PAPER HEARTS
A play in one act

"Between the dark and the daylight
when the night is beginning to lower,
comes a pause in the day's occupation
that is known as the children's hour"
..............Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"As the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth"
..............The Indigo Girls
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The year is 1968; the setting is an old colonial house located in an affluent  town west of Boston, Massachusetts. It is late afternoon.

Scene 1: The main entrance/foyer of the house. We hear someone fumbling with the front door lock; the door opens and a  woman enters. She is in her early 40's. She is wearing a coat and gloves.  She enters the large dimly lit foyer, pauses for a moment, then walks over to  a table and switches on a lamp. She drops her keys on the table and takes a  long look around. As she begins removing her gloves, she turns and speaks  directly to us.

Julia: My name is Julia Elaine Hoffman.....Doctor Julia Elaine Hoffman.

(she removes her coat; she is wearing a plain black dress)

Julia: I grew up in this house. I haven't returned for almost twenty-five  years.  My great-grandfather built this house in 1865. That's him, my  great-grandfather, in that portrait. I was the fourth generation of the  Hoffman family to live in this house. I didn't expect to ever return, but  unexpected things happen........I buried my father today.

(Julia walks down the hallway, rubbing her arms as if she is chilly; she  pauses in front of the portrait)

Julia: Hello, great-grandfather. I see that you are still keeping watch  over this house. 

(She continues down the hall, pausing at a door)

Julia: My father's library. The sanctum sanctorum of the eminent Dr Julian  Ellis Hoffman. Hannah, his housekeeper, found him here, in that chair 

(she points to an oxblood leather chair next to the fireplace)

Died peacefully, they told me. Alone in this room, reading in that chair.  It was a cardiac arrest. Never knew he had a heart condition, it just, sort  of took him by surprise. I find that ironic, I mean, he was a cardiologist.  I guess it is possible that he had no symptoms, no forewarning. Unusual,  but possible. If he had known he'd had a heart condition, he certainly  would have sought treatment. He counted among his colleagues the best  cardiac specialists in the world.

(She enters the room, goes to the desk, switches on the lamp, looks around  the room. Three walls are lined with bookshelves, and there are more books  and papers piled on tables and on the desk.)

Julia: This room looks exactly as it did twenty-five years ago, exactly as I  remember it.

(She picks up a book from the desk, looks at it, puts it down. She walks  around the room switching all of the lamps on. She goes to the bookshelves,  glancing at titles of books. She stops at a model of a sailboat on a shelf;  she pauses and picks up the sailboat)

Julia: My father was quite a sailor in his youth. This is a model of the  last boat he owned, the Elaine Marie, named her after my mother. He sold it  after we lost her, my mother I mean. I find it odd that he kept this. My  father was not a man given to sentimentality.

(She replaces the boat on the shelf, rubs her arms again)

Julia: It's chilly in here.

(Julia walks over to the fireplace, starts to prepare a fire, as she does,  she continues to speak)

Julia: No, I wouldn't describe my father as a sentimental man. A great  scientific mind, inquisitive, brilliant really, but no tolerance for what he  called "sentimental nonsense". He devoted his life to medicine. He was  doing research on heart transplantation. Made quite a name for himself,  published a great deal, spent a great deal of time working with a colleague  in South Africa.

(As the fire comes to life, Julia stands up, hesitates in front of the  leather chair as if to sit - changes her mind and returns to the bookshelves,  takes a book down, leafs through it)

Julia: Did I mention that I am a physician? My specialty is psychiatry, and  I have a sub-specialty in blood disease. In fact, I'm working on a  fascinating case right now (showing enthusiasm) I believe the first case of  it's kind. It's not only a mere blood disorder, but my results will, I  believe, change the way we think about life and death itself! (catching  herself) But...that's not a story for today......

(She walks over to an armoire, opens it - it contains bottles of liquor and  glasses. She pours herself some sherry)

Julia: these four walls (taking in all of the room with a wave of her hand)  contain his life's work. His legacy. I suppose all of this should go to  the Harvard medical school library. He was educated at Harvard, my father I mean, both undergraduate school and then medical school, like his father and  grandfather before him. He had always hoped for a son, I think, to follow  in his footsteps. As a woman, I could only follow so far (laughs). Still, I sensed his disappointment that I wasn't a son. His only offspring,  a daughter, no one to carry on the Hoffman name. Maybe if my mother hadn't  left........ (takes a sip of sherry, goes back to the fireplace; she seems to be lost in  thought for a long moment)

Julia: I confess that I used to wonder what life might have been like if she  had stayed with us. A useless exercise, I admit, but still...... I remember listening to the arguments behind closed doors. I never knew what  they were fighting about, my parents, but I knew that something was very  wrong. Children can sense these things, the tension, I mean. It was  like.....it was like a bomb ticking away under this roof. Then, one day, she  was gone. Just gone. The connection was cut, but there was no explosion.  Just silence. 

