Unreturned Affection and Silence

Script

Her husband stopped drinking, and something died in the same kitchen that nobody will name. She was the one who could read an entire evening from the sound of keys being set down on a table. She knew what the silences meant, and how to get three children out of a room without any of them understanding they were being moved. Fifteen years. It was the most competent she has ever been at anything in her life. And the day he stopped, that woman had no work. Not less work. None. The single most developed capacity she possessed was useless overnight — useless in the best possible way, which is exactly the part that makes it impossible to say out loud. You cannot stand in a kitchen where a man has just saved his own life and grieve the loss of your job. Nobody sends flowers to a watchman. There is no anniversary for putting down the listening. No cake, no circle of chairs, no form of words at all. And a death with no liturgy does not stay dead. It goes underground, and it goes on working. So look at the rose, because it is the only thing in the picture that anybody is doing. She is holding it herself, against her own ribs, and she is not showing it to anyone. Nobody sends flowers for that one. So you will have to hold one yourself.