Episode 2.05 transcript - “MY COMMUNION”

ADAM RAYMONDA: Forgive Me! Would not be possible without our generous parishioners.

We’d like to thank Jess Coppinger for organizing St. Patrick’s first ever Battle of the Bands!

[MUSIC: The sound of an extremely heavy hardcore band underscores the intro.]

We maybe would have liked a bit more oversight on the lyrical content of some of the performers, with a bit less swearing and a lot less secularism, but the enthusiasm of everyone involved was apparent.

[SFX: The music ends and a droning wind plays under the next part.]

We’d also love to shout out Katie Fineout for running a successful paint and sip night! Although, next time, might we suggest bringing artwork that’s a little easier for folks to wrap their heads around? Anthropomorphic clouds named Kevin are wonderful and all, but we think they might prefer making a more traditional landscape? We don’t know, just a thought. We love you.

Become a part of our community over at patreon.com/roguedialogue

[MUSIC: The Forgive Me! theme song plays on church organ.]

[SFX: A newspaper rustles as Ben goes about his morning. A pot of coffee is brewing in the corner and we can hear it burbling. After a moment, there's a knock on the open door and DARLA clears her throat.]

DARLA: Excuse me, Father, is now still an okay time for us to talk?

FR. BEN: (SURPRISED) Goodness, I didn't realize how what time it was! Of course, Darla. Please. Come. Sit. Would you like a cup of coffee?

[SFX: Ben folds his paper back up and sets it on his desk. He pushes his chair back and crosses the room to the pot, as Darla rustles with her jacket and takes a seat herself.]

DARLA: That'd be wonderful, thank you.

FR. BEN: Cream or sugar?

DARLA: Two of each, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.

FR. BEN: Nonsense. Coming right up.

[SFX: Ben pours two mugs of coffee and then shakes multiple packets of sugar, making their drinks. He crosses the room and sets them down on the desk.]

FR. BEN: So, how are you holding up?

DARLA: (COLD) I've definitely been better.

FR. BEN: I'm sorry. That was insensitive of me.

DARLA: It's fine, honey. You're not my slimy pig of an ex-husband; you've got nothing to apologize for.

[SFX: Darla goes to pick up her mug.]

FR. BEN: (CHUCKLING) That's one way to put it.
(BEAT)
Be careful. That's hot.

DARLA: I just like to warm my hands on the mug, before I take a sip. Bad circulation runs in my family.

FR. BEN: These upstate winters sure are unforgiving, aren't they?

DARLA: You think I'd be used to them after all these years. But not even a little bit.

FR. BEN: (PENSIVE) I imagine we could both sit here and talk about the weather all day, but I'm guessing you had something else on your mind for our session?

[MUSIC: Contemplative, melancholy piano music underscores the conversation.]

DARLA: I'm just wondering how I could have been so stupid, Father?

FR. BEN: You weren't. And you should try hard to let yourself remember that.

DARLA: It's just, as soon as I found out, all of my friends started to tell me how they really felt about him. How they'd long held their suspicions. Julie down at the Ruby Thursday's even said she'd seen them there. Like, he was doing this right under my nose, barely covering his tracks, and somehow I still completely missed it?

[MUSIC: A droning string plays underneath the piano.]

FR. BEN: We all have the capacity to be blinded by love. Especially when that love has been cultivated across many years.

DARLA: Tell me, Father, did you know?

FR. BEN: I'm afraid it isn't my place...

DARLA: Of course you did. Everyone did but me.

FR. BEN: (SOMBER) I encouraged him to come clean when he confessed. But it wasn't my right to tell you. I'm overstepping now, even admitting that.

DARLA: It's fine, dear. I don't blame you for this. I don't blame you for any of it. I only blame myself for not leaving him sooner.

FR. BEN: You're saying you did have suspicions, then?

DARLA: Truthfully? I didn't. Not at first anyways. The late nights weren't exactly new. Him blatantly going on dates might've been, but we'd been drifting for a long time before that.

[SFX: The sound of someone showering begins to play.]

FR. BEN: How'd you eventually find out?

[SFX: Joe whistles.]

DARLA: The absences may not have been new. But his good moods were. He was just... so damn chipper all the time. He was whistling in the shower again, which he always used to do the morning after we made love...

[SFX: The sound of the shower disappears, but the whistling still plays.]

DARLA: Oh! I'm sorry, is this too much detail?

