Richard shows up at Cross Creek 

 

(Reva is taking a bath and doesn't see Richard come in.  He puts his hands around her neck...)

Richard:  Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now for what you did to me.

Reva: Take your hands off me.

Richard:  Tell me why…Tell me why I should let you live a long and happy life while I sit alone knowing that my son is gone from me forever.  Taken away by a woman I was foolish enough to trust.

Reva:  You couldn’t hurt me Richard, you couldn’t.

Richard:  Why not?  Why not, because I love you.  BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!  Well answer me this? How could I possible love a woman who could take my child from me?  Who could rip out my heart and soul and toss a note…a note on the table, as if you were informing me of a dinner engagement.  No, but this was to inform me that you were taking my son away from me again.  You took it upon your almighty self to make that decision didn’t you.  You decided that my son and I would go through the rest of our lives not seeing each other, not knowing each other.  That’s what you decided.

Reva:  You have no right to burst in here!

Richard:  I HAVE EVERY RIGHT!  You and I…You and I created our child together hmm together.  Yes that was me... That was me in bed with you, making love to you when Jonathan was conceived, that was me that you were holding onto and that you kissed when Jonathan was born, that we cradled in our arms and we shared the first moments of his life together.  And it was me that helped you put back the pieces of your life, to recover the memory of your missing years so that we could find our son, and we did find him.  Our son…OUR SON.  And what gives you the right to take my son away, to give him to another family.  Do you care nothing about me?  Do you care nothing about him?

Reva: I do care. I DO CARE! You have no idea how much I care.  (Reva gets out of bath)  Turn around.

For Gods sake Richard I’m not heartless.

Richard:  May I turn around now?

Reva:  Yes.  It was hard for me to have to leave you the way I did after sending Jonathan away.

Richard:  It wasn’t so difficult was it.  You couldn’t find anything like courage or compassion to stop yourself.

Reva:  It took all the strength I had to walk away from you like that, and than it nearly broke my heart seeing you run after me on the beach.

Richard: So you …you did think about me.

Reva:  Yes.

Richard:  About leaving me.

Reva:  I would never want to hurt anyway…anyone the way I hurt you.  I…there were so many things that I wanted to explain to you.

Richard:  Well what stopped you, you’ve never been at a loss for words have you.

Reva:  Cause I had…I had to make the break…

Richard:  Without seeing me.

Reva:  I didn’t belong in your world any more than you belong in mine now.  How did you find me?

Richard:  I got a clue from your sister.

Reva:  You saw Cassie?

Richard:  Yes!  And she swears that you don’t know where Olivia’s family took Jonathan, but that’s a lie isn’t it? Of course, because how could you possible send away your own son to somewhere you don’t know where?

Reva:  Because it’s what I had to do.  If I knew where Jonathan was I don’t know if I could stop myself.

Richard:  Stop yourself…Stop yourself from what.

Reva:  From calling him… from going to him… for… from bringing him here.  I miss him so much I don’t know what I would do.

Richard:  Well at least you gave yourself a chance.

Reva:  No.  I didn’t have a chance; I didn’t have a choice.  If I had tried to contact Jonathan and I was being watched I would have put our son in so much danger.  So I gave him up the only way I knew how.  I gave him up for both of us.  I wasn’t trying to keep him from you Richard, I was trying to keep him safe from Edmund.  Don’t you think this is tearing me up too?  Don’t you think that I have a hole in my heart for our son the same way you do?  And that is why we’ll always be connected for the rest of our lives.  Richard you know me, you know me so well and you know that everything that I said in that letter was true and final.  I wrote so many letters to you in our life together.  I’m nothing if I’m not honest you know that, so you had to understand before you even came here that I was telling you the truth when I said I didn’t know where Jonathan was.

Richard:  Yeah! Yes I did. Of course. All right.

Reva:  Then why did you really come here?

Richard:  I came here to look you in the eyes and to ask you why?  Why did you run off and leave me? Why couldn’t you come to me and tell me to my face what you did after all that we had been through.  Reva?

Reva:  I left the way I did because it was killing Joshua…

Richard:  I want you to look at me in the eyes and stop hiding behind Josh.  Now we had something very special.  We had a marriage, we had a family and you can’t just eliminate that life that fact just because it doesn’t suit you.  Now does that love… does that life mean so little to you…little to you that you could erase it so easily?

Reva:  I didn’t erase it.  Don’t you get it?  Don’t you understand why I had to leave the way I did?  Why I couldn’t look back?  It wasn’t just difficult because of our son; it was difficult because of you.  For years I prayed that I could find that part of my life that…that I could find the missing pieces so that I could put myself back together again, so I could complete me so I could close that door and I could move on.  But then when I remembered… when I remembered that we had such a full life and when I learned that we had a marriage and we had a son, I didn’t want to let you in, and I didn’t want to accept you.  I love my family and I love my husband more than anything in this world.  And I have fought and struggled for so long and so hard for us to be together again and now finally my life was neat and it was ordered and it was perfect, until I looked into you face.  The face of a stranger and little by little I remembered that face…the face of another husband and another child and now I wish to hell that I could forget it.

Richard:  So, tell me what you remember? 

Reva:  I don’t have anymore to give you.  So now please go.  I told you that I remember being married to you, so take your prize and go.

Richard:  There is no prize. This is not a game.  All right.  I’ve lost everything already.  I have lost my so.  I have lost my brother and now I have lost you.  And I want to know!

Reva:  What do you want to know?  You want to know every detail…every intimate little detail…

Richard:  YES!  I want to hear you say what you remember.  I want to know that the life I have been mourning for the last 6 years isn’t just in my mind.  I don’t wish to suffer and to be tortured by this for the rest of my life.  Now I know that this is over for you…

Reva:  NO! You’re wrong!  I can’t stop thinking about you, but I…I don’t want to do this anymore.  And I won’t be grilled in my own home.  So I’m not leaving you a note this time Richard.  I’m telling you to go, get out of my life because…

Richard:  Now listen.  You listen to me.  If it’s true you remember than you must remember how you felt about me and a fragment of what we had together must still be there.  Now you tell me, is it still there Reva or is it all just in my mind.

Reva:  No.  I remember… I remember loving you, but it’s in the past it’s gone and its over.  It was from another time and I don’t want you in my life.

Richard:  Oh really!  Well that’s to bad because here I am.  And if you think this is the past, well then we’re both in a dream.  Talk to me Reva.

Reva:  I didn’t want it all to come back but it did.   All of it… all of the memories of us, of you, of us together our life.  All I really wanted was to remember enough so I could find Jonathan.  I didn’t want this.

Richard:  You couldn’t help it.

Reva:  I couldn’t stop all of the other feelings and all the other memories, all the details, all the private little things that make a couple and a marriage.  And I know we had a good one.

Richard:  Yes.  Yes.

Reva:  I unlocked all these memories and now I can’t make them go away.  I was so focused on finding Jonathan and protecting him and I pushed everything else aside and I knew that if he was safe than I would feel safe.

Richard:  I knew you couldn’t forget.

Reva:  I wish to hell I could forget.  But the more I remember, the more I remember our marriage together and it frightens me because the memories from back then are so strong they’re so vivid.  I feel like it’s happening to another person but it’s not it’s happening to me because I’m there I’m right there.  And it’s me…it’s me that I see walking down the aisle to you and it’s me who can’t wait for you to get home at night and it’s me who never wanted to leave you.  It was me who was in love with you.  And I hate that I remember.

Richard:  Shh.  Shh.  (Holds and gently kisses Reva)

Reva:  I hate that I remember

  

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