A Simple Love Story

19-A HOSPITAL WAITING AREA

Daniel goes to a middle-aged woman.

DANIEL There's nothing I can say.

MARY I don't think I want to see you right now.

DANIEL I'm so sorry.

Daniel leaves.

MARY Wait. Tell me how she's been. Has she been happy?

Daniel sits beside her.

DANIEL She's been up and down.

MARY She said she's happy with you. She said she really likes you.

DANIEL She means the world to me.

MARY Oh, America, why are so so stupid? Sometimes you're so stupid.

DANIEL We've both been stupid. I really wish—

MARY This isn't the start of this for her, you know that.

DANIEL I never ever meant for anything bad to happen to her.

MARY She's been in trouble since before this. She's had such a hard time.

DANIEL There's no excuse for what I did.

MARY You know this isn't the start of this for her. For many years, she's been—

DANIEL I shouldn't have acted the way I did with her.

MARY She's never learned to take care of herself. Which is my fault.

DANIEL No.

MARY If she didn't learn that better by her age, that's me.

DANIEL No.

MARY That's all me. Yes. Yes, it is. You know she's been to A.A.?

DANIEL Yeah, she said.

MARY That's not all she's been to. You know she took a year off school?

DANIEL When?

MARY Before this year. This has been going on with her since she was fourteen.

DANIEL She told me some things, but..

MARY Not this exact thing. No doubt you two have encouraged each other.

DANIEL I'm so sorry.

MARY But this kind of thing. She's so reckless. You have to wonder, as a mother—

DANIEL She loves you very much.

MARY You know I used to drink? When she was little.

The weight of it all, not just this last fact, hitting him.

DANIEL Oh, god.

MARY I think it affected her most of the three of them.

She breaks up.

MARY Do you have children?

DANIEL Yes.

MARY So you know, you blame yourself.

DANIEL You don't have to blame yourself for this.

MARY Oh, I don't know.

DANIEL I was a huge part of this.

MARY No.

DANIEL Who gave her the shit?

MARY She wanted that anyway.