FR. BEN: It’s fine, Darla, this is nothing I haven't heard before.

[SFX: The sound of the shower comes back in.]

DARLA: Well, he was whistling again. And it wasn't like we'd magically pressed a button to bring back our intimacy, so I knew he must've been getting it from somewhere else.

[SFX: The shower turns off and someone steps out.]

JOE: Good morning, Darla!

FR. BEN: So he never did confess, then?

DARLA: Eventually he did. But only because I'd hired a local PI to tail him for a few weeks. You ever meet Susan? She's an eccentric one, but her assistant Olivia's okay. Got a good head on her shoulders.

FR. BEN: (AWKWARD) I can't say that I have. But I've heard those two do good work.

DARLA: They tracked Joe down and brought me some... choice photographs with his Jezebel.

[SFX: Someone rustles through a stack of photos.]

JOE: Yes, you caught me!

[SFX: Joe sighs as he continues to rustle.]

JOE: I can’t believe you hired Susan for this!

DARLA: Enough that, when I told him I wanted out, there was nothing he could do to steamroll me into changing my mind and keeping up the facade.

[SFX: Joe sighs one final time as the memory fades.]

FR. BEN: I'm sorry that it had to come to that.

DARLA: Honestly, Father? I'm not.

FR. BEN: Oh?

DARLA: No. Joe's infidelity was the final nail in the coffin of our relationship, sure. But it wasn't the thing that killed it.

FR. BEN: So it was Tom, then?

DARLA: Hah! No. It wasn't Tom, either.
(BEAT)
He's a good boy, you know. He reminds me of Joe when he was that age. I don't think he'd ever admit to that, but it's true.

FR. BEN: (CHUCKLING) Yeah, I find that easy to believe.

DARLA: (WARM) Hah, and I wonder why that is?
(BEAT)
No, his reaction to Tom was bad, but our failings started years ago.

[SFX: Darla pauses her story to take a sip of her coffee. An old radio dial turns and we hear crackling static.]

[MUSIC: Fun, instrumental rock and roll music plays out of a set of car speakers.]

DARLA: We met young. We'd both just finished high school when we met. (LAUGHS) Joe was cool then, if you can believe it. He drove a convertible and slicked his hair back like Fonzie in Happy Days. All the girls in town wanted to date him, but he only had eyes for me. And my parents despised him. They told me I was too good for a boy from that side of the tracks. Which, of course, only made me love him more.

FR. BEN: (KNOWING) There's just something about being young and in a forbidden romance, isn't there?

DARLA: Mmm, I didn't think you'd be able to relate.

FR. BEN: Don't mistake me: my first love will always be for God, but I've had a life. I was a teenager once.

DARLA: (SMILING) Well, anyway, we had a bit of a whirlwind courtship.

[SFX: The music fades as we hear a car pass by, followed by a movie projector, and an audience cheering.]

DARLA: Long drives through the countryside. Movies downtown. Even concerts, when we could afford it. But that all changed when we realized I was pregnant.

FR. BEN: Out of wedlock? Excuse me for being frank, but I never would've guessed that for the two of you.

DARLA: Neither would my parents. Which is why we got married, right then and there. And don't get me wrong: I loved him. And he loved me. I don't question that. Hell, some of our best years were at the beginning, living in a dingy studio apartment above this terrible pizza place while my father put Joe through Cornell with the promise of a job at the firm as soon as he was done. It was hard, and sometimes impossibly so, but when it was just the two of us like that? With the whole world ahead of us and the intensity of love that can only come from being young and broke and on the precipice of more responsibility than we'd ever understand? We felt invincible, so I never would've imagined it'd end up like this.

FR. BEN: So, what changed?

DARLA: Well, Joe did. And, I mean, of course I did too. We had a child to think about. We couldn't live the life that so many of our friends were enjoying, moving away and seeing the world. But as the years stretched on, and he worked his way up, you know, first at the firm and then later in his position as the town judge, the unthinkable happened: he'd become the spitting image of my father. Not physically, thank goodness, but everything else about him. The way he carried himself and talked and dressed. The values he held for our family. It'd all just become so... old school. And again, I understand that I'm culpable here to a certain degree. But everything that made me fall in love with him in the first place had melted away and he was just so... traditional.

FR. BEN: I understand how difficult it is to realize we aren't the people we thought we'd turn out to be. Especially when we start to become our parents.

DARLA: (LAUGHING) It's all so cliché, isn't it?

