POLLY and MARK are looking for SARA’s office in refugee child adoption center, nine-hundred and fifty feet above ground; the two stop and look through a window at toddlers in activities.

POLLY. That girl, with the beautiful black hair

MARK. Where. What.

POLLY. In the back. Look how she’s using that blanket…you see what she did there? She put the table upside down and made the legs into pillars, and turned it into a kind of architectural canopy. Astonishing. I would never have thought of that. 

MARK. We’re looking for a Sara, right?

POLLY. (pointing to paintings) Look at the colors here. The layering, and the complexity, it’s so naturally profound, expressive. You know we lose eighty-five percent of our color perception after puberty? It’s true. Look, look at this…the composition of this one. Just look at that. That kind of ‘color field’ style…it reminds me of a Rothko…no, actually a Barnett Newman I saw recently. 

MARK. (picks up pamphlet) Oh look, a little catalog of babies.

POLLY. You see the total freedom in these, right? You sense it immediately. That irrepressible…openness, frankness. You see these and you say, ‘these artists, they don’t know shame, they don’t know discrimination. 

               (MARK is folding pamphlet into rudimentary origami crane.)

MARK. (distracted) Exactly. Yep.

POLLY. Just a pure flow of perfect genius, right out of their little perfect minds. You know Picasso created the greatest painting in the history of Spain when he was only nine? And Mozart…he wrote a minuet and trio when he was five years old.

MARK. (to self, head still down focused on project) Those must’ve been some seriously goofy Austrian stage parents. 

POLLY. It’s just unimaginable, when you think about what these kids have been through. You feel the trauma in their work. It’s palpable. They’re expressing something haunting, something…ineffable, overwhelming. These are stories that can only be told in a pre-linguistic form like finger painting. Some of these kids were in forced labor camps, tortured, trafficked…normally half these kids end up radicalized, recruited as frontline soldiers, suicide bombers. Of course the western bias is that it’s always Christians fleeing Muslim persecution, but of course there are millions of refugees from Christian oppression.

(Enter SARA; she spots the visitors, stands behind them and looks into play area.)

SARA. And we rain down drone strikes, devastating entire communities, violating international humanitarian law in the process, then proceed to espouse a narrative that it’s the ‘barbaric Muslims’ that are incapable of civilization— 

MARK. (revealing his work) —Look, it’s a crane.

POLLY. (peering disapprovingly at MARK; to SARA) Sara?

SARA. (shakes hand) Polly. Isn’t it nice to meet in person? You spend so much time in video calls you forget the other person has a body.

POLLY. This is my husband Mark.

MARK. (stands, wobbles) Whoa. Sorry, feeling a bit nauseous…feels like the floor’s moving.

SARA. It actually is. We sway up to seven inches a day back and forth up here. 

MARK. Seven inches, jesus…How high are we exactly?

POLLY. Mark’s not thrilled about heights…

MARK. (confused) That’s absolutely not true… 

POLLY. Oh, yes it is, it’s ok…

SARA. So…it’s nine hundred and fifty feet up on this floor. Highest corporate space in Cleveland. We sought it out intentionally. We wanted to kinda feel like a lighthouse you can see across countries, oceans. Only rough part is that three minute elevator ride. 

MARK. Yeah, I thought we were gonna run out of oxygen there for a sec. 

POLLY. At least you’re protected from the filth of downtown up here…

SARA. That is true.

POLLY. It’s so beautiful up here, up in the clear sky. Closer to the stars. Just perfect.

SARA. We’re truly among the heavenly bodies, we are. 

MARK. (pointing into play area) So what happened to that kid?

SARA. That’s Ahmed. He was in a camp on the northern Iraqi border, parents were killed in the outbreak last summer. What you see are shrapnel wounds mostly.

POLLY. My gosh. Seeing these faces in person, the perspective it gives…it’s just overwhelming.

SARA. (pointing out children) Katoka is from Hungary, Chiyo is from Japan, and that little girl there, that’s Uchenna, from Nigeria. Sex trafficking in Nigeria is a major cause of asylum seekers.

POLLY. What game is she playing there?

SARA. So that’s a game called Koto, it actually helps the children with English, we start them with simple words and phrases here; we find it really eases the transition to formal schooling.

POLLY. And then college and who knows what next! The next famous scientist or artist is probably in this room. 

SARA. She might be, she might be.

POLLY. It’s really just an honor to have this kind of opportunity, to have the chance to bring one of these brilliant children into our lives.

SARA. Well, we’ve come a long way haven’t we; lots of couples don’t make it this far. We really do believe in you.

MARK. It has certainly taken work.

POLLY. Yes.

MARK. Yes.

SARA. But we’re ready now!

POLLY. Yes we are!

MARK. Certainly wasn’t something that we necessarily ‘planned’ from the beginning…

SARA. Life does go ‘off script’ sometimes doesn’t it.

POLLY. Yes, sometimes you gotta make a few edits on the fly.

MARK. Sometimes big edits…

POLLY. I’ve been in remission eighteen months now. 

SARA. Eighteen months, wow. Congrats. 

