On early Sunday morning, Jane visits Cliff’s hotel in San Francisco, obtains his room number, knocks on his door, and when he opens the door in his pajama bottom, she hits him in the face with a chocolate cream pie.
“Jane, are you nuts?”
“Of course she is!” says Marie.
Jane snarls. “You’re lucky I don’t know how to use a gun. I’m sick of the callous way you‘ve been treating me.”
As Cliff tries to wipe the pie from his face, he asks Jane to come into the room and close the door.
“I’ll come in, but you can close your own damn door.”
Marie closes the door.
“Jane, I’m sorry you’re so unhappy. Now, I’m really worried about you.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about your daughter.”
“Sally? Why?”
“She's planning to go to New Jersey to see that awful nephew of yours.”
“Why?”
“She says she wants to try to help him. As she put it, to let him know he’s not alone, that some people still care about him.”
“That’s a bad idea. What does Judd say about it?”
“He doesn’t like it, but he’s going with her.”
“When?”
“What do you care? You don’t give a damn about your daughter--or your wife.”
“Jane, I think I’ve shown I do care. Why do you think I’m here California?”
Jane motions toward Marie. “Why did you bring her? Since you got yourself fixed, sex is the only thing on your mind. Looks like you’re trying to make up for--"
“Shut up, Jane. I refuse to let you mess with my mind again.”
“Don’t blame your problem on me. Blame your old man. He’s the one who screwed up you and Lew.”
“Leave Lew out of this.”
“I will if you tell this--this woman to get lost for awhile.”
Marie starts to leave the room.
“Stay where you are, Marie. If Jane has something more to say, she can say it to both of us.”
“Cliff, I’m still your wife, and I wish to be alone with you.”
“Jane, you haven’t been my wife since the day you walked out on me.”
“I did that because you had become a danger to me and Sally. You needed help and I apparently couldn’t give it to you. But now you seem to be well again, and want you to come back home, to the people you say you love.”
Cliff takes Marie by the hand. “I’m with the one I love. Marie and I are going to get married as soon as we can find a good preacher.”
“Not if I can help it. I’ll never let that home-wrecker have you.”
“Jane, it’s time I took you home. I’ll drive your car and then take a cab back to the hotel.”
“I’ll leave as soon as you tell her to get a plane back to Cincinnati.”
Marie bristles. “Whether I fly back home is my decision. As soon as Cliff is ready to leave, we’ll leave together. I’m staying.”
“You’ll be sorry if you do.”
“Stop with the threats, Jane. Marie has done nothing to you.”
“She took my husband.” Jane begins to cry.
When Cliff attempts to comfort her, she pulls away in such anger that she trips over a chair and falls on the bed. She lays her head on the pillow, sobbing.
“Jane, please let me help you.”
“I need a drink,” she says.
“I’ll pour you a glass of wine, and then we’ll leave."
“Ok,” she whispers.
As Cliff goes to the small refrigerator to get the wine, Jane leaps to the floor and attacks Marie. “I’ll kill you, you bitch.”
To protect herself, Marie pushes Jane with such force that she falls back and bangs her head on the sharp edge of the dresser. Marie rushes to help her get up, but Jane is unconscious.
Cliff shoves Marie aside and tries to revive Jane with no success. He turns to Marie, “Please call for the hotel doctor.”
“I’m sorry about this, Cliff. I was simply trying to defend myself.”
“I know that, Sweetheart. Now call the doctor.”
Jane is awake but confused and incoherent when the doctor arrives. Cliff is told that she should get to the hospital immediately for tests.
“I’ll take her in her car.” As Cliff helps Jane into her coat, the doctor says, “No.” He picks up the phone and calls for an ambulance and stretcher.
“Thanks, Doctor. Now, will you please check out Miss Manning to make sure she’s all right?”
Marie says, “I’m ok. I’m going with you. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“Marie, this is definitely not your fault, but I want you to come along so that you can get a thorough examination.”
While waiting for the stretcher, Cliff calls Sally, briefly explains the situation, and tells her to meet him at the Marin General Hospital.
By the time Jane arrives at the hospital she is on oxygen and still confused when the medics rush her to the emergency room. Cliff insists that the hospital staff also check Marie. Then he seeks out and tries to comfort Sally.
“Tell me what happened, Dad.”
“Well, your mother showed up at the hotel room and hit me in the face with a pie.”
“Oh, Dad, she’s sicker than we thought.”
“Then she attacked Marie. They struggled and she fell and hit her head.”
“Poor Mom. Poor Marie.” She embraces Cliff. “And poor you!”
“I’m ok,” says Cliff. “It’s your mother I’m concerned about. She needs a lot of medical attention--and a good psychiatrist. She can’t be left on her own.”
“You’re right, Dad.”
“Which means you can’t be flying off to New Jersey. You have to stay close to your mother.”
“Will you be here too?”
“For a day or so, but I do have a business to run. At least, I hope I still have a business.”
“Oh, Dad, will things ever be right again?”
“Yes.”
