"At the tone, Shelby County Saving Time will be 6:05:20." " Suscriptions, may I help you?" " Yes, hello..." "I want to cancel my newspapers." " Name, please." " Cates." "Jessie Cates." " Daily and Sunday?" " No, not Sunday." "Just during the week." " Cates." " That's right." "Haven't you been pleased with our service, Ms. Cates?" "Oh, yes, I've been very happy with the service." "I'm just not gonna be reading it anymore." " All right." "Thank you for calling." " You're welcome." " Bye." " Bye." " Won't you come in, Agnes?" " Absolutely not." "Oh, Agnes, that's crazy!" "You can understand or not, Thelma, but I ain't coming in." "Up to the driveway." "That's as far as I go." " What're you doing in there?" " Hi, Mama." "Jessie, it's beautiful out here." " Did you have a nice time?" " We had a great time." "Jessie, wait to see what I brought you!" "Thanks, Mama." "Jessie, it's the last snowball, sugar!" "Put it on the list, OK?" "And we're are out of Hershey bars." "And where's that peanut brittle?" "Do you have any old towels?" "Towels you don't want anymore?" "How about this swimming towel Loretta gave us?" "Beach towel, that's the name of it." "You want it?" "I hate when the coconut falls off." "Why does the coconut fall off?" "And a big piece of plastic?" "Like a rubber sheet or something?" "Garbage bags would do, if there's enough." "Don't go making a big mess, Jessie!" "Maybe an old blanket or..." "towels we got in a soap box sometimes?" "I said don't make a mess!" "I know you heard me." "Your hair's light enough, hon." "It's not for my hair, Mama." "Jessie, come look at these begonias before it gets dark." "I told Agnes you could grow begonias here." "Look at these!" "Jessie!" "Jessie, I can't find my gardening gloves!" "You don't think I left them out here and some racoon ate them, do you?" "I thought I brought'em in the house." "I know you like me to bring'em in the house." " Here they are." "I washed them." " Thanks, hon." "It's still nice outside." "Want to come and see?" " No, thanks." " Oh, Jessie..." "I'm the most dangerous thing out here." "I'm fine, Mama." "Jessie, it's Dawson!" "And Kenny!" "And little Melodie!" "Come give grandma a kiss!" "Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" " Hi, Dawson." " Hi, Mom." " Hello, Loretta." " Hello, Thelma." "Look what I brought you from the fairs!" " How's aunt Jessie today?" " She's just fine!" "She wanted to come and I see you but she's so busy today." "No, that wouldn't be right." " I did not!" " Yes, you did." " Did not!" " Yes, you did!" "Stop bugging me." "No, you can't go in the house!" "Jessie's in there!" "I can go wherever I want, Melodie." "You're not my mother." "No..." "It's not right either." "OK, you catch the ball now, Kenny!" "There you go, Daddy." "Kenny Cates, you get in this car right this minute!" "Thelma, I brought you casserole." "Come on, now!" "You don't want me to leave you here, do you?" "Melodie, Kenny, let's go now." "Let's get in the car." "Melodie, give Granma a kiss." "Goodbye, my baby." " They're growing up so fast!" " Not fast enough, if you ask me." "Kenny!" " When I call you, you come the first time!" " Don't make your Daddy mad." "Bye-bye, everybody!" "Thanks for coming!" "Bye-bye!" "Take care!" "And be good at school!" "Thanks for the casserole, Dawson!" "Now." "Jessie!" "Look what Loretta brought you for dinner." " Do I have to?" " Aw, Jessie, what would you eat..." " ...if it weren't for Loretta?" " I don't know, Mama." " Whatever I wanted, I guess." " Well..." "I just love the sight of that." " I got your manicure ready, Mama." " You're so good to me, aren't you?" "Where's Daddy's gun?" "Jessie, they're gonna build an express way through here!" "We might have to move to Florida." " Where's Daddy's gun?" " In the attic." " I looked in the attic." " Well, you didn't look good enough." "In one of the shoeboxes, I think." "Yes, there's an empty box from that pair he wore at the hospital." "When he died, they said I could have it back." "I never did like those shoes." "I found the bullets." "They were in an old milk can." "Dawson took the shotgun, didn't he?" "Dawson better not've taken that pistol." "Dawson can have whatever he wants, Jessie." "Maybe Kenny'd like to have that toy chest with a little horse on it that Cecil made for Ricky." "Dawson could even paint it, if he wanted to." "Or maybe Loretta could antique it like she did that old wash stand and give it to Melodie." "Melodie likes horses, I think." "I know she liked that stirrup Loretta made her with a brown horse on it." " What do you think?" " Dawson can probably use some of those clothes up there." "Somebody oughtta have'em." "You oughtta call the Salvation Army before the attic falls in on him." "It's plenty safe, as long as you don't go up there." " I'm careful." " What do you want the gun for, Jess?" "Protection." "You take TV way too serious, hon." "I've never seen a criminal in my life." "This is way too far to come for what's out here to steal." "Never seen a one." "Except for Ricky." "Ricky is mixed up." "That's not a crime." "Get your hands washed." "I'll be right back." "And get 'em real dry." "You dry your hands till I get back or it's no manicure." "I thought Dawson told you not to go up those stairs." "He did." "I don't like the idea of a gun, Jess." "Which shoebox?" "Do you remember?" " Black." " The box was black?" " The shoes were black." " That doesn't help much, Mother." "I'm not trying to help, sugar." "We don't have anything anybody'd want." "I mean, I don't even want what we got, Jessie." "We'll just hand it over to them when they come." "Whatever they want, the criminals." "It's a good idea, Mama." "Dad..." "You come down from there before you have a fit!" "I can't come up and get you, you know." "I know." "Ricky'll grow out of this and be a real fine boy, Jess." "But I have to tell you I wouldn't want Ricky to know we had a gun in the house." "Here it is." "I found it!" "It's just something Ricky's going through." "He'll get back at school, or get a job or one day you'll get a call and he'll say he's sorry for all the trouble he's caused and invite you out for supper someplace dress-up." "Don't worry." "It's not for him." "It's for me." "I didn't think you'd shoot your own boy, Jessie." "I know you felt like it, we've all felt like shooting somebody but we don't do it." " I just don't think we need" " Your hands aren't washed?" "Do you want that manicure or not?" " Yes, I do." " Well, then, wash your hands." "Don't talk to me any more about Ricky!" "Those two rings he took were the last valuable things I had." "So now he's started in on other people." "Door to door." "I hope they put him away sometime." "I'd turn him in myself if I knew where he was." " You don't mean that." " Every word." "Wash your hands and it's the last time I'm telling ya." "I shoulda got you to bring down that milk can." "Agnes Fletcher sold hers to somebody with a flea market for $40 a piece." "They said they were gonna make lamps out of them." "Do you believe it?" "You couldn't give me one of those lamps." "You know they'd still smell like milk, don't ya?" "What're you doing?" "The barrel has to be clean, Mama." " Old powder, dust gets in it..." " What for?" "I told you." "And I told you, we don't get criminals out here." "And I told you the gun is for me." "Well!" "You can have it if you want." "When I die, you'll get it all, anyway." " I'm going to kill myself, Mama." " Very funny, very funny..." "I am." "You're not." "Don't even say such a thing, Jessie." "How would you know if I didn't say it?" "You want it to be a surprise?" "You're lying in your bed or maybe just brushing your teeth then..." " ...you hear a noise down the hall?" " Kill yourself!" "Shoot myself." " In a couple of hours." " It must be time for your medicine." " I took it already." " Then, what's the matter with you?" "Not a thing." "I feel fine." "You feel fine." "You're just going to kill yourself." "Waited until I felt good enough, in fact." "Don't make jokes, Jessie." "I'm too old for jokes." "It's not a joke, Mama." "That gun's no good, you know." "He broke it right before he died." "He dropped it in the mud one day." "Seems OK." "I had Cecil's all ready in there, in case I couldn't find this one but I'd rather use Daddy's." "Your Daddy's bullets are at least fifteen years old." " These are from last week." " Where'd you get those?" "Feed store