Maeve Consoles Jill After Her Breakup With Frank
(December 1975)(Jill is in her office, packing up her briefcase to go home, when there is a knock at the door.)
JILL: Come in.
(Maeve enters. Jill is at first uneasy, but then Maeve hugs her and Jill starts to cry.)
JILL: I thought you'd come here to scold me. I should have known better.
MAEVE: Of course I didn't come here to scold. It's a sad, bad time, isn't it?
JILL: I'd been wishing so hard for a friend.
MAEVE: Well, there you are, wish fulfilled.
JILL: Thank you. Thank you so much for still caring about me, after all you know.
MAEVE: With all I know. All I know and all I love about you! You're a princess Jill, you have been since you were a little girl. That's what I know. And what you managed to do last night only went to prove what a generous, noble, downright decent person you are.
JILL: (turning around) I haven't felt very decent lately. The other woman doesn't feel very decent.
MAEVE: Don't you talk about yourself like that, not in front of me. You're a fine, lovely girl that my son fell in love with, and I can't say I blame him for that part.
MAEVE: If Frank had come to me long before all this to tell me what a wonderful person you are, I would have told him I know how wonderful you are. Wonderful enough to give him up when you knew that that was the right thing to do.
JILL: Oh Maeve, it wasn't easy. I wanted to put up a hard fight for him.
MAEVE: Uhm-hmm, and you'd have won him. I know that. More is my admiration for you. Darling, it's my admiration and love for you that makes this all so hard. I lose patience with Delia. I mean, she's Frank's wife, and nobody knows better than I the pitiful things that make her the way she is, but there's two ways of loving. One with your hands closed...
MAEVE: ...holding on and taking, saying, "I love you." And the other, with your hand open, "I love you." Thank you for opening your hands.
JILL: (crying and sitting down) Maeve, they feel so empty!
MAEVE: Oh, I know. It's your marvelous sense of self-discipline and justice that tells you what you could have but tells you at the same time it would have been wrong for you to have it. How I would have admired those qualities in Frank's wife. He found a treasure when he found you, darling, but he found you at the wrong time. Under other circumstances, you'd have been a perfect match for Frank. You're so right for him. But he married someone else.
JILL: But Maeve, do we have to spend a whole lifetime paying for our mistakes?
MAEVE: It wasn't a mistake when Frank married Delia. He married her out of love. Maybe not the same kind of love he has for you, dear, but nevertheless, Frank married Delia because he loved her.
(Jill becomes even more sad.)
MAEVE: And he fathered her child. And if they've fallen out of love, well then they'll have to find a way to fall back in. It can be done, and now that Frank has decided to stay with Dee, they'll have that chance. (nods) But Jill (she goes over to Jill and puts her arm on her shoulder) they'll have that chance because of you. I know it, Frank knows it, and I hope and pray that one of these days Delia will realize it and be as grateful to you as I am right this minute.
JILL: Oh, Maeve, you make it sound as if we could all be friends one day!
MAEVE: Ah, wouldn't that be fine!
JILL: Maeve, I don't want to be Frank's friend! I want to be his wife!
MAEVE: Darling (puts her hand on Jill's face), he has a wife.
JILL: But I love him. I love him so much. And I love you. I know that I've lost Frank, but Maeve, I couldn't bare to lose you!
MAEVE: You'll never lose me! Not after what you've done for my son! No, and I don't think you've lost Frank either. You'll see, one of these days you'll be true, close friends. And I'll tell you something, friends sometimes can get you through this life of ours with a lot less pain than lovers.
(They hug as Jill breaks down and cries.)
