous for them?”

  “They can fly if they need to.” Low flyers, quail. Big birds. It always surprised her to see them take flight, their stout bodies lifting, surprisingly swift and graceful once they got going.

  The female made a distress sound, and Rachel touched Hugh’s hand. “Turn off the light. We’re making them nervous.”

  He did, and they stood in the dying light of the day. She turned and faced the house. The kitchen and dining room were illuminated, and through the glass she could see everything: the table, the wine, the broken fire alarm scattered on the floor, the lasagna cooling on the stove. Dinner. She saw her old self that old night, staring down at the ruined pie, addressing envelopes, scratching, scratching. She saw her own girl, retching on the carpet as her life fell apart. Her daughter’s beautiful, sad, and unforgiving face as her father kneeled before her, begging. She saw Maud staring out her window at home, waiting, waiting, waiting.

  Rachel touched Hugh’s arm. “I need to call Dani,” she said. “And Maud.”

  “Sure.” He put his hand on her back. “Let’s go in.”

  She looked at his face. Her young, kind, neurotic husband. He knew that past, of course, but they hadn’t spoken of it in a while.

  She pointed at the house. “What do you see when you look at that window?”

  He frowned down at her and then turned toward the glass. “At, or through?”

  “Both,” she said.

  He tilted his head. “Is this a test?”

  She laughed. “No test.”

  “I don’t know. Glass, I guess. Home.” He put his arm around her. “Like coming home.”

  She pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in his damp heat.

  I’m around the corner. I’m at the front door.

  “Come on,” she said. She took his hand and led him inside.

  Lights in Winter

  Novemb
er–December 1991

  When they returned home from Thanksgiving dinner, Jess’s mom stood facing the living room window, her arms crossed. “Go to your room, Jess. I need a minute.”

  It was almost funny. Being sent to her room, a child’s punishment, for the fact of a grown man confessing his love for her. But Jess didn’t laugh. She didn’t argue. She went.

  She sat on her bed, her body stiff, her feet planted on the floor, and stared out her window as the sun slunk behind the Black Hills. She didn’t take off her coat, her leaden guilt pinning her in place. She could smell Dani’s vomit, see the yellow chunks on the carpet. She wasn’t sure if the smell was a memory or spattered on her shoelaces or pant legs. She couldn’t bring herself to check.

  After some time, her mom came into the bedroom. She pulled the desk chair next to the bed and sat down, crossing her legs at the ankle.

  She said, “I want you to tell me everything. Don’t lie to me, Jess. Enough lying. Tell me so we can figure out what to do.”

  Jess pulled her coat tight around her. She said, “Mom, nothing happened.”

  “Something happened. Come on. How did it happen? Did he coerce you?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. He didn’t—we didn’t do anything.”

  “If he touched you, I need to know. Aside from being flat-out wrong, it’s illegal, Jess. You’re a minor.”

  “Nothing happened. Nothing physical. I swear it.”

  “You didn’t have sex with him?”

  “No.”

  “Oral sex? Other touching and kissing?”

  “God, Mom. No.”

  Her mother sighed. “Well, that’s something, I guess.” She frowned. “So what’s going on? Tell me. From the beginning.”

  How to even begin? “I don’t know. We were out on the deck late at night—”

  “What were you doing on the deck late at night with him?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Let me guess. He told you his sad story, how sad his life was, how awful life with his wife was. How stuck he felt.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Not at all. I know you think he manipulated me somehow—”