Something I'll Tell You Tuesday
by John Guare

THE STORY: About to enter the hospital for treatment of what may be a more grave condition than the others suspect, Agnes reassures her husband, Andrew, and asks that they walk to the hospital together.

But their daughter and son-in-law are on the way over to drive them, so they wait and are caught in a crossfire of bickering when the younger couple arrives.

When the others go out to bring the car around, Agnes and Andrew take advantage of their absence to slip off.

They are alone once more, just the two of them, as they were so many years ago before life and children and illness brought them to where they are now.

They walk along slowly, enjoying the fine day, stopping for coffee, reminiscing about the past.

And out of their serenity comes an odd but arresting fact.

They realize that, looking back, what they miss most of all is what their daughter and her husband have now—the glorious, exhausting, infuriating, but exhilarating fights and the energy to make the most of them.

This is what Agnes will speak of on Tuesday—knowing that in her daughter and her husband she sees, and yearns for, the Agnes and Andrew of forty years ago.