East Side, West Side Page #11

you're crazy.

So long, honey.

I'll be back some day or other.

Mr. Dwyer,

you're going to miss your plane, sir...

Yeah, yeah, I'm coming.

Good morning, Bran.

Will you let me talk to you, Jess?

Yes, of course.

I have no story ready for you, Jess.

I walked all night thinking of all the things

I've done to you and to myself,

and there aren't any words

to explain them, or to undo them.

They happened, I suppose they were real.

I can't very well throw myself

at your feet and say, "I love you,

"I can't imagine life without you,"

although, you know it's true.

You could so easily tell me

that I've said that all along,

and that my love hasn't

done you any good.

I haven't any ammunition left,

have I, Jess?

But I have to fight anyway,

because I do love you,

and I can't imagine life without you.

I won't try to be persuasive.

I just want you to look at this marriage

of ours, coldly and objectively,

to make a balance sheet of it,

the good and the bad,

the assets and the liabilities,

before you throw it away,

before you throw away both our lives.

We started with as much excitement,

and hope, and love for each other,

as any two people ever had.

We started a good marriage, Jess.

And it grew better as it went on.

We each changed a little.

Do you remember at the beginning,

how difficult it was

for you to sit through a hockey game,

for me to stay awake at the ballet?

I taught you how to handle a sailboat.

And I remember there was one winter

when you...

When you had me reading poetry.

We learned to like each other's friends,

and to tell, without a word or signal,

when the other was bored

and wanted to go home.

We said a hundred times that we didn't

know how we'd lived before we met.

We planned exactly how we'd be

when we were old.

I made you promise not to die before me.

Do you remember?

I remember everything, Bran.

That's one side of the ledger.

That's the way it was for years,

for most of the time we've been together.

Until I smashed it.

Ever since the day I met her,

I've given you nothing but unhappiness.

That's the other side of the ledger.

I can't deny it. I can't tear the page out.

But, Jess, it's over, finished.

She was all that stood between us,

but now she's dead and I'm free of her.

She was all that stood between us.

And now that she's gone,

there's nothing between us.

Nothing.

Jess, you don't mean that.

I'd give anything in the world

not to mean it.

I've waited so long

for you to come back to me.

I never dreamt that when you did,

I wouldn't care.

As simple as that, just sometime

between yesterday and today,

you just turned it off.

I wish I could turn it on again, I...

I don't know how love starts,

or why it ends.

I thought my love for you

would never end.

That if it did, the whole world would end.

The traffic in the streets would stop,

the boats on the river.

But I was wrong, Bran, nothing stops.

Everything goes on.

It doesn't make any difference

to anyone in the world

that I don't love you anymore,

least of all to me.

Thank you for all the good things.

Hello?

Oh, hello, Mother.

Yes, Jessie will be there for dinner

on Thursday night as usual,

but alone.

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