(takes a long sip of sherry)

Julia: My mother left me when I was 10 years old. She moved to New York,  divorced my father, and remarried. She never said goodbye. I still recall  my father telling me that she had left. 

(Julia looks over to her father's chair by the fireplace. He is sitting in  the chair. He is a red-haired man, in his early 40's, with strong, sharp  facial features, wearing wire-framed glasses. Julia stands and watches the  scene unfolding.  There is a knock on the door )

Dr Julian Hoffman: Come in

(Julia enters, she is a child of 10 years of age)

Young Julia: (very polite and proper for a child of 10) Poppa, Hannah said  you wanted to see me.

Dr Julian Hoffman: Yes, Julia, sit down.

(Young Julia sits across from her father, looking at him expectantly)

Dr Julian Hoffman: (evenly, without emotion) Julia, I have something to  tell you. Your mother left the house this morning.....she will not be  returning.

Young Julia: Poppa! What do you mean?

Dr Julian Hoffman: Your mother moved away. She was not happy living here,  and she felt that she had to leave. We must accept that this has happened,  and we must go on as if nothing has changed. In a few weeks, you'll adjust,  and you'll see, things will go on as before. The most important thing is  that we go on. Julia, I expect you to try to understand.

Young Julia: But, Poppa, I don't understand. Why did mother leave? Where  did she go? Will I see her?

Dr Julian Hoffman: We must accept what we cannot change. You will learn,  Julia, that life is often hard. Things will happen that are difficult to  accept, but it is important to be strong. It's important to control your  feelings, not let your feelings control you. Do you understand?

Young Julia: Yes, Poppa.

(Fade out - back to Julia in the present time, still standing by the  fireplace)

Julia: We never spoke about her again, at least not to each other. As my  father said, after my mother left there was nothing for us to do but to go  on. I excelled at school, did you know that I was valedictorian of my class?  Well, I was. I studied at Radcliffe, then was accepted to medical school at  Dartmouth. That was in 1946, and it was quite an accomplishment for a woman  to be accepted to medical school. I was the only woman in my class. There  were people there who doubted that I would be able to survive the rigors and  demands of medicine, but I survived quite well.  I survived and I succeeded. Yes, after my mother left, I went on.

(Julia walks over to the armoire, pours herself more sherry)

Julia: I heard today that my mother lives in upstate New York now, with her  third husband. We don't stay in touch. My father never married again.  His work was his life, his consuming passion.

(Julia goes over to her father's desk and sits down. She absent-mindedly  opens the top drawer, starts to look through, pulls out a sheaf of papers,  studies the papers for a moment)

Julia: Lecture notes. He was on the faculty at Harvard, taught seminars  from time to time.

(She continues to casually look through the drawer, pulls out a small glass  bottle, holds it up to the desk lamp to read the bottle's label)

Julia: (reading the label) Nitroglycerin

(She hesitates a long moment while she absorbs the implication of her discovery)

Julia: He was using nitroglycerin? Then he knew that he had a heart  condition. So the heart attack that killed him wasn't the first!

(Still holding the bottle, she gets up and walks back to the fireplace)

Julia: We were never close, my father and I, not really, not after she left. 

(she looks again at the bottle)

Julia: I went away to boarding school, my father immersed himself in his  work.  Oh, I came back here during school vacations, but it was never the same. I  mean, my father's work took him away a great deal of the time. We rarely  spent any time together. When he wasn't away, he'd close himself off in this  room. Then, when I was in college, I just stopped coming back here. There  was no reason to come back.

(She is silent for a long moment)

Julia: This was a mistake, coming back here now. I should have gone home after the funeral. My life is up in Maine, not here, not in this house.

(Turns to her father's empty chair)

Julia: You should have told me that you were ill! You could have called or written me! I would have......I would have......damn you! You couldn't talk to me, not even at the end! 

(she slams the bottle down on the fireplace mantel)

(Dr Julian Hoffman is sitting in his chair; he is now a man in his 70's)

Dr Julian Hoffman: Julia, we must go on as if nothing has changed.

