Jamie Mills: [James comes home from work and finds the tree] Where in hell did that come from!Addie Mills: I won it!Jamie Mills: ...Think I take charity, do you? Dragging stuff down the street, making people think we take castoffs, like some bums!Grandma Mills: James, that tree's not hurting anything.Jamie Mills: I do not take charity!Addie Mills: It wasn't charity, Dad. It was the prize in a contest at school.Jamie Mills: If I want a tree, I can damn well buy it myself!Grandma Mills: She's the one who wants it, not you.Jamie Mills: She has to learn that she can't have everything she wants, not in this life. I don't have everything I want. When I was ten, do you think I dreamed of working a crane fifty weeks a year? I'd like to go somewhere, and sit in the sun, and forget both of you! [Addie bolts out of the room, visibly stung]... I want that tree out of my house!Grandma Mills: It's my house, James Addison Mills the Third, and I say the tree can stay right where it is!Jamie Mills: ...If you don't want me here, I'll be more than glad to move out and take Addie with me.Grandma Mills: Don't talk nonsense!Jamie Mills: I'm serious, Mother. If we stay here, I'm not having you interfere between me and my daughter!Grandma Mills: I ask clarification of the word "interfere", James. By that, you mean spend quality time with her, whenever you were busy or tired or just not in the mood...Jamie Mills: You know damn well what I mean!Grandma Mills: Anyway, she's more than your daughter, James. She's a human being. She's got feelings, even if you haven't. Son, don't you see - The last person you showed any feelings at all for was Helen!Jamie Mills: Leave her out of this!Grandma Mills: You were broken-hearted, I know - but you're not the first man who's ever lost a wife! Son, it's been almost ten years! That kind of grief is selfish. That child - Helen's child - needs your love.Jamie Mills: I proved I loved her, didn't I? I didn't send her to live with Will and his family, or wrap her in newspaper and leave her on some stranger's doorstep. Haven't I worked long hours at a whole list of jobs to keep her fed and clothed? I was overqualified for most of those jobs, but I took them as they came. She could have been a Ward of the State, and probably had an easier life, but no. I kept the responsibility.Grandma Mills: Is that how you think of her? As a responsibility? James, I've known men your age who'd give a pound of their own flesh for a daughter like Addie! Raising her should be a privilege for you, an opportunity. Instead it's a chore, like mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage or doing the dishes! Oh, when she was a baby that was enough; you could carry her around like she was a doll, leave her in a crib when you didn't feel like carrying her - she was just a cute baby then. Now she's grown from a pet into a person, and you don't know what to do with her! So you hold yourself away and live in this house like a stranger. Well, when she's old enough she's going to leave you, James. She's going to find her own place to live, get her own job - and maybe start her own family, if she gets lucky and meets the right person. Then you won't have the responsibility anymore, because you won't have a daughter, either.Jamie Mills: ...It was my fault. Having the baby is what killed her.Grandma Mills: Don't say that, James. It was pneumonia.Jamie Mills: Every doctor we went to said the same thing - the baby would die, or she would. We'd just be asking for trouble. But she kept begging and pleading, and so... I should never have given in.

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