Motherhood Page #6

AVERY:
Eliza?

[ Cell phone rings ]

AVERY:
Eliza!

[ Cell phone rings ]

What?

What the hell?

Why do you keep

hanging up on me, Eliza?

[ Turns music off]

I'm not Eliza.

No, no, this is that woman who only

knows how to be banal, right?

What are you talking about?

If you don't even remember

writing that, Avery,

I'm not only leaving town,

I'm filing for divorce right now.

AVERY:
Leaving town?

Where are you?

ELIZA:
I just turned --

I'm on -- I'm on --

You're breaking --

You're breaking up.

[ Police sirens ]

Oh, God! Sh*t!

I can't hear you.

You're breaking --

There's a cop, Avery!

I don't want a ticket!

We can't afford another ticket!

AVERY:

Okay, I know, I know,

Look, Eliza, you can't leave town.

Too late.

AVERY:

Why are you so upset?

You told me

to be honest about that thing.

Well, there's honest,

and then there's debilitating, Avery.

And apparently

you don't know the difference.

Maybe I don't know the difference.

I mean, just ask Sheila.

Her opinion of me is not much better

than yours at this point.

What does Sheila

have to do with this?

Don't even ask.

I have to steer.

AVERY:
You know, you used

to like it when I was tough on you,

You wanted me to do that.

ELIZA:
Well, somehow "tough" got

a whole lot less appealing today,,,

...when I had to run around

absorbing an entire's city worth

of random hostility.

Well, it's not like you don't

radiate your own.

The point is,

I had something to write.

Something important to me,

if not to you.

AVERY:
Yeah?

So why did you go shopping

with your friends?

Because it was the last day

of the sample sale!

And I got a 380-dollar dress

for 40 dollars!

That's why, Avery!

Maybe I should just give it all up

and wear mom jeans.

What the hell are mom jeans?

It's not like you'd notice, anyway.

You wanna know

one of the few benefits of 9/11?

Excellent cell phone reception

in the tunnels.

AVERY:
Okay, Eliza?

Just stop, okay?

And listen to me.

This isn't funny, really.

What is Clara gonna say when

she gets home and you're not there?

ELIZA:
What does she care?

She's got her goody bags

full of plastic crap

I bought against my better judgment.

She's got her cake

with the misspelled name,,,

...which I corrected myself.

She's got her purple cups

and plastic forks.

What does she need me for?

Are you serious?

I'm not only serious, I'm in Jersey.

You're in wh--?

Hold on, wait.

-AVERY:
Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-What?

-AVERY:
Oh, my God!

-What?

I think he swallowed something.

-Hey, hey!

-ELIZA:
Swallowed what?

Avery! Avery, what did he swallow?

I think he's choking!

Avery, don't push your finger

in his throat!

You can stick it down further!

Yeah, right! Well, what do I do?

Yeah, well, we took that class

together, don't you remember?

No, no, I don't remember.

What do l--?

You have to stay calm.

Avery, please, please, just --

Put him over your knee,

AVERY:
I can't get him

out of the stroller.

ELIZA:
Put him over your knee

and hit him three times on his back!

What do I do now?

I got him on my knee.

Hit him firmly on the back

three times!

Okay, hold on.

Oh, God! Come on!

Just spit it out, all right?

Avery! I can't hear you!

Come on! Come on, Lucas!

Spit it out, spit it out!

ELIZA:
Avery?

What are you doing?

Avery?

Sh*t! Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!

[ Tires screech ]

Oh, Lucas! Lucas, I'm coming!

Oh, my God! Lucas!

Oh, my God!

ELIZA:
I'm coming!

Yeah, it's fine. It came out.

AVERY:
It's fine,

it was just a lollipop in --

It's all right,

[ Music plays ]

What could possibly possess you

to give a toddler

a known choking hazard?

Don't lecture me, Eliza.

I could just as easily lecture you.

Really? For what?

For doing all the idiotic errands?

For listening to mothers in the park

who need to be medicated?

While you get to go to work

with real adults

and have normal

adult conversation.

Oh, yeah, like having Morris

ream me out

because I had to leave work

to take care of Lucas?

You mean those kind of normal,

adult conversations?

You got an envelope at home today,

by the way.

Some messenger guy delivered it.

Oh, yeah, right.

He --

He helped me

carry my bags upstairs,

and so I let him

come in for a while.

You what?

I let him come in,

and he blew up balloons.

You let a messenger

come into our apartment

and decorate

for our daughter's birthday?

His name was Mikesh,

and he was just being nice.

He looked at me

like I was a person

who might still have something

worthwhile to say.

I always tell you that you have

something worthwhile to say.

You --

You need a stranger

to tell you that?

Was he good-looking or....?

He looked at me like I might still

be somebody worth looking at.

How could you not know

that you're worth looking at?

Were you attracted to him?

Were you?

It's just that you never look

at me that way anymore, Avery.

Do you look at me that way?

No, not really. Not enough.

But I still love you, Avery.

I really love you, but --

But what?

It's just that

every day from the second I wake up

till the second I pass out cold,

my day, like the day of almost

every other mother I know,

is made up of a series of concrete,

specific actions.

And they're actions that kind of

wear away at passion,

if you know what I mean.

The actions

are petty and small like....

Like refilling coffee cups

or folding underwear.

But they accumulate

in this really debilitating way

that diminishes my ability to focus

on almost anything else.

Bigger things like, you know,

ideas or...

...politics or dreams

of a better life.

Well, what would be a better life?

It wasn't always my ambition

to supervise a team

of fatuous liberal arts graduates

and edit their copy about traveling

to places that we can't afford

to visit.

When we had Clara,

I got a job with healthcare

and a little bit of flexibility.

It was a decision that we made.

We made the decision together.

So I got a job that I can tolerate.

No more, no less.

You're not the only one

who's made sacrifices, Eliza.

Well, that still doesn't explain

why you can't pick up your socks.

What do my socks

have to do with it?

Your socks have everything

to do with it!

[ Eliza cries ]

Eliza, all I wanted you

to do in that piece

was to stop hiding behind irony

because it comes so easily to you.

I want to know

what you really think.

I want to know

what you really feel.

What makes you want to live

a life with passion,

no matter how many socks

you have to pick up.

What about that?

[ Children laughing and playing ]

[ Elizabeth Mitchell's "Jubilee"

plays ]

AVERY:

Come on, Coupon.

Come on, get out.

Oh....

Does Coupon have to be out here?

Ah, no, but Bodhi

just tripped over him.

Oh, is that Bodhi crying?

Yeah, it is.

Is Lily crying back in his face?

Unfortunately, yes.

Oh....

Did Sheila come back?

Not yet.

Don't worry.

You were right, you know?

Unbelievable.

About what?

About this.

But I think I figured it out.

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