Dawson told me about." "Dawson?" "I told him I was worried about prowlers." "He said he thought it was a good idea." "He told me what kind to ask for." " If he had any idea of" " He took it as a compliment!" "He thought I might be taking an interest in things." "He got through telling me all about the bullets and the he said:" ""We oughtta talk like this more often."" " And where was I while this was going on?" "!" " Outside I guess." "I asked Dawson if he thought they'd send me some bullets and he said he'd just call for me 'cause he knew they'd send them if he told'em to." "He was absolutely right." "Here they are." "How could he do that?" "He was just trying to help, Mama." "And I told you where the gun was!" "See?" "Everybody's doing what they can." "You told me it was for protection!" "It is!" "I'm still doing your nails, though." " You wanna try that new Chinaberry color?" " I'm calling Dawson right now." "We'll just see what he has to say about this little stunt." "Dawson doesn't have any more to do with this." " He's your brother!" " And that's all." "Dawson will put a stop to this." "He'll take the gun away." "If you call him, I'll just have to do it before he gets here." "Soon as you hang up the phone I'll just walk in the bedroom and lock the door." "You will not!" "This is crazy talk, Jessie." "Dawson will get here just in time to help you clean up." "Go ahead, call him." "Then call the police." "Then call the funeral home." "Then call Loretta and see if she'll do your nails." "I said no." "This is private." "Dawson is not invited." "Just me!" "If Dawson comes over, it'll just make me feel stupid for not doing it ten years ago." "I think we better call the doctor." "How about the ambulance?" "You like that one driver, I know." "What's his name?" "Timmy." "Get you somebody to talk to." "I'm through talking, Mama." "You're it." "No more." "We're just going to sit around like every other night in the world and then you're going to kill yourself." "You'll miss." "You'll wind up a vegetable." "How'd you like that?" "You know what the doctor said about getting excited." "You'll cock the pistol and have a fit!" "I think I can kill myself, Mama." " Thanks." " It's a sin." "You'll go to hell." "Jesus was a suicide, if you ask me." "You'll go to hell just for saying that, Jessie!" "Enough of that." "People don't kill themselves, Jessie." "No, mam, don't make sense!" "Unless you're retarded or deranged." "And you're as normal as they come, for the most part." "We're all afraid to die!" "I'm not, Mama." "It's exactly what I want." " It's dark and quiet..." " So is the back yard, Jessie!" "So quiet I don't know it's quiet." "So nobody can get me." "Dead might not be quiet at all." "What if it's like an alarm clock and you can't wake up so you can't shut it off?" "Ever!" "Dead is everybody and everything I ever knew... gone." "Dead is dead quiet." "You can't use my towels." "They're my towels." "I've had them for a long time." "I like my towels." "I asked you if you wanted that swimming towel..." " ...and you said you didn't." " You can't use your father's gun, either!" "It's mine now, too." "And you can't do it in my house." " Come on..." " No, you can't." "I won't let you." "The house is in my name." "If I go in that bedroom and lock the door behind me they won't arrest you for killing me." "They'll probably test your hands for gunpowder, but you'll pass." "Not in my house." "If I'd known you'd act like this, I wouldn't have told you." "How am I supposed to act?" "!" "Tell you to go ahead?" "!" ""OK by me, sugar." "Might try it myself!"" ""What took you so long?"" "There's just no point in fighting me over it." "That's all." "Your birthday's coming up, Jessie." "Don't you want to know what we got ya?" "You got me dusting powder." "Loretta got me a new housecoat, pink probably." "And Dawson got me... new slippers." "Too small, but they go with the robe, he'll say." "Right?" "I'll be back in a minute." "I started to but I didn't." "I didn't call him." "Good." "Thank you." " What's this all about, Jessie?" " About?" " What did I do?" " Nothing." " Want a caramel?" " You're mad at me." "Not a bit." "I'm worried about you but I'm gona do what I can before I go." "We're not just going to sit around tonight." "I made a whole list of things!" " What things?" " How the washer works, things like that." " Did you grow up wearing dirty clothes?" " No." "I know how the washer works." "You put the clothes in." "You put the soap in." "You turn it on." "You wait." "Ok." "Where do we keep the soap?" "I could find it." "See?" "If you're mad about doing the wash, we can get Loretta to do it." "Oh!" "Now, that might be worth staying to see." " She'd never in her life, would she?" " No." " What's the matter with her?" " She thinks she's better than we are." "She's not." "Maybe if she didn't wear that yellow all the time." "The washer repair number is on a little card taped to the side of the machine." "Loretta doesn't ever have to come over here again." "Dawson can just leave her at home when he comes." "And we won't ever see Dawson either if he bothers you." " Does he bother you?" " Sure he does." "Be sure you clean out the lint tray every time you use the dryer." "Don't ever put your house shoes in, it'll melt the soles." "What does Dawson do that bothers you?" "He just calls me 'Jess', like he knows who he's talking to." "And he's always wondering what I do all day." "I mean, I wonder that myself, but it's my day so it's mine to wonder about, not his." "Family is just accident, Jessie." "It's nothing personal, hon." "They don't mean to get on your nerves." "They don't even mean to be your family." "They just are." " They know too much." " About what?" "Things, and they learned it before you had a chance to say whether you wanted them to know it or not." "They were there when it happened and it don't belong to them, it belongs to you." "Only they got it." "Like my mail-order bra that got delivered to their house." "By accident." "All the same." "They opened it." "They saw the little rosebuds on it." "Chewy mint?" "What do they know about you?" "I'll tell them never to talk about it again." "Is it Ricky, or Cecil?" "Or your fits?" "Or you drink too much coffee, or you never go out of the house?" "What?" "I just don't like their talk." "The account at the grocery is in Dawson's name." "The number's on a list of numbers on the back page of the phone book." "Well, now we're getting somewhere!" "They're none of them ever setting foot in this house again." "It's not them, Mama." "I wouldn't kill myself to get away from them." "You leave the room when they come over, anyway." "I stay as long as I can." "Besides, it's you they come to see." "That's because I stay in the room when they come." " It's not them." " Then, what is it?" "The grocery won't deliver on Saturdays anymore." "And they won't deliver less than 15 dollars' worth." "What I do is tell them what we need and add on cigarettes until it gets to $15." "It's Ricky." "You're trying to get through to him." "If I thought I could do that, I would stay." "Make him sorry he hurt you, then." "That's it, isn't it?" "I've hurt him, he's hurt me." "We're about even." "You'll be telling him killing is OK with you." "Want him to start killing next?" ""Nothing wrong with it." "Mom did it"." "Only a matter of time, anyway, Mama." "And when the call comes, let Dawson handle it." "Oh, honey, nothing says those calls are always gonna be..." " ...some new trouble he's into." " If you call the Sweet Tooth before you call the grocery Susie will take your fudge next door to the grocery and it'll all come out together." "Ricky could come over, you know?" "What if he calls you?" "It's not Ricky, Mama." " Well, anybody could call, Jessie." " It's Saturday night, Mama." "Then, what is it?" "Are you sick?" "If your gums are swelling we can get you to the dentist in the morning." "No." "Can you order your medicine or do you want Dawson to?" "Your eyes don't look right." "I thought so yesterday" "That's just the ragweed, Mama." "I'm not sick." " Epilepsy is sick, Jessie!" " It won't kill me!" " If it would, I wouldn't have to!" " You don't have to." "No, I don't." "That's what I like about it." " Well, I won't let you!" " It's not up to you!" " Jessie!" " I wanna hang a big sign around my neck, like Daddy's on the barn." ""GONE FISHING"" " You don't like it