POLLY. The whole experience, from the diagnosis, to the…the complications, with childbearing…it’s just…it’s been this extraordinary adventure. We’re just overwhelmed that this could really become a reality.

SARA. You know I really do feel it’s important for the potential parents to develop true empathy for the unique kind of trauma and loss most of these children have lived through. And Polly, we really feel you are uniquely capable of empathizing with Nuha as she heals and rebuilds her life.

POLLY. (reflecting) Rebuilding. Yes. Well that’s so kind for you to say that. That brings me a lot of joy, and purpose.

SARA. It’s true! Tell you what, let me pull Nuha’s file and make some copies, we’ll get started on those docs we talked about, more bureaucratic stuff to nail down of course. But we are getting there!

POLLY. It’s all worth it. It’s worth everything.

SARA. You two hang tight.

(Exit SARA. Pause; POLLY inspects MARK as he flips through pamphlet.)

POLLY. Mark. Baby. Tell me what that was about.

MARK. What. 

POLLY. What’s going on, what are you feeling? I know this is a lot–

MARK. –What, we’re here. We made it. We’re doing it, I’m excited. 

POLLY. This is a big day. I really appreciate you taking time to be here with me. Means so much. 

MARK. Yeah. Of course. This…this is a big deal. It’s been your dream. 

POLLY. Well I’d like to say it’s our dream Mark…

MARK. Yes, yes, sorry, our dream. 

POLLY. Yeah honey. You know this doesn’t work without you.

MARK. Yeah. But actually, you know it does.

POLLY. That’s really not fair for you to say right now– 

MARK. –I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Polly. I’m just saying…I mean, it’s partly true…

POLLY. No, no part of that is true. We both worked very hard to get this far. And we’re so close.

MARK. (appeasing) Yes, I know. Yes. I’m sorry.

Pause.

POLLY. You know how thrilled I am that you’re here with me.

MARK. Yep.

POLLY. I know what this means for you. This isn’t easy for either of us.

MARK. (indignantly) Ok see, that’s it. That’s it right there. That is what is not fair.

POLLY. What, Mark.

MARK. We both understand that this situation affects us differently, right?

POLLY. Well it doesn’t have to–

MARK. –Yes it does.

POLLY. Only if you insist it does. It’s up to you, Mark. We want to be a mommy and a daddy. We both need more commitment and purpose in our lives. We’re in this together, we both bear the burden of uncertainty.

MARK. Polina. I told you this was going to take an immense amount of patience. I’m working with you, I’m managing very intense feelings, managing myself. It’s right on a knife’s edge some days, Polly. And I told you…it’s harder when I’m coming right from the nursing home, spending time with dad…

POLLY. Right, right, the nursing home. So what exactly goes on over there that you get in this ‘mood’? The guy barely speaks to you for ten years and all the sudden now you’re best buds, ‘thick as thieves’. You got a lot goin on right now that requires your full presence and attention, you gotta focus on your own life and future right now.

MARK. Is it so difficult for you to be happy for us? For making an attempt?…trying to salvage something, trying to do better? This is my father. You only get one. 

POLLY. (surmising MARK’s implication) Only one. Right. So what will you be to this child, to our child? They only get one father right? What’s that make you? Are you even prepared for this? Do you want this?

        Pause.

MARK. I don’t have much time with my dad, Polly. Could be weeks, days. We don’t know.

POLLY. I get that, Mark. It’s just the timing of all this. The timing. You have to find a way to compartmentalize. Why do men find that so goddamn difficult. Separate your feelings. Pause this issue for a while honey, and focus on our future; focus on this child that needs us. Both of us. These are critical weeks right now.

Pause.

MARK. Yeah, I know it was never perfect between me and my dad. 

POLLY. Perfect?

MARK. You know the whole history better than anyone.

POLLY. That’s right, I do. Certainly was not ‘perfect’.

DENNY. But you know, this morning, at the home, he was eating, finishing some kind of awful salisbury steak or something, some microwaved nightmare…and he asked for his glasses. And before he put them on, he wiped the lenses a certain way, a certain weird way exactly the same way I do (demonstrates wiping gesture). People have been pointing stuff out like that more and more these days. It’s wild. It just started happening. And I used to get so weirdly embarrassed about that kind of thing; when someone would notice little gestures we both do the same. And I never could understand why. It just felt…exposing somehow. Getting older though, you start to see those kinds of things differently. You start to see your life itself as one of those ‘gestures’. You start to feel like…like an echo; an echo of some ancient, pure sound. Pulsing together, in generations, across vast expanses of time and space. And lately we’re kinda making things work by just living in that experience together, whatever it is.

POLLY. Uh huh. And how about these kids, Mark? How about their dads, wherever they are…if they’re alive. The ones that got them into this shit. And their millennia-old grudges, over…over whatever. Why didn’t these kids just ‘vanish’ with their fathers when they disappeared?

(SARA is seen at door returning with documents; she nearly speaks, but notices argument and shuts door.)

How is it possible that they’re still here – running around playing, painting, learning…? The way you talk that shouldn’t be possible. ‘An echo without a sound.’

