They don’t? But that's what I am saying. We can have this relationship but you can still be inscrutable to me.
Listen, there’s nothing wrong with relationships that are built on routines.
As long as those routines don’t blind you to what’s really going on.
I’m not blind, if that’s what you’re saying. I know what’s going on.
And then if something comes along and breaks the routine…
Like what?
I don’t know. What about that woman you hired for a secretary?
Wanda? What about her?
I don’t know what you two do all day locked up in such close quarters.
We work. What do you think we do?
I don’t know. But anything can happen, don’t you think? If this is a relationship of routine?
It’s our marriage.
Our routine is what you said.
It’s sacred to me.
But it’s still a routine.
Routines can be sacred.
Can they?
They go hand in hand, don’t you think?
I always thought the sacred was higher.
It doesn’t matter what we think, does it? All that matters is that I love you.
That’s a cop out. How do I know you love me, Art?
You’re getting too dramatic on me, Adeleine.
Well?
A feeling, I suppose. A gut feeling…
There’s no such thing as gut feelings. A gut feeling is what gets you into trouble.
Yeah, but sometimes a gut feeling is all you have to go on. And your gut should tell you by now, my wife, that I love you.
I still don’t know how one really knows. You still seems inscrutable to me, Art.
Please. Stop using that word. It scares me.
Well it’s true. And if we’re going to have conversations like this, then you have to let me speak my mind.
There is truth and then there is truth. Some truths you can think, and you can assume I already know them, but you don’t have to say them.
How do I know what you know or don’t know?
I think you do know what I know, and I also think I’m not—what’s that word?—what do you say I am: inscrutable? I’ve never been called that before, and I didn’t expect you, of all people, to call me that.
Marriage teaches you that, though. Don’t you think? No matter how close you are to somebody, there are still many things you don’t know. It’s routine that keeps us together, but it’s also routine that keeps us from knowing too much of each other. That’s what I mean about being truthful.
We know each other’s routines. Isn’t that the same as knowing somebody? We’re only inscrutable when we try to see beyond the routine—as if a person were more than their own odd little collections of routine.
But this doesn’t sound like love to me. It sounds like a business partnership: what you and Wanda have. It doesn’t sound like what a marriage should be.
What should a marriage be?
Love should be at the root of it, perhaps.
Do you love me?
That’s a hard question.
Please don’t say it’s a hard question. I love you.
How do I know that, Art?
Because I’m telling you it’s so. You just have to trust.
Trust…
We have to trust each other.
A business transaction? Is that what this is?
Sort of.
Then I want a new partner. You’re not bringing in enough cash.
I never thought the money mattered to you.
That’s because I never thought the money mattered to you. But apparently it does. And if this is a business partnership, you’re not bringing in enough cash.
I’m doing what I can.
You and Wanda.
Wanda is the only thing between my business being viable and my business being doomed.
Wanda. Wanda. Wanda. She does seem too pretty by half.
You’re too pretty by half.
You still find me pretty after all these years?
You still care if I find you pretty after all these years?
A woman always cares.
Then I still find you pretty.
Do you find me trustworthy, Art?
Yes. Do you find me trustworthy, Adeleine?
The jury’s still out.
The jury will always be out.
What can I say? I’m a woman. Women by nature shouldn’t trust men.
And vice versa?
Women are trustworthier than men.
Do you think so?
Yes. Women have more to lose.
Well I trust you, even if you don’t trust me.
I trust you too, I suppose, though I still think you’re a drifter. You have to work on that.
?
She was in the wrong place when she died and she was in the wrong place when we had met.
How had we met? I almost forgot how we met.
Did we meet?
Or had we always known each other?
I feel we have been together so long I don’t remember who I was before there was you.
It’s the funniest thing, Art. I feel the same way.
Who were you when we met?
I was a girl who lived on the North Shore, and even then I hated being a girl who lived on the North Shore.
What did you hate about it?
I hated everything about it. I lived in a world of princesses and castles and beautiful kingdoms and wealth and prospects and pink dresses and girls who were always so desperate to be the central figure at the ball. But I for one never liked princesses. I’ve never cared for castles—and I certainly didn’t care for what passed for castles on the North Shore. I wanted to find a gypsy to run away with. You were my revolt, Art. You were the thing I was looking for. You were the guy to break me out of my fairy kingdom.
I remember when I met you. You walked through the door to that party and I said: look at the princess.
Yes, and then what?
And then you glared at me like I was the craziest guy you had ever set eyes on.
Because you were the craziest guy I ever set my eyes on.
But I’m not crazy, am I?
You’re crazier than most of the guys I have ever known.
How so? How am I crazy?
Do I have to tell you how you’re crazy now? We’ve been together all these years and you don’t know how I think you’re crazy?
Meg is crazy too, don’t you think?
No. I don’t think Meg is crazy. I think Meg takes after her mother. She’s perfectly sane and rational and like me. She has never liked Princesses.
She liked Dungeons and Dragons.
That was a phase. And what’s more, it wasn’t about Princesses. She also liked rock and roll.
If you call the Grateful Dead rock and roll.
If it isn’t rock and roll what is it?
The Grateful Dead?
And so our conversations went. Round and round in a circle. Who knows what it all meant? What it means. What can it mean when the conversations are remembered, but the sound of the voice isn’t remembered? I remember the words, but the sound of her voice. The sound of my wife’s voice talking, this I am having the hardest time remembering.
?
Talk to me, Adeleine, talk to me.
Why should I talk to you? You do so well talking to yourself.
I’m not talking to myself. I’m speaking to you.
How can you be speaking to me? I’m no longer here.
But I am still speaking to you. You know that as well as I do.
I suppose so.
I suppose so.
Yes, we suppose so.