here." " Exactly." " I meant here, in my house." " I know you did." "You never should've moved back in here with me." "If you'd kept your little house or found another place when Cecil left you you'd have made some new friends at least." "Had a life to lead." "Had your own things around you." "Give Ricky a place to come see you." " You never should've come here." " Maybe." "But I didn't force you, did I?" "If it was a mistake, we made it together." "You took me in, I appreciate that." "You didn't have any business being by yourself right then but I can see how you might want a place of your own." " A grown woman should have" " Mama..." "I'm just not having a very good time." "...and I don't have any reason to think it's gonna get anything but worse." "I'm tired." "I'm hurt." "I'm sad." "I feel used." "Tired of what?" " It all." " What's that mean?" " I can't say it any better." " Well, you'll have to say it better 'cause I'm not letting you alone till you do!" "What were those other things?" "Hurt" "You had this all ready to say to me, didn't you?" "Did you write this down?" "How long have you been thinking about this?" "!" "Off and on?" "Ten years." "On all the time?" "Since Christmas." "What happened at Christmas?" "Nothing." "So why Christmas?" "That's it." "On the nose." "See where all this is?" "Red hots up front sour balls and horehound mixed together in this one sack..." "New packages of toffee." "And licorice, right in back there." "Go back to your list." " You're hurt by what?" " Mama..." "OK." "Sad about what?" "There's nothing real sad going on right now." "If it was after your divorce, that would make sense." "This drawer has everything in it that there's no better place for." "Extension cords, batteries for radio, extra lighters, sandpaper masking tape, Elmer's glue, thumbtacks, that kind of stuff." "The mousetraps are under the sink, but call Dawson if you've got one..." " ...and let him do it." " Sad about what?" "The way things are." "Not good enough." "What things?" "Everything!" "From you and me, to the man in the White House." "I think we can leave him out of this." "I asked you a question." "I read the paper." "I don't like how things are." " Jessie, stop reading the paper!" " There's just more of it on TV." " Sell the TV!" " You wouldn't do that." " I would too." " What would you do all day?" "Sing!" "You want to watch?" "I'll sing till morning to keep you alive, Jessie, please." "No." "It's a funny idea, though." "What do you sing?" "We've got a good life here." "I called this morning and canceled the papers except for Sundays, for your puzzles." "You'll still get that one." "Don't take the pills on the cards." "Take the pills in the bottles." "I just made these pictures so you know which ones." "You need something to take care of, Jessie." "I've had you, Mama." "You do too much for me." "You don't have to do another thing in this house if you don't want to." " You don't have to take care of me, Jessie." " I know that." "You've been letting me do it so I have something to do, ain't it?" "Well, I don't do it as well as you." "I just mean if it tires you out or make you feel-- used..." "Mama, I know you used to ride the bus." "Riding the bus, and it's hot, and bumpy and crowded and too noisy." "And more than anything else in the world, you want to get off." "And the only reason in the world you don't get off is it's still fifty blocks from where you're going." "Well, I can get off right now if I want to." "Because even if I ride 50 more years and get off then it's still the same place when I step down to it." "Whenever I feel like it, I can get off." "Whenever I've had enough, it's my stop." "I've had enough." "You're feeling sorry for yourself." "You're not having a good time!" "Whoever promised you a good time?" "Do you think I'm having a good time?" "I think you're pretty happy." "Yeah." "You have things you like to do." "Like what?" "Like... crochet!" "I'll teach you to crochet." "There're extra light bulbs in a box in this closet and we've got a couple of packages of fuses in the fuse box." "The candles and matches are on the top of the broom closet but if the ligths go out, call Dawson and sit tight." "Good time don't come looking for you, Jessie." "You could work some puzzles or put in a garden or go to the store." "Let's call a taxi and go to the AP." "I shopped you up for about two weeks already!" "You're not gonna need toilet paper till Thanksgiving." "You're acting like some little brat, Jessie." "You're mad and everybody's boring." "And you don't have anything to do." "And you don't like me and you don't like going out, and you don't like staying in and you never talk on the phone, and you don't watch TV and you're miserable and it's your own sweet fault." "And it's time I did something about it." "Not something like killing yourself!" "Something like" "Not something like killing myself, something like..." "Buying us all new sheets!" "I'd like that!" "Or maybe the doctor would let you get a driver's license now." "Oh, I know what!" "You could get a job!" "I took that telephone sales job." "I didn't even make enough to pay the phone bill." "And I tried to work at the gift shop at the hospital." "And they said I made people real uncomfortable smiling at them the way I did." "You could keep books." "You kept your dad's books." "You know I couldn't work." "I can't do anything!" "I've never been around people except when I was in the hospital." "I can have a seizure at any time." "What good would a job do me?" "The kind of job I could get would just make me feel worse." " Jessie!" " It's true!" "It's what you think is true." "That's right!" "It's what I think is true!" "But I can't do anything about that!" "No." "You can't." "And I can't do anything either about my life, to change it." "Make it better." "Make me feel better about it." "Like it better, make it work." "But I can stop it." "Shut it down!" "Turn it off, like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to." "It's all I really have that belongs to me." "And I'm going to say what happens to it." "And it's gonna stop." "And I'm gonna stop it." "So, let's just have a good time." "Have a good time..." "We can't go on fussing all night." "I mean, I could ask you things I always wanted to know." "You can make me some hot chocolate." "The old way." "It takes cocoa, Jessie." "I bought cocoa, Mama." "And I'd like to have a caramel apple." "And do your nails." "You didn't eat a bite of supper." "Does that mean I can't have a caramel apple?" "Of course not." "I mean..." "Of course you can have a caramel apple." "I thought I could." "I make the best caramel apples in the world." "I know you do." "Or used to." "You don't get cocoa like mine anywhere anymore." "It takes time, I know." "The salt's the trick." "Trouble and everything." "It's no trouble!" "What trouble?" "You put it in the pan and stir it up!" "All right, fine." "Caramel apples, cocoa." "OK." "Well..." "So..." "How was the fair?" "It was silly." "Country fairs are silly." "Nobody from the country even comes." "Why did you go?" "Agnes likes it, I guess." "And you like Agnes." "No, Jessie." "Agnes is crazy." "But Agnes does have a car." "Is Agnes really crazy or just silly?" "She's really crazy." "Mother..." "Jessie, Agnes Fletcher's burned down every house she's ever lived in." "Eight fires, and she's due for a new one any day now." "No..." "Wouldn't surprise me a bit!" "Why didn't you tell me this before?" "The houses they lived in, you knew they're gonna fall down anyway so why wait for 'em?" "It's all I could ever make out about it." "Agnes likes a feeling of accomplishment." "Good for her." "Now, one cup or two?" "One." "No marshmallows." "You've to have marshmallows." "That's the old way, Jess!" "Two or three?" "Three is better." "Three, then." "Her whole house burns out?" "Her clothes, her pillows and everything?" "I'm not sure I believe this." "When she was a girl, Jess, not now." "Long time ago!" "But she's still got it in her, I'm sure of it." "She wouldn't burn her house down now." "Where would she go?" "She can't get Buster to build her a new one." "He's dead." "How would she burn it down?" "Be exciting, though, if she did." "You never know." "You do too know, Mama." "She wouldn't do it." "I guess not." "What else?" "Why does she wear all those whistles around her neck?" "Why does she have a house full of birds?" " I didn't know