MARK. I don’t know anything about these kids. 

POLLY. You ever heard of Sati? 

MARK. What?

POLLY. Sati. In Hinduism, where the widow was expected to sacrifice herself by jumping into her husband’s funeral pyre.

MARK. (impatiently) Right–

POLLY. –Would it be better if these kids were entombed in a pile of rubble in some hellhole with their dads? Jump into a funeral pyre?

MARK. (mechanically) No, it wouldn’t be.

POLLY. Look at that girl there. Look at her. That’s Chiyo right there, at the table. Look at those eyes. Look at that. You don’t see eyes like that around here. Radiant little jewels. And the power in that beautiful…clarity. Imagine the mind behind those eyes; the unblemished, immaculate intellect. The story they’ve been told for millennia – that virus – it is powerless now; they are immune from it. We flew these kids here, impossibly, in a giant steel tube, flew them right over the imaginary lines that defined their lives, their ‘fatherlands’. And do you know…viruses can’t survive on their own? Nope. A virus is nothing in itself. Nothing. It has to hijack a host genetically. And it also cannot die on its own—that’s what the funeral pyre is good for.

Pause.

MARK. Yeah. He is leaving us. Gonna be sometime soon now, Polly. Not a lot of time. And no, I can’t go with him, not gonna follow him into the grave. I can only sit with him a little.

POLLY. Ok Mark, well honestly right now we have to forget about your crap for a second and just be presentable; this is our first time with this but it’s certainly not theirs. 

MARK. (tightening invisible tie) Look, we’re presentable.

POLLY. These guys, you know, they can sense if you aren’t all in. They don’t give away kids to messed up…to couples that aren’t on the same page.

Pause. (MARK restraining indignation)

MARK. We’re not here because I’m messed up.

POLLY. What because I’m messed up?

MARK. (mechanically) Neither of us are messed up. 

Pause.

Listen, Polly, these children are beautiful. We’ll be lucky to call ourselves their parents, of course. It’s just–

POLLY. –Ok, later Mark, please, I’m asking you, Sara’s coming back—

MARK. –I’m just figuring out how to…how to connect to this…to feel all of this more deeply, that’s all, in a way that’s real.

POLLY. Look at these kids. What more meaning do you need?

MARK. Yes, I understand, I see them…and I feel for them.

POLLY. Do you?

MARK. Yes. Of course I do. 

POLLY. Yeah?—

MARK. —But I don’t want to…I don’t wanna just bring a stranger into our house and dress her up in our clothes, like she’s playing the ‘character’ of our daughter. I hate plays.

POLLY. You hate plays.

MARK. Just people standing around in clothes.

POLLY. (sarcastically) Oh yeah?…

MARK. No music, no dancing–

POLLY. (cynically) Dancing…

MARK. –it’s not real. There’s no movement. Just cold, quiet…bodies…in a fake room.

Pause. (POLLY and MARK are still, silent; they stare out from stage forlornly.)

POLLY. Right. Well sorry this doesn’t feel ‘real’ enough for you. 

MARK. Polly, listen–

POLLY. –I’m sorry I’m so defective–

MARK. –No one said defective–

POLLY. (desperately shouting) –But I am! (desperately) Ever since the procedures, I walk around like a neutered freak, put on these pathetic bras for you–

MARK. For me?!

POLLY. –walk around with rubber tits strapped to me just to not look like a frickin’ teenage boy. I can’t stand the god damn sight of myself! Why should you?

MARK. Wait, what?

POLLY. Oh, don’t do that…don’t you try it. You hate plays? Well you’re a shit actor. (indicates chest) You’re repulsed by this. I felt it the first day, the first minute. And every goddamn time I look at the scars I feel it all over again: the fatigue, the pain, the hair loss, the dread. The constant dread. 

Pause. 

And you know Mark, the scars…they also remind me of the choice I made. The choice to live. (gestures to room) And this is it; this is what I chose. This is the best I’ll ever be able to do for us.

MARK. (soberly) I know. I know.

Pause.

POLLY. (solemnly) A lady in my group, she lost total feeling in her chest. When the baby was born—she used a surrogate—they handed her the baby, and she held him on her chest. And…she fell apart, sobbing. She couldn’t feel the baby—couldn’t feel anything. You’re not the only one this doesn’t feel real for.

Pause.

MARK. Answer your phone Polina.

POLLY. What?

MARK. Answer your phone. Your mother just texted me. She needs you.

POLLY. My mom?

MARK. Answer her.

(POLLY opens phone, reads message.)

POLLY. What the hell? For god’s sake…I gotta go, we gotta go. Great, Mark. We need to reschedule this, again. Unbelievable.

MARK. What I do now…

POLLY. My dad had some issue, he’s hurt. They took him to the clinic.

MARK. Something happen on duty?

POLLY. (impatiently) Yeah, Mark, he’s always ‘on duty’. Just let me get Sara, we’re leaving. Damn it! 

(POLLY exits to update SARA. MARK is left alone; he sits in despondent reflection.)