INT. THE PRINCE OF WALES BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

Lincoln enters a dark room, its heavy drapes closed against the dim afternoon light. There are two beds. One is stripped bare. The other is canopied with a thick black veil.

Mary, dressed in a deep purple gown with black flowers and beading, perfectly pitched between mourning and emergence, is seated at the head of the canopied bed. On a nightstand next to the bed there's a toy locomotive engine, a tattered book of B&O railroad schedules.

Mary holds a framed photograph: an image of WILLIE, 12, handsome, bright-eyed, confident.

Lincoln crosses to the window.

           MARY

My head hurts so. (BEAT) I prayed for death the night Willie died. The headaches are how I know I didn't get my wish. How to endure the long afternoon and deep into the night.

           LINCOLN

I know.

           MARY

Trying not to think about him. How will I manage?

           LINCOLN

Somehow you will. 54.

           MARY
           (SAD SMILE:)

Somehow. Somehow. Somehow... Every party, every... And now, four years more in this terrible house reproaching us. He was a very sick little boy. We should've cancelled that reception, shouldn't we?

           LINCOLN

We didn't know how sick he was.

           MARY

I knew, I knew, I saw that night he was dying.

           LINCOLN

Three years ago, the war was going so badly, and we had to put on a face.

           MARY

But I saw Willie was dying. I saw HIM -

He bends and kisses her hand.

           LINCOLN

Molly. It's too hard. Too hard.

Mary stares up at him, her face heavy and swollen with grief.