that." " She does!" "And she says they just follow her home." "I know for a fact she's still paying on the last parrot she bought." ""You gotta keep your life filled up" she says." "She says a lot of stupid things." "It's all that okra she eats." "You just can't willy-nilly eat okra two meals a day and expect to get away with it." "Made her crazy!" "She really eats okra twice a day?" "Where does she get it in the winter?" "Well, she eats it a lot." " Maybe not two meals, but..." " More than the average person." "I don't know how much okra an average person eats." "Do you know how much okra Agnes eat?" "No." "How many birds does she have?" "Two." "Then, what are the whistles for?" "They're not real whistles." "Just little plastic ones on a necklace she won playing Bingo." "I only told you about it 'cause I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once, even if it wasn't true!" "Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know." "Why won't she come over here?" "Well now, what a good idea!" "We should've had more cocoa." "Cocoa's perfect." "Except you don't like milk." "I hate milk." "Coats your throat as bad as okra." "Something just downright disgusting about it." "It's because of me, isn't it?" "No, Jess." "Yes, Mama." "OK, yes, then." "But she's crazy." "she's as crazy as they come." "She's a lunatic." "What is it exactly?" "Did I say something, sometime?" "Or..." "Did she see me have a fit and's afraid I might have another one if she came over, or what?" "I guess." "You guess what?" "What's she ever said?" "She must've given you some reason." "Your hands are cold." "What difference does that make?" ""Like a corpse," she says." ""And I'm gonna be one soon enough as it is."" "I thought she didn't like me." "She's scared of me!" "She's crazy." "Well, how about that." "Scared of me..." "When I'm in the hospital, does she come over here?" "Her kitchen is just a tiny thing." "When she comes over here, she feels like" "Well..." "We all like a change of scene, don't we?" "Sure we do." "Plus, there're no birds diving around." "I hate those birds." "She says I don't understand them." "What's there to understand about birds?" "Why Agnes likes them, for one thing." "Why they stay with her when they could be outside with the other birds." "How much water they need, what their singing means." "How they fly." "What they think Agnes is." "Why do you have to know so much about things, Jessie?" "There's just not that much to things that I could ever see." "That you could ever tell, you mean." " You didn't have to lie to me about Agnes." " I didn't lie!" "You never asked me before." "You lied about setting fire to all those houses." "And about how many birds she has." "And about how much okra she eats, and why she won't come over here!" "If I have to keep dragging the truth out of you this is gonna take all night." "That's fine with me." "I'm not a bit sleepy!" "Mama..." "All right." "Ask me whatever you want." "Here." "Did you love Daddy?" "No." "I didn't think so." "Were you really fifteen when you married?" "The way he told it?" "I'm sitting in the mud, he comes along drags me in the kitchen, "She's been there ever since"?" " Yeah." " No!" "God, this milk in here." " Cocoa helps." " Not enough, though, does it?" " You can still taste it, can't you?" " It's pretty bad." "I thought it was my memory that was bad, but it's not." "It's the milk, all right." "It's a real waste of chocolate." "You don't have to finish it." " Thanks, though." " I should've known not to make it." "I knew you wouldn't like it." "You never did like it!" "You didn't ever love him?" "Or he did something and you stopped loving him, or what?" "He felt sorry for me." "He wanted a plain country woman." "That's what he married." "And then he held it against me the rest of my life, like I was supposed to" "Change and surprise him somehow." "Like I remember this one day, he was standing on the porch and I told him to get a shirt on." "He went in and got one." "And then he said, real peaceful but to the point..." ""You're right, Thelma."" ""If God had wanted for people to go around without any clothes on..."" ""...they'd have been born that way."" "He didn't mean anything by that, Mama." "He never said a word he didn't have to, Jessie." "That was probably all he'd said to me all day, Jessie." "So if he said it, there was something to it." "But I never did figure that one out." " What'd that mean?" " I don't know." "I liked him better than you did, but I didn't know him any better." "You loved him enough for both of us." "You followed him around like some" "Jessie, all the man ever did was farm and sit." "And try to think of somebody to sell the farm to." "Or make me a boyfriend out of pipe cleaners and sit back and smile like the stick man was gonna dance and wasn't I gonna get a kick out of that." "Or sit up with a sick cow all night and leave me a chain of sleepy stick elephants on my bed." "Or just sit." "I liked him sitting." "Big old faded blue man in the chair." "Quiet." "He could've had that "GONE FISHING" sign around his neck in that chair." "I saw him stare off at the water..." "I saw him look at the weather rolling in..." "I got where I could practically see the boat myself." "But you, you knew what he was thinking about." "And you're gonna tell me." "I don't know, Mama." "His life, I guess." "His corn." "His boots." "Us, things." " You know." " No, I don't know, Jessie." "You had those little conversations after supper every night." " What were you whispering about?" " We weren't whispering, Mama." " You were sitting across the room!" " What did you talk about?" "We talked about why black socks are warmer than blue socks." "Is that something to go tell Mother?" "You were just jealous because I'd rather talk to him than wash the dishes with you." "I was jealous because you'd rather talk to him than anything!" "If I had died instead of him, he wouldn't have taken you in like I did." "I wouldn't have expected him to." "Then what would you have done?" "Come visit." "Oh, I see..." "He died and left you stuck with me." "And now you're mad about it." "Not anymore." "He didn't mean to." "I didn't have to come here." "We've been through this." "Maybe you think if I had loved him more or at all, he'd still be alive." "I never thought that." "He felt sorry for you too, Jessie." "He said you were a runt." "And he said it from the day you were born." "He said you didn't have a chance." "I know he loved me." "What if he did?" "It didn't change anything!" "It didn't have to." "I miss him." "He never really went fishing, you know." "Never once." "His tackle box was full of chewing tobacco and all he ever did was drive out to the lake and sit in his car." "He'd come back from fishing and all he'd have to show for it was a whole pipe-cleaner family." "Chickens, pigs a dog with a bad leg..." "It was creepy strange." "It made me sick to look at it." "And I hid his pipe cleaners a couple of times but he always had more somewhere." "I thought it might be better for you after he died." "Breathe better." "Change somehow." "Into what?" "The Queen?" "A clerk in a shoe store?" "Why should I?" "Because he said to?" "Because you said to?" "I wasn't here for his entertainment." "And I'm not here for yours either, Jessie." "I don't know what I'm here for, but then I don't think about it." "But I bet you wouldn't be killing yourself if he were still alive!" "That's a fine thing to figure out, isn't it?" " It's not true" " Oh, no?" "Then what were you asking about him for?" "Why did you want to know if I loved him?" "I didn't think you did, that's all." "Fine then." "You were right." "Do you feel better now?" "It feels good to be right about it." "It didn't matter whether I loved him." "It didn't matter to me and it didn't matter to him." "That didn't mean we didn't get along." "It wasn't important." "We didn't talk about it!" "Take all these pots out to the porch!" "Just leave me this one pan." "One knife, one fork, one big spoon." "And the can opener." "And put them out where I can see 'em!" "Don't do that." "I just straightened that drawer!" "Throw out all the plates and cups." "I'll use paper." "Loretta can have what she wants and Dawson can sell the rest!" " What are you doing?" " I'm not gonna cook." "I never liked it, anyway!" "I like candy." "Wrapped in plastic or coming in sacks." "And tuna." "I like tuna." "I'll eat