FR. BEN: Clichés exist for a reason.

DARLA: I don't know. Maybe this whole thing is my fault. I've been on autopilot for so long. Just... so unsatisfied. Maybe I drove him away.

FR. BEN: Hm, adultery is certainly a choice, Darla. But it's a choice made by the adulterers, not the victim.

DARLA: Eugh. Victim. I hate that word. You know what the messed up thing about all of this is, Father?

FR. BEN: What's that?

DARLA: I'm jealous. Sure. Of course I am. But I'm not jealous of her. I'm jealous of him. Because he's the one who had the balls to cheat first!

FR. BEN: You don't think it would've been more beneficial to try and work together to confront your issues? To see if you could've fixed them, rather than blowing your lives up?

DARLA: Pfft! Have you been listening at all? Joe and I? We both gave up. We stayed together for appearances more than anything else. And for Emily, of course. At least when she was younger. But after she went off to school? It just seemed so much easier to muscle through it than confront the actual truth.

FR. BEN: Is there anything I personally can do for you now, specifically, to help in this time?

DARLA: Well…

[MUSIC: Finger snaps and drum hits begin to play underneath.]

DARLA: I have to admit, there is one thing that's been particularly bothering me about this whole ordeal.

[MUSIC: The song vamps as more instruments are added. Bouncy, determined.]

FR. BEN: And that is?

DARLA: You know they're married already? The ink on the divorce papers is barely dry, and he's already over at St. Anthony's, saying new vows.

FR. BEN: I'd heard. Yes.

DARLA: I'll bet he even asked you to officiate.

FR. BEN: He did. I said no. It didn't seem right.

DARLA: (LAUGHS) Hah! What an ass. Either way, I have some friends over there at St. Anthony's and they said the whole thing was very garish. She wore a flower crown. He had on a colorful bow tie. And he was just so... happy.

[MUSIC: The song gets even bigger as the story continues. More string and horn instruments are layered in.]

FR. BEN: If I can level with you here, maybe this is just Joe's way of coping with the situation.

DARLA: Coping? You think that this farce was Joe's way of coping? No, the son of a bitch was celebrating. But that's not even what's bothering me. What bothers me is that, after all of this, the infidelity and the second shotgun wedding, which believe you me, in a few years, he will come to regret. Now that all that's over? He can still take communion.

[MUSIC: A driving piano is layered over the top of the rest of the song.]

FR. BEN: Oh.

DARLA: And I'm over here, saddled with his skid-marked underwear and an encyclopedic knowledge of his mother's daily medication and I can't. That somehow, in the eyes of the Lord, I am the one that is being unfaithful to my marriage by kicking the cheating bastard out and rebuilding my life.

[MUSIC: The song cuts abruptly.]

FR. BEN: (SIGH) I have to admit being a Catholic can feel rather... archaic at times.

DARLA: Mhm! So, you'll let me do it?

FR. BEN: Do what?

DARLA: Take my communion without signing some document that says the past thirty years of my life never happened?

FR. BEN: I'm afraid it's not as simple as that.

[SFX: Darla rustles through her bag, pulling out a contract.]

DARLA: But this paper your assistant mailed to me is? Like, if I just took this pen and signed on the dotted line right now, I could get all those years of my life back? I could somehow forget all of the fighting, and the cheating, and even the outright boredom we endured? Those tense nights around the dinner table after Emily left, where we sat together in silence, not even because we were angry, but because there was just nothing left to say? I could be a kid again and get a do over on this whole life thing?

FR. BEN: (AWKWARD LAUGH) I mean, despite my vocation, I'm not a miracle worker.

DARLA:  Then why should I have to do this? Give me one good reason.

[MUSIC: The melancholy piano from the beginning of the episode begins to play again.]

FR. BEN: Frankly, Darla, I don't have one. Listening to you speak today has been... illuminating, to say the least. And far be it from me to try taking some other routine away from you, but... if what you want is a do over, why would you want to return to any semblance of your old life in the first place?

DARLA: Because he shouldn't get to take that away from me too.

FR. BEN: Say no more. I understand.

DARLA: I'm just angry, Father. I'm just so angry that he spent so long making Emily and I terrified of letting the cracks in our home life show; of showing anyone that our family was anything less than perfect, and yet he's the one that chose to finally hit the self-destruct button. At the first chance he got.