Julia: (turns to face her father) Everything changed! We never spoke about it, but we both knew it, we both felt it!

Dr Julian Hoffman: It's useless to dwell on that which we cannot control.

Julia: I was so heart-broken when she left. I used to cry at night, but you never knew that. I was ashamed of my weakness! I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be like you. You always seemed to be so strong, at least I thought it was strength. Now I realize that you didn't have the strength to face your own feelings. You hid behind your work, behind your cool detachment from the world. We pretended that everything was fine, but the truth is, you didn't have the strength to face me. I hated you for that!

Dr Julian Hoffman: I didn't know what to do, you were a child, I didn't know how to raise a child. Your mother was the one who......

Julia: But my mother left! I needed you!

Dr Julian Hoffman: My work was important, it saw me through many difficult years. I.....I missed her too. 

Julia: But your work took you away from me when I needed you! I tried to follow your advice, I went on. I went on to become a physician! I wanted to make you proud of me, but no matter what I accomplished, you never seemed to notice. It's as if nothing I have done, nothing that I have achieved, is good enough. That fear still follows me, haunts me when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Dr Julian Hoffman: But I am proud of you. I wasn't there for you in the way that I should have been, but I was always proud of you.

Julia: Why didn't you tell me that you were ill?

Dr Julian Hoffman: Why, Julia? I know how the human heart works, I know it like I know my own name. I understand disease and I also understand the limits of medicine. When the heart becomes too fragile, we must let nature run it's course.

Julia: But you should have told me!

Dr Julian Hoffman: Julia, it's not good to dwell on that which we cannot control. And you were absorbed in your own work, the paper that you published last year....

Julia: You knew about that?

Dr Julian Hoffman: Of course I did. It was good work, Julia.

(they are both silent for a long moment)

Julia: I didn't want to come back here today. When I said goodbye to you this morning, I realized that we had already said our goodbyes twenty-five years ago. And I realized that you and I were strangers to each other. God forgive me, but I felt as if I were burying a stranger today.Why were you so distant from me? How did we grow so far apart? Oh, I suppose that you're right, knowing that you were ill, that you were dying, would not have changed anything between us. Too much time has passed, too many missed opportunities. My own father. A stranger.

Dr Julian Hoffman: I was never certain how to reach out to you. I wasn't certain that you wanted me to. Then, as time passes, it becomes easier to accept the silence, to not disturb feelings that are buried in the past.

Julia: When I first took my position at Wyndcliffe, and then when I published my paper last year.....well, I hoped that you would contact me. I found myself thinking....maybe there will be a letter.....

Dr Julian Hoffman: Julia.....

Julia: No.....I could have written to you.....I could have.....but something stopped me. Maybe I was afraid to disturb the past too. When my mother left, we were, both of us, heartbroken. We never spoke about it, that was our mistake. Maybe if we had reached out to each other years ago.......

Dr Julian Hoffman: My daughter, the psychiatrist....

Julia: My father, the cardio-thoracic surgeon....

Dr Julian Hoffman: unable to mend his own heart. Or yours.

(they are both silent for a long moment)

Julia: I'm sorry I said I hated you. That's not true.

Dr Julian Hoffman: I love you, Julia. I always have.

Julia: I wish I could believe that.

Dr Julian Hoffman: Julia, the leather box over there on my desk. Go get it.

Julia: What?

Dr Julian Hoffman: Please, Julia, the box.

(Julia walks over to the desk, picks up the box)

Julia: This?

Dr Julian Hoffman: Open it.

Julia: (as she opens the box, she gasps. She removes something from the box - it is a valentine, made by a child - a red heart with paper lace around the edges. She reads:)

Julia: "To Poppa, Be My Valentine, Love, Julia" You kept this all these years? (she turns to her father, but he is gone) You kept this all these years..........

Scene 2:
(Julia is standing in the foyer. She is wearing her coat. She looks around the foyer, glances at her watch)

Julia: I'll be home by midnight......

(she goes to the hall table, picks up her keys and the paper valentine; she looks at the valentine for a long moment)

Julia: I buried my father today. He was a physician of great renown, a great scientific mind, brilliant, really. Not a man given to sentimentality.

(she walks to the door, opens it, hesitates a moment, then speaks)

Julia: Goodbye, Poppa, I love you.

(she exits)
***********************THE END******************

 Annie