tuna." "Thank you!" "What if you want to make apple butter?" "You can't make apple butter in this little pan." "What if you leave carrots on cooking and you burn up this pan?" "I don't like carrots!" "What if the strawberries are good this year and you want to go picking with Agnes?" "I'll tell her to bring a pan." "You said you'd do whatever I wanted!" "I don't want a bunch of pans cluttering up my cabinets I can't get down to, anyway." "Throw them out!" "Every last one!" "I'm putting them all back." "I'm not taking them to the porch." "If you want them, they'll be here." "You'll bend down and get them, like you got the ones for the cocoa." "And if somebody else comes over here to cook they'll have something to cook in." "And that's the end of it." "Who's gonna come cook here?" " Agnes." " In my pots?" "Not on your life!" "There's no reason why the two you couldn't just live here together." "Be cheaper for both of you and be somebody to talk to." "If the birds bothered you, one day when Agnes is out getting her hair done, you could take them all for a walk!" "Oh, I see..." "You think you can rest easy if you get me a new baby sitter." "Well, I don't want to live with Agnes." "I barely want to talk with Agnes." "You don't get off as easy as that, child!" "OK, then." "It's just something to think about." "I don't like things to think about." "I like things to go on!" "I want to know what Daddy said to you the night he died!" "You came storming out of his room and said I could wait it out with him if I wanted to, but you were going to watch 'Gunsmoke'." "What did he say to you?" "He didn't have anything to say to me, Jessie." "That's why I left." "It was his last chance not to talk to me and he took full advantage of it!" "I'm sorry you didn't love him." "Sorry for you, I mean." "He seemed like a nice man." "Ready for your apple now?" "Soon as I'm through here, Mama." "You won't like the apple, either." "It'll be just like the cocoa." "Now, you know the milkman comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays and he leaves the order blanks in an egg box." "Give the bills to Dawson once a month." "Do they still make that orangeade?" "Mama, the only thing orange in that is the color." "I'm gonna get some." "I thought they stopped making it." "You just stopped ordering it." "You should drink milk." "Not anymore, I'm not." "That hot chocolate was the last." "Hoo-ray!" "I told them to keep delivering a quart a week no matter what you said." "I told them you'd run out of Cokes and you'd have to drink it." "I told them you wouldn't throw it on the ground." "You told 'em you wouldn't be ordering anymore?" "I told them I was taking a little holiday and to look after you." "And they didn't think something was funny about that?" "You, who doesn't go to the front steps." "You, who only sees the driveway looking down from a stretcher passed out cold?" "They said it was about time, but why didn't I take you with me." "I said I didn't think you'd want to go." "He said: "Yeah... everybody's got their own idea of vacation."" "I bet you think that's funny." "You know there never was any reason to call the ambulance for me." "All they ever did in the emergency room, was let me wake up." "I could've done that here." "Now, I'll just call these out and you say yes or no." " I know you like pickles." "Ketchup?" " Keep it." "We've had this since last Fourth of July." "Keep the ketchup." "Keep it all." "Are you going to drink the ketchup out of the bottle or what?" "How can you want your food and not want your pots to cook it in?" "Nothing I ever did was good enough for you and I wanna know why." "That's not true." "And why you've lived here all these years feeling the way you do." "You have no earthly idea how I feel." "Well, how could I?" "You're real far back there, Jessie." " Back where?" " What's it like where you are?" "Do people always say the right thing?" "Or get whatever they want?" "Or what?" " What are you talking about?" " Why do you read the newspaper?" "Why do you wear that sweater I made for you?" "Do you remember what I used to look like, or am I just any old woman now?" "When you have a fit, do you see stars or what?" "How did you fall off the horse, really?" "Why did Cecil leave you?" "Where did you put my old glasses?" "!" "They're in the bottom drawer of your dresser in an old Milk of Magnesia box." "Cecil left me because he made me choose between him or smoking." "Jessie, I know he wasn't that dumb." "I never understood why he hated it so much when it's so good." "Smoking is the only thing I know that's always just what you think it's going to be." "Just like it was the last time, right there when you want it." "Real quiet." "Your fits made him sick and you know it." "Say seizures, not fits." "Seizures." "It's the same thing." "A seizure in the hospital is a fit at home." "They didn't bother him at all." "Except he did feel responsible for it." "It was his idea to go horseback riding that day." "It was his idea I could do anything if I just put my mind to it." "I fell off the horse 'cause I didn't know how to hold on." "Cecil left for pretty much the same reason." "He had a girl, Jessie." "I walked right in on them in the toolshed." "OK." "That's fair." "Was she very pretty?" "She was Agnes's girl, Carlene." "Judge for yourself." "Well, I guess you and Agnes had a good talk about that, huh?" "I never thought he was good enough for you." " They moved here from Tennessee." " What are you talking about?" "You liked him better than I did!" "You flirted him out here to build your porch or I'd never even met him at all!" "You thought maybe he'd help you out around the place..." "God knows what you thought." "All that curly hair..." "He's the best carpenter I ever saw." "That little house of yours will still be standing at the end of the world." " You didn't need a porch, Mama!" " All right!" "I wanted a husband for you." "And I couldn't get one on my own, of course." "How were you going to get a husband never opening your mouth..." " ...to a living soul?" " So, I was quiet." "So what?" "So I should've let you just sit here?" "Sit, like your daddy?" "Sit here?" " Maybe." " Well, I didn't think so." " Well, what did you know?" " I never said I knew much." "How was I supposed to learn anything living out here?" "I didn't know enough to do half the things I did in my life." "Things happen." "You do what you can and then see what happens next." "I married you off to the wrong man." "I admit that." "So, I took you in when he left." "I'm sorry." "He wasn't the wrong man." "He didn't love you, Jessie, or he wouldn't have left." "He wasn't the wrong man, Mama!" "I loved Cecil so much!" "And I tried to get more excercise, and I tried to stay awake to learn how to ride a horse, and to stay outside with him..." "He always knew I was trying, so it didn't work." "He's a selfish man." "He told me once he hated to see people move into his houses after he built them." "He knew they'd mess them up." "Ha." "I loved that bridge he built over the creek in back of the house." "It didn't have to be much, a couple of boards would've been fine, but he used that yellow pine, he rubbed it so smooth..." "He had responsibilities here." "He had a wife and son here and he failed you." "That baby bed he built for Ricky I told him he didn't have to spend so much time on it, but he said it had to last." "The thing ended up weighing 200 pounds and I couldn't even move it!" "I said, "How long does a baby bed have to last, anyway?"" "Maybe he thought if it was strong enough, it'd keep Ricky a baby." "Ricky is too much like Cecil." "He is not!" "He's as much like me as any human being can be!" "We even wear the same size pants." "These are his, I think." "That's just the same size." "That's not you're the same person." "I see it on his face, I hear it when he talks." "We look out at the world and we see the same thing:" "Not fair." "The only difference between us is Ricky's trying to get even." "He knows not to trust anybody." "And he got that straight from me." "He knows not to try to get work, and guess where he got that?" "And he walks around like there're loose boards in the floor." "And you know who laid that floor?" "I did!" "Ricky ain't through yet." "You don't know how he'll turn out." "Yes, I do." "So does Cecil." "Ricky is the two of us together for all time, in too small a space." "And we're tearing