Fiction by Marc Erdrich
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Soul Mates - page 2

than anything. SON: Don’t start that again...please! You know there’s no way Ellen and I are getting back together. MOTHER: How he wanted that. SON: (to audience) She means it’s what she wanted. All he wanted was to go on a cruise. In the end it was her constant nagging that killed him. FATHER: (Entering the room. He is in his 80s, small, grandfatherly.) Janet, have you got a little something for lunch? MOTHER: Lunch? You just ate breakfast. FATHER: That was four hours ago. MOTHER: I think if I let you, you’d eat all day. FATHER: A little something for lunch, Janet. That’s all I want. MOTHER: You don’t need any lunch. FATHER: (Forgetting about lunch.) You know, Janet, I’ve been thinking, it might be nice to go on a cruise – like the ones they advertise in the paper – to Bermuda. MOTHER: (Snickering) Bermuda? You want me to go on a cruise to Bermuda...with you? You can’t even remember to take your pills. How do you expect to go on a cruise? FATHER: No, I mean it, Janet. Let’s go on a cruise. MOTHER: You and your ideas. I’m no going on any cruise with you. That’s all I need is for something to happen... FATHER: So what could happen? I could die? I could die on a boat just as easily as I could die in my own house. MOTHER: (Looking at him with disgust.) You know, Lou, you make me sick. SON: I don’t understand. Why are you talking to him like that? A cruise doesn’t sound like a bad idea.