Sally falls into her father’s arms and begins to cry.
Cliff says, “Sal, I’m going to need your help to make things right again.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll keep a close eye on Mom and let you know if she starts acting strange. I won’t let you down.”
Cliff and Sally walk to the nurses’ station and learn that Jane is now in a bed, under heavy medication, and apparently resting comfortably. Marie also is undergoing a series of tests. While Sally looks for Judd, her father sits in the chair by his wife’s bed and waits--and wonders what could possibly happen next.
When Jane recovers she complains about a headache, and says she wants to go home.
“Are you sure that’s wise,“ says Cliff. “I’ll ask the doctor.”
“Tell him my daughter will be there with me.”
“So will I.”
“What about that--woman?”
“Marie will return to Cincinnati alone.”
“Does that mean the wedding is off?”
“No, but it can wait. That is, if Marie still wants to marry me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, she didn’t bargain for all this.”
“Did she think I would give up without a fight?”
“Let’s drop it, Jane.”
“I wish I could.” She reaches out to Cliff.
Cliff takes her hand. “Try to relax, Jane. You’ve got to get well.”
“I’ll be fine as long as you’re with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
After the doctor examines Jane again, he says that she appears to be all right but that he wants her to remain in the hospital for at least one more day. He gives her a sedative and soon she is sleeping. Two days later she leaves the hospital with Cliff, Sally, and Judd. Marie returns to the hotel.
Back at Jane’s house, things go well for a few days, until one morning she gets restless lying in bed. She insists on getting up and by midafternoon she starts to drink.
“Jane,” says Cliff, “please give up the martinis.”
“I will when you agree to give up Marie.”
They argue. “This is no good,” says Cliff, and turns his back on her.
“Don’t walk away from me!” says Jane.
“I’m sorry, Jane, but I need to get some fresh air.”
Cliff walks to the porch and leans on the rail, looking down the hill at the harbor activity. Perhaps fifteen minutes pass before he is aware of a sudden movement behind him. He turns just in time to see his wife rushing at him and screaming, “If I can’t have you, Cliff, neither can the bitch!” Before he can stop her, Jane hits him at full force and falls over the rail, screaming as she tumbles down the hillside. The scream is silenced when she lands at the base of an overhanging tree.
In a near state of shock, Cliff braces himself against the rail and yells, “My God, Jane, what have you done? Jane! Jane!”
Sally and Judd arrive just in time to keep him from crawling over the rail in pursuit of his wife. “Let me go,” he cries. “Jane is down there. I’ve got to help her.”
“No,” whispers Sally. “Let the police handle it. I don’t want to lose both of you.”
Judd helps Cliff to the couch in the living room, calls the police, then goes to the aid of Sally. She has collapsed on the floor of the porch.
When the police arrive, they tie a rope to the porch railing and climb down the hill to Jane. There they tie the rope around her broken body and hoist her up to the porch.
A dazed Cliff attempts to embrace his wife, but the police pull him away from her and demand that she not be touched until the medics arrive.
“She’s my wife,” says Cliff. “I should have grabbed her before she hit the rail., but it happened so suddenly--oh, God, it’s all my fault.”
“No, Cliff,” says Judd’s quiet voice behind him. “She was so distraught she didn’t know what she was doing.”
“She knew,” says Sally in tears. “Mom knew exactly what she was doing.” She embraces her father. “She was driven to this out of despair, and fear. She couldn’t live with the thought that you no longer loved her.”
“But I do love her,” cried Cliff.
“No--you love Marie.”
“Sal, don’t blame this on Marie. Blame me. Blame the damn curse I’ve been living with all my life. Blame Captain Jack. Oh, God, poor unhappy Jane. She always said that the old man would be the end of us.”
“Yes, the sins of our fathers.” Sally guides Cliff from the porch to the couch. “Lie down, Dad. Should I call Marie?”
“No, I’ll call her after the medics arrive. I want to see Lew. Poor Jane. I should have spent more time with her. Where’s Lew? I abandoned her.”
“Wrong. She left you, remember?”
“But--”
“Dad this was inevitable. Mom was sick with hate.”
All Cliff could do was sit there and cry. “Look at me, blubbering like a baby, like the weakling that Captain Jack said I was.”
“Sometimes, Dad, it takes a real man to cry.”
The medics found that Jane died of a broken neck. Cliff disagreed. “She died of a broken heart.” The police determined that the the death was accidental.
There was no funeral. In a sealed envelope that Jane had addressed to Sally, she asked to be cremated. Cliff scattered the ashes on the hill below the porch of her
house. Then he insisted that Sally return to Cincinnati with him as soon as Marie recovered from the shock.
“Yes,” says Sally when Cliff later asks her again to come to Cincinnati. “I could never live in this house. Sell it, or burn it for all I care. Maybe I’ll go somewhere with Judd. Or maybe I’ll spend some time with Lew in New York. His play opens in two weeks. Will you join me?”
“No,” says Cliff. “The best thing for me is to get back to work. I’ll see Lew as soon as I stop hating myself.”