each other apart like always, inside that boy." "If you don't see it, well then, you're just blind." "Give him time, Jess." "Oh, he'll have plenty of that!" "Five years for forgery ten years for armed assault" " Stop that!" "Jessie, Cecil might be ready to try it again, honey, that happens sometimes." "He didn't know what he had in you." "Maybe he sees things different now." "Call him up, right now." "He might be home." "And say what?" ""Nothing's changed, Cecil..."" ""..." "I'd just like to look at you, if you don't mind?"" "No." "He loved me, Mama." "He just didn't know how things fall down around me like they do." "I think he did the right thing." "He gave himself another chance, that's all." "But I did beg him to take me with him." "I did tell him I would leave Ricky and you and everything I loved here if only he would take me with him." "But he couldn't and I understood that." "I wrote that note I showed you." "Not Cecil." "I wrote it." "I said, "I'm sorry, Jessie..."" ""..." "I can't fix it all for you."" "I said I'd always love me." "Not Cecil." "But that's how he felt." "Then he should've taken you with him." "Mama, you don't pack your garbage with you when you move." "You will not call yourself garbage, Jessie!" "It's just a way of saying it." "Thinking about my list, that's all." "Well... a little more than that." "I was trying to say it's all right that Cecil left me." "It was a relief-- in a way." "I never was what he wanted to see." "So it was better when he wasn't looking at me all the time." "I'll make your apple now." "No, thanks." "You get your manicure stuff." "I'll be right there." " Jessie, I think your daddy had" " Garbage night is Tuesday." "Put it out as late as you can." "The Davis's dogs will get it if you don't." "Keep ordering the heavy black bags." "It doesn't pay to buy the cheap ones." "And I've got all the ties in here with the hammers and all." "Take them out of the box as soon as you open a new one and put them in that drawer." "They'll get lost if you don't." "And rubber bands or something else won't work." "I think your daddy had fits, too." "I think he sat in his chair and had little fits." "I don't think you want this manicure we've been looking forward to." "I read this a long time ago, in a magazine." "How little fits go." "Just little blackouts where maybe your eyes don't even close." "And people just call them "thinking spells."" "I washed this cover but it's gonna take both of us to get it back on." "I watched his eyes." "I know that's what it was." "The magazine said some people don't even know when they have one." "Daddy would've known if he'd had fits, Mama." "The lady in this story had kept track of her fits." "And she'd had 8,000 of them in the last 11 years." "Next time you wash this cover, it'll dry better if you put it on wet." "Jessie, listen to what I'm telling you." "This lady had anywhere between 5 and 500 fits a day." "And they lasted maybe fifteen seconds apiece, so that out of her life, she'd only lost about two weeks altogether." "And she had a full-time secretary job and an IQ of 120." "You want to talk about fits, is that it?" "Yes, I do." "Most of the time, I wouldn't even know I'd had one, except I wake up with different clothes on, feeling like I've been run over." "Sometimes I feel my head start to turn around, or hear myself scream." "And sometimes there is this dizzy stupid feeling a little before it but if the TV is on, well, it's easy to miss." "I can tell when you're about to have one." "Your eyes get this big!" " But, Jessie, you have" " What do they look like?" "The seizures." "Different each time, Jess." "OK, pick one, then." "A good one." "I think I want to know now." "There's not much to tell." "You just crumple in a heap, like a puppet and somebody's cut the strings all at once." "Or like the firing squad in some Mexican movie." "You just slide down the wall, you know?" "You don't know what happens?" "How can you not know what happens?" "My head turns around and I fall down and then, what?" "Well, your chest squeezes in and out, and you sound like you're gagging sucking air in and out, like you can't breathe." "Do it for me." "Make the sound for me." "I will not!" "It's an awful sound." "Yeah." "It felt like it might be." "What's next?" "Your mouth bites down and I have to get your tongue out of the way fast so you don't bite yourself." "Or you." "I bite you too, don't I?" "You got me once real good." "I had to get a tetanus!" "But I know what to watch for now." "Then you turn blue and the jerks start up like I'm poking you with a cattle prod or you're sticking your finger in the light socket, as fast as you can." "Foaming like a mad dog the whole time." "It's bubbling, Jess, not foam like the washer overflowed, for God's Sake." "It's bubbling." "Like a baby spitting up." "I go get a wet washcloth, that's all." "And then the jerks slow down and you wet yourself and it's over." "Two minutes tops." "How do I get to the bed?" "How do you think?" "Well, I'm too heavy for you now." "How do you do it?" "I call Dawson." "But I get you cleaned up before he gets here." "And I make him leave before you wake up." "You could just leave me on the floor." "I want you to wake up someplace nice, OK?" "But Jessie, and this is the reason I even brought this up!" "You haven't had a seizure for a solid year." "A whole year, do you realize that?" "Yeah, the phenobarb's about right now, I guess." "You bet it is!" "You might never have another fit, ever!" "You might be through with it for all time!" " Could be." " You are!" "I know you are!" "I sure am feeling good." "I really am." "The double vision's gone and my gums aren't swelling." "No rashes or anything." "I'm feeling as good as I ever felt in my life." "I'm even feeling like worrying or getting mad not afraid it'll start a fit if I do, I just go ahead." "Of course." "You can even scream at me, if you want to." "You don't have to act like you're just visiting here, Jessie." "This is your house, too." "The best part is, my memory's back." "Your memory's always been good." " You're always reminding me" " Because I've made lists for everything." "But now I remember what things mean on my list." "I see "dish towels" and I used to wonder whether I was supposed to wash 'em, buy 'em or look for 'em because I couldn't remember where I put 'em after I washed them." "But now I know it means wrap 'em up!" "They're a present for Loretta's birthday." "You used to go looking for your lists, too, I've noticed that." "You always know where they are, now." "Loretta's birthday ain't coming up, is it?" "I made a list of all the birthdays for you." "I even put yours on it." "So you can call Loretta and remind her." "Let's take Loretta to Howard Johnson's and have those fried clams." "I know you love that clam roll." "I won't be here, Mama." "What have we just been talking about?" "You'll be here." "You're well, Jessie." "You're starting all over." "You said it yourself." "You're remembering things" "I won't be here." "If I'd ever had a year like this, to think straight and all I'd be gone already." " No, Jessie." " Yes, Mama." "Once I started remembering, I could see what it all added up to." " The fits are over." " It's not the fits, Mama." "Then it's me for giving them to you, but I didn't do it!" "It's not the fits." "You said it yourself." "The medicine takes care of the fits." "Your daddy gave you those fits, Jessie." "It's not my fault." "So what if he had little fits?" "It's not inherited." "I fell off the horse." "It was an accident." "The horse wasn't the first time, Jessie." "You had a fit when you were 5 years old." " I did not." " You did!" "You were eating an ice cream and down you went." "He gave it to you." "It's his fault, not mine." "Well, you took your time telling me." "How do you tell that to a five-year-old?" "What did the doctor say?" "He said kids get 'em all the time." "He said there wasn't anything to do except, wait for another one." "But I didn't have another one." "You mean to tell me I had fits all the time as a kid?" "And it wasn't until I had a fit when Cecil was looking that anybody bothered to find out what was the matter with me?" "It wasn't all the time." "And they changed when you started to school." "More like your daddy's." "There was some swell times, sitting here with the two of you turning off and on like light bulbs some nights." " How many fits