Mother of Blue Stars

DOLORES: I beg your pardon?

MARY: You are wrong about me.  You make it sound like I am hiding something when in fact I am not.  I have been an open book today.  

DOLORES: Really?  That’s strange because I don’t feel as if I know you any better than when we had started. Everything you’ve given me is superficial. From what I can tell, the secret behind the Mother of Blue Stars is simply to stay busy and stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. Cook and clean and collect recipes and socialize from time to time – God forbid you discuss the war – and make sure your daughter is shaping up to be suitable wife material! 

ANDY: You seem upset, Dolores.

DOLORES: Mary Banas must be more complex than just that!

MARY: My husband is right – you seem upset.

DOLORES: I was expecting so much more!

MARY: What more can I give you? Raymond’s birthday cake is long gone.

DOLORES: Then maybe you’re right. Maybe what I see is what I get and your whole life is in this kitchen, in this house. 

MARY: It is very safe here.

Beat

ELEANOR: There’s your story, Dolores.  Don’t you see, my mother’s strength comes from her weakness?  Before you said you wanted to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.  Well, I think you have it backwards.  My mother is already extraordinary.  What keeps her strong and makes her climb out of bed in the morning is the promise of the ordinary.  This ordinary house.  This ordinary kitchen. This ordinary life.

Beat as MARY appears to be in thought

MARY: May I tell a story?

DOLORES: Of course!

MARY: When I was a little girl I found a stray kitten, just a tiny bundle of fur, crying for its mother.  I was on my way home from school.  It was winter – like now – and the poor little thing was cold and hungry.  I swooped it up and stuffed it inside my jacket and carried it home.  We lived on a farm with a cow so there was plenty of milk.  My parents let me keep the kitten so long as I took care of it. 

MARY takes a sip of coffee

MARY: I took my job as mother very seriously.  I fed it and played with it and did my best to protect it which meant no going outside.  Spring came and the kitten became a cat and by and by it wanted to go out.  My father explained that cats were hunters and needed to track down mice and birds.  I heard none of it! Outside was dangerous! There were dogs and oxen and other cats and who-knows-what.  The cat would whine to go out – it sounded so sad.  Finally one day I could not take it anymore and cracked open the door.  It bolted out!  It moved so fast I figured I would never see it again.  It didn’t return for almost a week. I was heartbroken.  Then one day, out of the blue, it came back.  “Where have you been?!” I asked.  My mother called it the prodigal cat.  Ever since that day, I let it come and go as it pleased and you know what, Dolores?  It always came back!  I had that cat until I was 18 and left for America.  

MARY takes another sip of coffee; a few beats of silence.

ANDY: I hate cats.

DOLORES: Did the cat have a name?

MARY: Just Cat.

ELEANOR: I would have given it a name.

ANDY: I would have—

 DOLORES: to ELEANOR]: How you’d get so smart, kiddo?

ELEANOR: I don’t know.  I read a lot, I guess.

ANDY: She takes after me.

DOLORES smiles at ANDY.  Then she surveys her surroundings and nods.

DOLORES: Thank you, everyone.  I have everything I need.

FADE TO BLACK

The End.