I am working on scraping together a one-act play for my last playwrighting assignment. Though I don't love it, I have settled on writing a family drama about a family sitting in the hospital waiting area waiting for their daughter to have her C-section. The pregnancy was unexpected and unintentional and the family is not happy that it happened at all. As they wait, the story is interspersed with flashbacks of events in the family's history that took place in the same hospital that led them up to this point. I want the girl's mother, Lynette, to be unhappy about her daughter's having a baby because she had a poor relationship with a mother who had her too young and didn't want her. This scene goes from the end of a scene in the present with the family in the waiting room, where Lynette hints to her other daughter Margaret about their poor relationships, and ends in the scene in the past where the grandmother Beverly has just received bad news about her illness.
LYNETTE: Your grandmother was about Helen’s age when she had me.
MARGARET: But Grandma was married and everything.
LYNETTE: Even so. It wasn’t easy on her. She made that very clear.
(Lights down on the waiting room. LYNETTE goes to the SR hospital bed. BEVERLY sits up in it, hooked up to machines. LYNETTE faces away from her and picks up the receiver on the wall phone.)
BEVERLY: I can’t believe they’re not letting me go home. I want to talk to the doctor again. Lynette? Lynette, are you listening?
LYNETTE: One minute, Mom, I’m on the phone with Scott.
BEVERLY: What?
LYNETTE: Here. Scott wants to talk.
BEVERLY: Oh, tell him I’m not here.
LYNETTE: Mom, he knows you’re here, you’re in the hospital.
BEVERLY: Tell him I can’t talk!
LYNETTE: Mom, come on.
BEVERLY: Tell him I’m taking a nap now, I’ll call him back.
LYNETTE: Oh, fine. Scott, she’s being difficult right now, she won’t talk. Sorry. I don’t know why! I can’t fight about it, I’ll make sure she calls you back. Bye for now.
(LYNETTE hangs up the phone.)
LYNETTE: I don’t know why you’re being like this.
BEVERLY: I told you before, I don’t want to take calls right now. I’m tired of everyone nosing into my health.
LYNETTE: Scott is your son and he’s concerned about you!
BEVERLY: Oh, if all of you were concerned you’d listen to what I say.
LYNETTE: Please don’t be like this when they get here.
BEVERLY: What do you mean, get here?
LYNETTE: Him and the kids are flying in on Wednesday.
BEVERLY: He’s just dropping everything in the middle of the week?
LYNETTE: He wants to be here with you.
BEVERLY: No, Lynette, not now. I hate it when they see me with my skin all pale and tubes stuck up my nose. Why can’t they wait until a time when I’m not stuck here?
LYNETTE: Mom, I don’t think you understand.
BEVERLY: What don’t I understand?
LYNETTE: You don’t seem to realize what’s happening.
BEVERLY: Oh, aren’t you so smart? Always know better than your mother!
LYNETTE: Will you just let me explain?
BEVERLY: Thank God you’re here to educate me!
LYNETTE: Mom! Please just listen to me.
BEVERLY: Fine, I’m listening.
LYNETTE: This isn’t like all the other times. The chemo isn’t working anymore. Things could get really bad. That’s why everyone’s flying in to see you.
(Pause.)
LYNETTE: Don’t you think we should be together right now?
BEVERLY: Why are you doing this?
LYNETTE: Doing what?
BEVERLY: You’re just trying to scare me!
LYNETTE: Mom, it’s the truth!
BEVERLY: And you throw it in my face so that I behave how you want me to behave!
LYNETTE: How can you say that?
BEVERLY: You never think about me!
LYNETTE: I’ve been here all week trying to take care of you!
BEVERLY: I took care of you your whole life, and you do this to me now? This is what I lost all the best years of my life to?
LYNETTE: You know it hurts my feelings when you say that?
BEVERLY: Your feelings? I’m the one who’s dying, and I should be worrying about you? Why don’t you go, Lynette, I said I didn’t want anyone visiting me.
(LYNETTE rushes out and returns to the waiting area. Lights down on the bedroom.)
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