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turning to page one
Outside, driving rain and wind. Lincoln sits by the window, in his coat, vest and tie, hair combed neatly.
LINCOLN
He'll be fine, Molly. City Point's
far from the front lines, from the
fighting, he'll be an adjutant
running messages for General Grant.
Mary sits at her vanity in a beautiful evening dress, pale with rage.
MARY
The war will take our son! A
sniper, or a shrapnel shell!
Or typhus, same as took Willie, it
takes hundreds of boys a day! He'll
die, uselessly, and how will I ever
forgive you? Most men, their
firstborn is their favorite, but
you, you've always blamed Robert
for being born, for trapping you in
a marriage that's only ever given
you grief and caused you regret!
LINCOLN
That's not true -
MARY
And if the slaughter of Cold Harbor
is on your hands same as Grant, God
help us! We'll pay for the oceans
of spilled blood you've sanctioned,
the uncountable corpses we'll be
made to pay with our son's dear
blood -
Lincoln rises from the window seat, angry.
LINCOLN
Just, just this once, Mrs. Lincoln,
I demand of you to try and take the
liberal and not the selfish point
of view! You imagine Robert will
forgive us if we continue to stifle
his very natural ambition?!
MARY
(with a mocking smile:)
And if I refuse to take the high
road, if I won't take up the rough
old cross, will you threaten me
again with the madhouse, as you did
when I couldn't stop crying over
Willie, when I showed you what
heartbreak, real heartbreak looked
like, and you hadn't the courage to
countenance it, to help me -
LINCOLN MARY
That's right. When you I was in the
room with refused so much as to
comfort Willie, I was holding him
in Tad - my arms as he died!
LINCOLN MARY (CONT’D)
- the child who was not only How
dare you! sick, dangerously sick,
but beside himself with grief?
LINCOLN MARY (CONT’D)
Oh but your grief, your How dare
you throw that at grief, your
inexhaustible me?! grief!
LINCOLN MARY (CONT’D)
And his mother won't let him I
couldn't let Tad in! I near her,
`cause she's couldn't risk him
seeing how screaming from morning
to angry I was! night pacing the
corridors, howling at shadows and
furniture and ghosts! I ought to
have done it, I ought have done for
Tad's sake, for everybody's
goddamned sake, I should have
clapped you in the madhouse!
MARY
THEN DO IT! Do it! Don't you
threaten me, you do it this time!
Lock me away! You'll have to, I
swear, if Robert is killed!
Silence. Then:
LINCOLN
I couldn't tolerate you grieving so
for Willie because I couldn't
permit it in myself, though I
wanted to, Mary. I wanted to crawl
under the earth, into the vault
with his coffin. I still do. Every
day I do. Don't... talk to me about
grief.
(BEAT:)
I must make my decisions, Bob must
make his, you yours. And bear what
we must, hold and carry what we
must. What I carry within me - you
must allow me to do it, alone as I
must. And you alone, Mary, you
alone may lighten this burden, or
render it intolerable. As you
choose.
She opens her mouth to make an angry reply, then stops, and watches as he leaves the room.