by Cindy Abbate

Created on: September 07, 2009

Setting: A large front yard in one of the better neighborhoods in town. A Mother, Rose, and her teen age daughter, Suzy, are raking leaves. The weather is brisk as the heat of a particularly long and hot summer has finally given way. They look up occasionally to smile at a passing neighbor, whether they know them by name or not.

Suzy: Can we stop now. (She bites her lower lip.)

Rose: No. Tomorrow you have school and I have to work. This needs to get done.

Suzy: Daddy and I would have had it finished by now.

Rose: That's because he did most of the work. Your Dad only called you outside when he was three fourths finished. (She didn't look at her daughter. She knew the tears would be starting and she felt like crying herself.)

Suzy: I don't feel like school tomorrow. (She keeps her head down as wind bites at her cheeks.) Why did everything have to change?

Rose: It happens. (She ignores the first comment.) The doctors can't explain exactly why his heart stopped. Maybe he was needed somewhere else.

Suzy: I needed him. (She wipes at her eyes) He was my best friend and I didn't even get to say good bye.

Rose: Things will be all right.

Suzy: Never the same. I'll never see him in that stupid cowboy hat or get to ride on the back of his motorcycle again.

Rose: You're right things won't be the same. This day, the colors of the leaves and the white clouds in the sky, none of this will be the exact way ever again. But another day will come and another after that and it will be a different kind of okay.

Suzy: He loved autumn. Even doing the stupid leaves. (She throws her rake down and looks up at the sky. White billowy clouds are blowing across an otherwise flawless blue sky.)

Rose: Look I know our relationship has been strained. You were always your Dad's girl. But I do love you, Suzy. More than anything. (She feels a tear slide down her cheek.) I loved your Dad too.

Suzy: You two were fighting more. (She picks her rake up and makes a half- hearted effort at building her pile.)

Rose: He let you get away with anything. I tried to tell him that you're growing up and we need to set limits. Those fights were because we both loved you.

Suzy: (She can't help but smile. Her Father would try to excuse her actions even when she failed a simple spelling test.) I never did anything that bad.

Rose: No. But you'll be fifteen in January. You're becoming a woman. Daddy would have let you be a little girl forever. You've got to take your classes seriously.

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