Thirtysomething1987

Elliot Weston:
Look, I can understand that you felt irritated.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
Can you?

Elliot Weston:
I - why that tone? Why are you doing that?

Nancy Krieger Weston:
What tone?

Elliot Weston:
Everybody cares about you. Don't you know that?

Nancy Krieger Weston:
Then why won't anyone let me talk?

Elliot Weston:
They let you talk.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
No one will let me talk the way that I want to talk. Everyone expects me to be this graceful invalid, this cheerful cripple.

Elliot Weston:
No one thinks you're a cripple.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
Yeah, well maybe they should.

Elliot Weston:
Nobody expects you to be cheerful.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
Sure they do. You do. You're the worst.

Elliot Weston:
Nancy!

Nancy Krieger Weston:
[getting her sleeping socks on and pulling back the bedding] Look. Elliot, what has happened to me is horrible. It is filthy, it is disgusting. I am not gracious. I am not cheerful. I wish that you would understand that. I wish that somebody would just understand that. Seventy-seven percent, five years survival. The other twenty-three percent, dead. Horribly, painfully dead! I am not gracious, and I am not cheerful! Okay?

Elliot Weston:
Okay.

Elliot Weston:
[muttering under his breath as Nancy gets into bed behind him] Seventy-seven point six percent.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
[irritable] What?

Elliot Weston:
[correcting her] Seventy-seven point six percent, five year survival.

Nancy Krieger Weston:
Shut up now.

[Nancy turns out the light. Elliot pushes back and lays next to her, folding his hands over his lap rather like a corpse, and just puts his head against her shoulder apologetically]