FR. BEN: Is there any part of you that can see the... good in what he did? Not in his specific actions, of course. Adultery is reprehensible in my book, and I let him know that. But how you have this whole future ahead of you now that you never would've had, had this not come out into the open?

DARLA: (DEFEATED) Of course I do, Father. But should I really be so quick to just erase my whole life, like he has? Was our marriage really so terrible that I have to pretend it never happened? Because it wasn't. I'm sorry, it just wasn't.

[SFX: Darla begins to get choked up.]

DARLA: (WAVERING) Without that asshole, I wouldn't have Emily. And she is, frankly, the best thing I've done in my life. So no, I'm not ready to sign a paper annulling my marriage, that says that the life we built together doesn't exist.

FR. BEN: I understand.

DARLA: (SNIFFLING, BREATHING DEEP) And you still won't budge?

FR. BEN: I wish I could, but I can't...

DARLA: I'm sorry, Father, but that is fucking bullshit.

FR. BEN: I don't disagree with you. Not one bit.

[SFX: There's another awkward silence. Darla sips at her coffee, which has gone cold.]

FR. BEN: How's she holding up?

DARLA: Emily? She isn't speaking to him, which, I promise you, I didn't ask her to do but does make me a little happy. In a way.

FR. BEN: Watching your parents get divorced is an incredibly difficult thing for a child to have to go through, even if they’re an adult.

DARLA: She's good though. She and Tom and I have dinner every week. I even let Tom sit in Joe's chair at the dining room table, which would make him livid if he knew.

FR. BEN: (SMILING) It most certainly would.

DARLA: I know, it's a small thing. But right now, I'll take whatever victory I can get.

FR. BEN: And you should. Have you thought about what's next for you? Clara's organized a Church Mixer this upcoming weekend, if you're feeling lonely... Maybe you could—

DARLA: Hah, sorry. I’m gonna pass. Emily's already set me up one of those Match.com accounts. I'm not even sure if I'm interested in another man at this point. But I'll tell you one thing, whenever I am, he certainly won't be a member of this church. I think it's time I spread my wings and venture out of my hometown, you know what I mean?

FR. BEN: That makes perfect sense.

[MUSIC: The piano fades away.]

[SFX: Darla lets out a deep breath, pushes back her chair, and begins to bundle up again for the weather outside.]

DARLA: Well, Father, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

FR. BEN: (STANDING) Always, Darla. I'm always just a phone call away.
(WALKING HER TO THE DOOR)
And if you need anything from me at all...

DARLA: You know what I want, Father.

FR. BEN: Anything else.

DARLA: Heh. Had to try, one last time.

[MUSIC: A happy, bouncy music with finger snaps, bass thuds, and a driving piano begins to play again.]

FR. BEN: If it makes you feel any better, Father Michael's operating under some murky doctrines in order to allow Joe to keep taking his communion.

DARLA: How do you mean?

FR. BEN: Without an official annulment, he technically shouldn't be allowed to. Since without that document, the way the Church views it, he's still being unfaithful to you.

DARLA: So, Mike's looking the other way while you won't?

FR. BEN: No, Joe and Lexi agreed to live together as

[MUSIC: The song cuts briefly for a moment.]

FR. BEN: brother and sister…

[MUSIC: The song starts right back up.]

FR. BEN: in the eyes of the Lord anyway, in order to keep taking the sacrament.

DARLA: Hah! That's rich. So you're telling me that spiritual incest is kosher in the eyes of God, but what I'm doing isn't?

FR. BEN: I never said that it was fair. Just thought it might make you chuckle.

DARLA: (AMUSED) It did, Father. It really did.

FR. BEN: Will I see you on Sunday?

DARLA: No, I think this weekend I'm gonna sleep in late, make myself a giant mimosa, and watch all the trashy TV that Joe always hated.

FR. BEN: That sounds lovely.

[MUSIC: The song fades away.]

DARLA: I thought so too. Oh my gosh, have you seen Brother Husbands?!

[MUSIC: The Forgive Me! credits music begins to play.]

Forgive Me! is a Rogue Dialogue production. This episode was written and directed by  Bob Raymonda and Jack Marone.

ADAM RAYMONDA: Here’s our cast in order of appearance: 

Sarah Rhea Werner        Darla

Casey Callaghan        Father Ben

Michael Larkin            Joe Walters

Script editing by Jordan Stillman.

Dialogue Editing by Bob Raymonda.

Sound design, score, and mixing by me, Adam Raymonda.

All of the graphic design comes from Sam Twardy.

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