Vic: Can we just take a second?
Lenya: A second for what?
Vic: To talk about this.
Lenya: To talk about what?
Vic: This, how absurd this is. We should be talking about this. Why do we not talk about anything? Why do we not talk about anything ever? How are we just fricking cleaning up our restaurant that was burned down by rioters who hijacked a protest?
Lenya: Because it has to be done, Victoria.
Anthony: Because it’s our life.
Vic: I know it’s your life. You keep saying that. Dad, your mom died and you went back to work. My fiancé died, and I went back to work because that’s what we do, but is it working? I’m really asking. I know you worked your asses off my entire life, and you didn’t have time for all that touchy-feely stuff, but really for just once, for one second can we just acknowledge that something awful has happened? And all of this was precipitated by the repeated murder of Black people by law enforcement, but we’re not gonna talk about that either. That’s ridiculous. Breonna Taylor was killed. She was a Black female first responder. I’m a Black female first responder. In another world, that could have been me. Tiny circumstantial differences and that could have been me. Do you get that? And news of her death didn’t even break until two months after the fact because clearly no one cared about it. And I have spent the last three weeks trying not to feel my feelings, trying not to center myself, so that Miller and Sullivan and Warren and maybe even you Dad, maybe even you could feel your feelings. But I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since I heard what happened to her. I go to bed with a kitchen knife in my nightstand, which I know it outrageous because a kitchen knife is no match for a bullet, but I need something, just anything to help me feel safe at night. But of course you wouldn’t know that. You’d have to have checked in on me even once in the last, god, I don’t even know how long. But even if you had checked in on me, I probably would have pretended everything was fine because bizarrely that’s what we do in this family. And I just don’t think it’s working for me anymore. I am sick and I am sad, and Dad, I’m scared. And I don’t know how you’re not.
Anthony: We are. I am.