did I have?" " You never hurt yourself." "I caught you every time." "But you didn't tell anybody." "It was none of their business." "You were ashamed." "I didn't want anybody to know." "Least of all you!" "Least of all me?" "All right!" "That was mine to know, Mama." "Not yours." " Did Daddy know?" " No." "You fell down a lot, he thought you were careless." "Maybe he thought I beat you." "I don't know what he thought." "He didn't think about it!" "Because you didn't tell him!" "If I told him about you, I'd have to tell him about him." "I don't like this." "I don't like this one bit." "I didn't think you'd like it, that's why I didn't tell you." "If I'd known I was an epileptic, Mama, I wouldn't have ridden any horses!" "Should I've made you feel like a freak?" " Get your manicure tray and sit down!" " I don't want a manicure!" "No..." "It doesn't look like you do." "Maybe I did drop you, you don't know." " If you say you didn't, you didn't." "Maybe I fed you the wrong thing." "Maybe you had a fever sometime and I didn't know it soon enough." " Maybe it's a punishment." " For what?" "I don't know." "Because of how I felt about your father." "Because I didn't eat well when I was carrying you." "It has to be something I did!" "It does not!" "It's just a sickness, not a curse." "Epilepsy doesn't mean anything." "It just is." "I'm not talking about the fits here." "I'm talking about this killing yourself!" "I must be the matter here." "I don't know what I did, but I did, I know!" "This is all my fault, Jessie, but I don't know what to do about it." "It doesn't have anything to do with you!" "Everything you do has to do with me, Jessie." "You can't do anything, wash your face or cut your finger without doing it to me." "That's right!" "You might as well kill me as you, Jessie, it's the same thing!" "This has to do with me, Jessie!" "Then what if it does?" "What if it has everything to do with you?" "What if you're all I have, and you're not enough?" "What if I could take all the rest of it, if only I didn't have you here?" "What if the only way I can get away from you for good is to kill myself?" "What if it is?" "I can still do it!" "Don't leave me, Jessie." "No!" "I have a box of things I want people to have." "I'm just going to get it for you." "You just rest a minute." "Jessie..." "How can I live here without you?" "I need you." "You're supposed to tell me to stand up straight." "And say how nice I look in my pink dress and drink my milk." "You're supposed to go around and lock up so I know we're safe for the night." "And when I wake up you're supposed to be out there making the coffee." "And you're supposed to help me die when the time comes." "I can't do that by myself, Jessie." "I'm not like you." "I hate the quiet." "And I don't want to die." "And I don't want you to go, Jessie." "How can I get up here every morning knowing you had to kill yourself to make it stop hurting and I was here all the time and never saw it?" "And then you gave me this chance to convince you to stay alive and I couldn't do it." "How can I live with myself after this, Jessie?" "I only told you so I could explain it." "So you wouldn't blame yourself." "There wasn't anything you could say to change my mind." "I didn't want you to save me." "I just wanted you to know." "Stay with me a few more years." "I don't have that many more to go, Jessie." "And as soon as I'm dead, you can do whatever you want." "Maybe with me gone, you'll have all the quiet you want here in the house." "And Ricky will be married by then." "And he'll bring your grand-babies over." "And you can sneak 'em a piece of candy when their daddy's not looking." "Then be real glad when they've gone home and left you to your quiet again." "Don't you see, Mama?" "Everything I do winds up like this." "How could I think you would understand?" "How could I think you would want a manicure?" "That we could hold hands for an hour and then I could go shoot myself?" "I'm sorry about tonight, Mama." "But it's exactly why I'm doing it." "If you've got the guts to kill yourself, Jessie..." " ...you've got the guts to stay alive!" " I know that!" "So it's just a matter of where I'd rather be." "Look, maybe I can't think of what you should do but that doesn't mean there isn't something that would help." "You find it." "You think of it." "You could keep trying." "You can get brave and try some more." " You don't have to give up!" " I'm not giving up!" "This is the other thing I'm trying!" "And I know there're some other things that might work." "But 'might work' isn't good enough any more." "I need something that 'will' work." "This will work!" "That's why I picked it." "But something might happen." "Something that could change everything!" "Who knows what it might be?" "But it might worth waiting for." "Try it for two more weeks." " We could have more talks like" " No, Mama!" "We wouldn't have more talks like tonight." "Because it's this next part that's made this last part so good, Mama!" "No, Mama!" "This is how I have my say." "This is how I say what I thought about it all and I say NO!" "To Dawson!" "And Loretta!" "And the news on TV!" "And epilepsy!" "And Ricky, and Cecil..." "And you!" "And me..." "And hope..." "I say NO!" "Just let me go easy, Mama." "How can I let you go?" "!" "You can because you have to." "It's what you've always done." "But you are my child." "I'm what became of your child." "I found an old baby picture of me." "It was somebody else, not me." "It was somebody pink, and fat..." "Who never heard of sick and lonely..." "Somebody who cried and got fed and reached up and got held." "Slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing her eyes." "Somebody who mainly just laid there and laughed at the colors waving over around her head." "And chewed on a polka-dot whale and woke up knowing some new trick nearly every day." "Rolled over and drooled on the sheet." "And felt your hand pulling the quilt back up over me." "That's who I started out." "And this is who is left." "So, that's what this is about." "It's somebody I lost, all right my own self." "Who I never was." "Who I tried to be and never got there." "Somebody I waited for and never came." "And never will." "So, see, it doesn't matter much what else goes on in the world or in this house, even." "I'm what was worth waiting for and I didn't make it." "Me-- who might have made a difference to me I'm not gonna show up." "So, there's no reason to stay except to keep you company." "And that's not reason enough." "Because I'm not very good company." "Am I?" "No." "And neither am I." "I had this strange little thought, well, maybe it's not so strange." "Anyway after Christmas after I decided to do this I would wonder sometimes "what might keep me here?"" ""What might be worth staying for?"" "And you know what it was?" "It was, if maybe there was something I really liked like maybe if I really liked rice pudding or corn flakes for breakfast, or something that might be enough." "Rice pudding is good!" "Not to me." "And you're not afraid?" "Of what?" "I'm afraid of it, for me, I mean." "When my time comes." "I know it's coming, but..." " Oh, you've got plenty of time left." " Yeah..." "I forget what for, right now." "For whatever happens, I don't know." "For your great-grandchildren, when they're born..." "Dawson losing his hair..." "Jessie, I can't just sit here and say OK, go ahead..." "Kill yourself if you want to." "Sure you can." "You just did." "Say it again." "How dare you...?" "Jessie, how dare you!" "You think you can just leave whenever you want like you're watching TV, here?" "No, you can't, Jessie." "You make me feel like a fool for being alive, child and you are so wrong!" "I like it here and I will stay until they make me go." "Until they drag me screaming and I mean, screeching, into my grave." "And you're real smart to get away before then, because honey, you've never heard noise like that in your life!" "Who am I talking to?" "You're gone already, aren't you?" "I'm looking right through you!" "I can't stop you 'cause you're already gone!" "I guess you think they'll all have to talk about you now." "Oh, yeah!" "Ever since Christmas you've been laughing to yourself and thinking: "Boy, are they all in for a surprise."" "Nobody's going to be a bit surprised, sweetheart." "This is just like you!" "Do it the hard way!" "That's my girl, all right!" "You know who they're