Daughter by Elana Gartner

Daughter

By Elana Gartner

The middle of Act I, Scene 3. The public library in Ewing, New Jersey. There is a table with several chairs. There is a pile of books on it. MILLIE, 32 year old biker chick, is talking with her biological daughter, ROBYN, 16, who has pretended that she is her friend, ALEXIS, who is also present, and that ALEXIS is ROBYN.

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MILLIE:

Right. Boyfriends. Right. So one night, at the campground, this guy comes through. And he's really wild. And he just had this energy... you just wanted to be with him all the time, you know? And, out of everyone there, he wanted to be with me. He stayed at Blackbird Perch for a good week or so. And I stayed with him every single night. And he was a fantastic lover.

(beat) That's probably not the stuff I should be telling you about your dad. You probably don't want to be hearing that kind of stuff. Anyhow, he was wild and dreamy. I really thought this was it. I thought "Wow. This is it. This is what it's really like to be in love." Or whatever that means. At sixteen, can you imagine? And, there he was, just talking to me, spending every waking minute with me, looking up at the stars with me every night. It was like a dream. Really. I thought I'd died right there and gone to heaven. But.

(beat) One morning, he was out in the woods, looking for some berries or something. And, you know, he just must have lost track of where he was and wandered way off into another part of the forest where people are really not supposed to go. I mean, he had a pretty good sense of direction so you had to think he knew something but he wandered right into the hunting area. And, wouldn't you know it?

(SHE puts a finger to her head like a gun and makes gunshot noise.)

Just like that. Really quick, too. The hunter found him immediately and tried to get help but it was too late. A friend of my uncle's, actually. They used to hunt together all the time. And he just felt terrible. Never forgave himself. Even stopped hunting for a while. And, after his funeral, that's when I found out. I was pregnant with...

(SHE looks at ROBYN then at ALEXIS)

...you.

(Beat) I wanted to keep you but my mom wouldn't let me. She said that the baby was going to bring bad spirits on the family. She even closed Blackbird Perch after that. Sold it. She said it had bad juju. I never really believed that kind of stuff. But she marched me right to the clinic and signed me up to have you adopted. I never even got to hold you in the hospital. They took you right away. But I was always mad about it. So, when my mom died last year, I made up my mind to try to find you.

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