[Slow siciliana; water drops beneath nylon guitar] [Older Male Voice] The vault was cold. I kept my coat on. Your first uncertain light lay red across my hands. [Older Male Voice] I had come with work that would outlive my strength. Anirul. Attend. [Young Female Voice] You opened history at its wounds. You made me look until the beauty of an explanation could no longer hide the cost. [Young Female Voice] I learned how much a record could conceal by being whole. You asked me for the missing part. I learned to say, “I do not know.” [Verse 1] [Older Male Voice] We will begin there. Take this certainty apart. Find what it asks us to surrender. Follow every consequence until affection cannot turn you back. [Older Male Voice] Then tell me. I can bear an answer I did not want. [Young Female Voice] You stayed to hear it. That was how I knew. [Young Female Voice] The chair came nearer. The coat slipped from your shoulders. You forgot the hour. [Young Female Voice] I began to understand what you were spending. [Chorus — duet] [Older Male Voice] All this life, and I can only give it once. I put it into you by nights, by hours, by returning. [Older Male Voice] When my hand opens, go farther. [Young Female Voice] Hold a little longer. There is still so much of you I am learning. [Verse 2 — felt piano, bowed bass] [Young Female Voice] There were rooms I woke in where my name was all that stayed. You came carrying our unfinished work. I met you as a stranger. [Young Female Voice] You had to tell me twice. You had to tell me angry. You had to hear me speak as though the loss were small. [Older Male Voice] It was not small. [Young Female Voice] I know that now. [Older Male Voice] Bring what remains. We can build with that. [Young Female Voice] And one night, in an answer, you heard the turn of thought you had been waiting for. [Older Male Voice] “There’s my Ani.” [Young Female Voice] You laughed. I wanted to make you laugh again. [Verse 3 — harp and strings] [Older Male Voice] I wanted you formidable. Able to stand inside a question without reaching for my hand. [Older Male Voice] I wanted tenderness that understood what it could lose and chose to care. [Older Male Voice] I was preparing you for years I could not enter. [Young Female Voice] You spoke of them with such assurance. Then pain caught in your body and you stopped. I knew so many names for suffering. You had to teach me yours. [Young Female Voice] That night we left the ages closed. You spoke. I stayed. [Older Male Voice] I was glad of you. [Chorus — intertwined voices] [Older Male Voice] All this life, and I can only give it once. The part of me that sat beside you was never wasted. [Older Male Voice] When my hand opens, go farther. [Young Female Voice] Hold a little longer. I have learned to see beyond you. I have never wished to see you gone. [Bridge — quiet chapel organ] [Young Female Voice] Let me ask the foolish thing. Let me be unfinished. Must everything I carry become something I carry without you? [Older Male Voice] In time. [Young Female Voice] Then I would rather have this room. Your coat drying by the door. A question we cannot settle. You, refusing sleep. [Older Male Voice] Yes. I have loved those nights. I would sit through every one again, knowing where they lead. [Final Duet] [Older Male Voice] Help me loosen this last burden. The body has worked hard. I would lie down now. Keep your light where I can see it. [Young Female Voice] Here. [Older Male Voice] You are ready. [Young Female Voice] For the work. I am ready for the work. [Older Male Voice] That is all I ask. [Young Female Voice] I cannot promise every memory. I cannot promise all those years. [Older Male Voice] Then give me what you can. [Young Female Voice] While I remain, I will make room for what I missed. I will let the answer change me. I will care what happens next. [Older Male Voice] My Ani. [Young Female Voice] I love you. There is nothing I can do with all this knowing but stay. [Older Male Voice — pianissimo] Stay, then. Until my hand opens. [One empty measure — water alone] [Young Female Voice] I was still speaking when you left. There is a place beside the glass I cannot learn to look at yet. [Young Female Voice] Your coat keeps the fold of your shoulder. The room has kept such little things. I have kept a question. [Outro — guitar returns] [Young Female Voice] I wanted you to hear what I became. I will become it still. [Young Female Voice] I know what I must do. I reach for you to tell you. The chair is empty. You will never hear what I become.
