this kind of certainty comes but once in a life time

(原於2006年4月27日發表於舊網誌)

INT. KITCHEN

They eat by candlelight. Neither speaks. Neither is very hungry.

ROBERT
Would you like a beer?

She smiles and shakes her head. Robert opens a bottle and takes
a sip.

ROBERT (cont'd)
You know what I'd like to do before we leave? I'd like to take a picture of you - at Roseman bridge. Maybe just as the sun's coming up.

FRANCESCA
Yes. I'd like that.

Pause. Robert smiles back and takes another sip. Then, knowing full well what hangs heavy between them, he asks:

ROBERT
Tell me why you're not coming with me?

Francesca stops pretending to eat. She looks at him, having forgotten how well he can read her.

FRANCESCA
No matter how I keep turning it around in my mind - it doesn't seem like the right thing.

ROBERT
For who?

FRANCESCA
For anyone. They'll never be able to live through the talk. Richard will never be able to. He doesn't deserve that. He hasn't hurt anyone in his life.

ROBERT
(getting aggressive)
Then he can move! People move!

FRANCESCA
His family's lived for almost a hundred years. Richard doesn't know how to live anywhere else. And the kids...

ROBERT
The kids are grown! They don't need you anymore. You told me that. They hardly talk to you.

FRANCESCA
No, they don't say much. But Carolyn's 16. She's just about to find out about all this for herself - she's going to fall in love, she's going to try and figure out how to build a life with someone. If I leave what does that say to her?

ROBERT
What about us? What about me?

FRANCESCA
You've got to know deep down that the minute we leave here. It'll all change.

ROBERT
Yeah. It could get better.

FRANCESCA
No matter how much distance we put between us and this house, I bring with it with me. And I'll feel it every minute we're together. And I'll blame loving you for how much it hurts. And then even these four days won't be anything more than something sordid and... a mistake.

ROBERT
(desperately)
Francesca, listen to me. You think what's happened to us happens to just anybody? What we feel for each other? How much we feel? We're not even two separate people anymore. This kind of certainty comes but once in a life time. Some people search their whole lives for it and wind up alone - most people don't even think it exists and you're going to tell me that giving it up is the right thing to do? That staying here alone in a marriage, alone in a town you hate, in a house you don't feel apart of anymore - you're telling me that's the right thing to do?

FRANCESCA
We are the choices we've made, Robert.