going to feel sorry for?" "Me." "How about that?" "Not you." "Me." "They're gonna be ashamed of you!" "Yes, ashamed!" "If somebody asks Dawson about it he'll change the subject as fast as he can!" "He'll talk about how much he has to pay to park his car these days." " Leave me alone!" " It's the truth!" " I should've just left you a note!" " Yes!" "No..." "No..." "I might not have thought of all the things you've said." "It's OK, Mama." "I remember you liked that preacher who did Daddy's." "So if you want to ask him to do-- ...the service, that's OK with me." "What...?" "And pick some songs you like or let Agnes pick." "She'll know exactly which ones." "Oh, and I had that dress cleaned that you wore to Daddy's." " You looked real good in that." " I don't remember, hon." "It won't be so bad once your friends start coming to the funeral home." "You'll probably see people you haven't seen for years." "But I thought about what you should say to get over that-- ...nervous part when the first come in." "Take them up to see the flowers." "They'd like that." "And when they say, "I'm so sorry, Thelma" you just say, "I appreciate your coming, Connie"" "Ask them how their-- garden was last summer or how their children are doing" "I don't think I should ask about their children." "I'll talk about what they have on, that's always good." "And I'll have some crochet work with me." "Good." "If Connie Richards does come, I can get her to tell me where she gets that "Irish yarn", she calls it." "I know it doesn't come from Ireland." "I think it just comes with a green wrapper." "And Agnes will be there." "So, you might not have to talk at all." "Be sure to invite enough people home, so have enough food to feed them all, and have some left for you." "But don't let anybody take anything home." "Especially, Loretta." "Loretta will get all the food set up, honey." "It's only fair we let her have some macaroni or something..." "No, Mama." "You have to be more selfish from now on." "Now, somebody's bound to ask you why I did it." "You just say you don't know." "That you loved me and you know I loved you and we just sat around tonight like every other night of our lives and I came over and kissed you " 'night, Mother" then you heard me close my bedroom door and the next thing you heard was the shot." "And whatever reasons I had, you guess I took them with me." "It was something personal." "Good." "That's good, Mama." "That's what I'll say, then." "Personal, yeah." "Is that what I tell Dawson and Loretta, too?" "We sat around you kissed me..." "'night, Mother...?" "They'll wanna know more." "They won't believe it." "Well, then, tell them what we did." "I filled up the candy jars, I cleaned up the refrigerator you made some hot chocolate, we put the cover back on the sofa..." "You had no idea, all right?" "I really think it's better that way." "If they know we talked about it they really won't understand." "I guess not." "It's private." "Tonight's private." "It's yours and mine." "I don't want anybody else to have any of it." "OK, then." "Now, when you hear the shot, I don't want you to come in." "You won't be able to get in by yourself, but I don't want you trying." "Call Dawson." "Then call the police and then call Agnes." "Then, you'll need something to do till somebody gets here so wash the hot chocolate pan." "You wash that pan until you hear the doorbell ring I don't care if it's an hour." "You keep washing that pan." "I'll make my calls and then I'll just sit." "I won't need anything to do." "What will the police say?" "They'll do that gunpowder test, and they'll ask you what happened." "By that time, the ambulance will be here and they'll come in and get me." "You know how that goes." "Maybe Agnes could come stay with you for a few days." "I'd rather be by myself, I think." "You want me to give people those things?" "I want Loretta to have my little calculator." "Dawson bought it for himself but then he saw one he liked better." "But he couldn't bring both of them home with Loretta counting every penny the way she does." "So he gave the first one to me." "Be funny for her to have it now, don't you think?" "And all my house slippers are in a sack for her in my closet." "Tell her I know they'll fit and I've never worn any of them, and make sure Dawson hears you tell her that." "I'm glad he loves Loretta so much but I wish he didn't think everybody has Loretta's size feet." "OK..." "Now, this letter's for Dawson." "But it's mostly about you, so, read it if you want to." "There's a list of presents for you for at least twenty more Christmases and birthdays." "If you want anything special, add it to this list before you give it to Dawson." "Or if you want it to be a surprise, just don't read that page." "This Christmas you're getting mostly stuff for the house, a new rug..." "But next Christmas you're really going to cost him, next Christmas." "I think you'll like it a lot." "And you'd never think of it." "You think he'll go for it?" "Well, I think he'll feel like a real jerk if he doesn't." "Me telling him to, like this and all." "This number's where you call Cecil." "I called him last week and he answered, so I know he still lives there." "What do you want me to tell him?" "Tell him we talked about him and I only had good things to say about him." "But, mainly tell him to find Ricky." "Tell him what I did and tell Ricky you have something for him, out here from me..." " ...and to come get it." " What is it?" "My watch." "He'll sell it." "That's the idea." "I appreciate him not stealing it already." "I'd like to buy him a good meal." "He'll buy dope with it." "Well, then, I hope he gets some good dope with it, Mama." "And the rest of this is for you." "When did you do all this?" " During my naps, I guess." " I guess." "I tried to be quiet about it." "Those are just little presents." "For whenever you need one." "They're not bought presents, just things I thought you might like to look at." "Things you think you've lost." "Things you didn't know you had, even." "You'll see." "I'm not sure I want 'em." "They'll make me think of you." "No, they won't, they're" "They're just things." "Like a free tube of toothpaste I found hanging on the door one day." "Oh..." "Well, maybe there's one nice present in there somewhere." "It's Granny's ring she gave me and I thought you might like to have it, but I didn't think you'd wear it if I gave it to you right now." "No." "Probably not." "I'm ready for my manicure, I guess." "You want me to wash my hands again?" "It's time for me to go, Mama." "No, Jessie..." " You've got all night!" " No, Mama." "Jessie, it's not even eight o'clock." "Let me go, Mama." "I can't." "You can't go." "You can't do this." "You didn't say it would be so soon, Jessie." "I'm scared." "I love you." "Let go of me, Mama." "I've said everything I had to say." "You said you wanted to do my nails." "I can't." "It'll be too late." "It won't be too late." "I don't want you to wake Dawson and Loretta when you call." "I want 'em still up and dressed so they get right over." "They wake up fast, Jessie, if they have to." "They don't matter here, Jessie." "You do." "I do." "We're not through yet." "We have a lot of things to take care of here." "I don't know where my prescriptions are." "You didn't tell me what to tell Dr. Davis when he calls, or..." "How much you want me to tell Ricky or, who I call to mow the lawn or" "Don't try to stop me, Mama." "You can't do it." "I can too." "I'll stand in this hall and you can't get past me!" "No, Jessie!" "Jessie, I'll knock you out cold before I let you..." "Jessie!" " 'Night, Mother." " Jessie!" "Jessie!" "Jessie, let me in there!" "Don't you do this, Jessie!" "Jessie, I won't stop screaming until you open this door!" "Jessie!" "Jessie!" "Jessie!" "What if I don't do any of the things you told me to do?" "I'll tell Cecil what a miserable man he was to make you feel like he did." "And I'll give Ricky's watch to Dawson, if I feel like it!" "The only way you can make sure I'll do what you want is you come out here and you make me, Jessie!" "Jessie, stop this!" "I didn't know..." "I was here with you all the time..." "How could I know you were so alone?" "Jessie!" "Please!" "Jessie..." "Jessie, child..." " Hello?" " Loretta..." "Let me talk to Dawson, honey." "Thelma?" "Are you all right?" "Hold on a minute, Thelma." "I'll go find him." "Subtitles:" "Lady80s :)"