Custody

(BRIAN and ANDREA are at a stand-off.)

ANDREA:  He’s coming with me.

BRIAN:  I’m going to use a bad word now, Andrea.

ANDREA:  Which one?

BRIAN:  One you’re not going to like, okay?  But I’m sort of—

ANDREA:  Let’s hear it.

BRIAN:  I’m sort of at the end of my rope.

ANDREA:  Lay it on me.

BRIAN:  Ready?

ANDREA:  I’m ready.

BRIAN:  Fuck.  Off.

ANDREA:  Look—

BRIAN:  No, you look—this is my weekend with him.  Which means, you can see him on Monday.

ANDREA:  Brian, there might not be a Monday.  Or do you not watch the news?

BRIAN:  I watch the news, I know about the comet, and I also know that THIS is my weekend with my son.  So he’ll see you—on Monday.  And if there isn’t a Monday—then he won’t see you.  It’s pretty easy to—

ANDREA:  I’m not going to leave my son here and never see him again.

BRIAN:  Nobody’s stopping you—

ANDREA:  Just because YOU’RE bitter.

BRIAN:  Can I finish what I was about to say?

(A moment.)

No one.  And I mean—no one—is stopping you.  From seeing.  Your son.  You want to go up and see him?  Go up and see him.  Sit on the bed.  Hold him.  Hug him.  Do whatever you want to do.  But you’re not TAKING him—that’s the thing.  You’re not taking him anywhere, because I don’t want to—without him.  Okay?

(A moment.)

ANDREA:  I don’t need to take him.

BRIAN:  Thank you.

ANDREA:  If I can stay—

BRIAN:  You can stay, Andrea.  I’m not—you know, I’m not heartless.

ANDREA:  Nobody said you were heartless.

BRIAN:  Well, to turn a mother away—

ANDREA:  But don’t act like our divorce was some kind of romp through the daisies, all right?  Let’s not fake amnesia here.

BRIAN:  Yeah it got ugly, okay.

ANDREA:  And the custody battle—

BRIAN:  Custody’s always ugly.

ANDREA:  Kerry and George—

BRIAN:  Your sister and her husband didn’t have an ugly custody battle or divorce or anything because they’re both self-medicators.  They slept through their entire divorce.

ANDREA:  That’s not true.

BRIAN:  It’s not?

ANDREA:  Okay, it’s true, but it’s mean.

BRIAN:  Do me a favor—don’t go up and see him yet.

ANDREA:  Why not?

BRIAN:  He’s…he’s crying.

ANDREA:  Well, then I need to go see him.

BRIAN:  Andrea—

ANDREA:  That means he needs his mother.

BRIAN:  This isn’t like a—like a—I hurt myself because I bumped into something crying.  This is…private crying.

ANDREA:  Brian, our son is eight years old.

BRIAN:  I understand that.

ANDREA:  He’s eight.  He doesn’t private cry.  I mean, Jesus, listen to yourself.

BRIAN:  Don’t go saying ‘Jesus,’ okay?  Relax.

ANDREA:  Private crying?  Is he in the shower?  Is this a Lifetime movie?  Is our son now being played by Judith Light?  I mean, come on.

BRIAN:  He knows what’s happening.  He knows that—he knows about the comet, and that it could hit us, and he’s…processing it.

ANDREA:  You let him find out about—

BRIAN:  I didn’t let him anything.  He has a computer.  He goes to school.  He has ears.  They work.  There wasn’t any—he knows, and he’s dealing with it—by crying.  And I think we need to…give him some space.

ANDREA:  He’s eight!

BRIAN:  He may be eight, but he’s not four.  There are fine lines here, Andrea.

ANDREA:  I’m going to go comfort my son.

BRIAN:  This isn’t me talking as some hard man with hard approaches to child-rearing who doesn’t think kids should cry.  I think it’s great he’s crying.  I encourage him to cry.  I said, ‘Ethan, if you want to cry, you should.  Dad cried.’

ANDREA:  You cried?

BRIAN:  No, I didn’t cry.  But I told him I cried to make him feel better about crying if he wanted to—

ANDREA:  Well, that was…very sweet.

BRIAN:  Thank you.

ANDREA:  You have your moments.

BRIAN:  I certainly do.

ANDREA:  So what now?  Just…wait?  For him to—

BRIAN:  For him to do whatever he needs to do.  Maybe he needs to…draw a picture, or Google something or—

ANDREA:  Or talk to his parents?

BRIAN:  If he needs us, we’re here.

ANDREA:  Eventually we will get to see our child before the comet comes, right?

BRIAN:  Yes, but we have some time, and maybe, until everything goes down, we can all use this as an opportunity to kind of—straighten things out with ourselves.

ANDREA:  And what do you have to straighten out?

BRIAN:  Just that, uh, you know—I feel bad.  About…things that happened.

ANDREA:  You mean during our marriage?

BRIAN:  No, actually, I think you should feel bad about things that happened during our MARRIAGE.  I feel bad about things that happened during the divorce.

ANDREA:  I…feel badly about…Yes, the marriage.  Things about…the marriage.

BRIAN:  But we got Ethan because of it.

ANDREA:  Right.

BRIAN:  So I wouldn’t trade—

ANDREA:  No, of course not.

(A moment.)

You know, there’s a…he might not have a very long life.  I mean, this might be it.  And if we made even a small part of what might be a very short life difficult for him then—

(She can’t really finish that thought.)

BRIAN:  Some kids fall out of trees and break their arms.  Some kids wind up abandoned in hospitals.  Some kids get rare diseases.  Our kid had the misfortune of being born to two people who didn’t love each other.  Everybody’s got their thing, you know?

(A moment.)

ANDREA:  I won’t dispute the whole ‘love’ thing, but…When he was born…and you were standing there next to me.  And we were so—I don’t know why we were relieved because he was such an easy—I mean, the birth was easy—but I felt…relieved.

BRIAN:  Yeah.

ANDREA:  That felt like love.  I mean, I look back now and I know it wasn’t, but it…it really felt like it.

BRIAN:  Ironic that, uh—I mean, I only know it wasn’t love, because I love Ethan so much.  He’s the only person I think I’ve ever really loved.

ANDREA:  Yeah, I—Yeah.

(A moment.)

BRIAN:  You can probably go see him now.  It’s been a little while.

ANDREA:  Why don’t you come up two?  He might like seeing the two of us together.

BRIAN:  Or he might be scared since the last time he saw the two of us together I was jumping on the hood of your car and you were threatening to drive me into a brick wall.

ANDREA:  Yeah, I’ll go up first.

(They laugh.)

BRIAN:  Thanks for coming by.

ANDREA:  Thanks for having me.

(She exits.  He nods to himself, as if to say ‘This seems right.’)