i love you, billy. sleep tight. ted, i'm leaving you. here are my keys. i won't be needing them any more. my american express. my bloomingdale's credit card. my check book – i took two thousand out of the savings account. that was what i had in the bank when we got married. here are the slips for the laundry and the cleaning. they'll be ready on saturday. i've paid the rent, the con-ed and the phone bill, so you don't have to worry about them. there, that's everything. look, it's not your fault, okay? it's me. it's my fault – you just married the wrong person. ted, you're not listening to me. it's over, finished. you just don't get it, do you? i – am – really – and – truly – leaving – you. no you didn't. you didn't even ask about billy. i'm not taking him with me. ted, i can't. i tried. i really tried but. i just can't hack it anymore. i am not! i'm a terrible mother! i'm an awful mother. i yell at him all the time. i have no patience. no. no. he's better off without me. ted, i've got to go. i've got to go. no!. please. please don't make me stay. i swear. if you do, sooner or later. maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. maybe a year from now. i'll go right out the window. i don't know. hello, ted. you look well. how's the new job? yes. how's billy? you can't tell it from a distance, ted. i've seen him. a few times. sometimes i sit in that coffee shop across the street and watch when you take him to school. he looks like a terrific kid. watching my son. ted, i've been living in new york for the past two months. ted. the reason i wanted to see you. i want billy back. i want my son. i'm through sitting in coffee shops looking at him from across the street. i want my son. ted, listen to me. you and i, we had a really crappy marriage – look, don't get so defensive, okay? it was probably as much my fault as it was yours. anyway when i left i was really screwed up – ted, all my life i'd either been somebody's daughter or somebody's wife, or somebody else's mother. then all of a sudden, i was a thirty- two-year-old, highly neurotic woman who had just walked out on her husband and child. i went to california because that was about as far away as i could get. only. i guess it wasn't far enough. so i started going to a shrink. ted, i've had time to think. i've been through some changes. i've learned a lot about myself. i've learned that i want my son. ted, if you can't discuss this rationally - oh, billy. oh my billy. oh my son. i'll have him back at six. six years. the first couple, yes, but after that it became increasingly difficult. no, i did not. yes. i tried to talk to ted – my ex- husband – about it, but he wouldn't listen. he refuses to discuss it in any serious way. i remember one time he said i probably couldn't get a job that would pay enough to hire a baby-sitter for billy. yes, i work for jantzen as a sportswear designer. i make thirty-one thousand dollars a year. yes. very much. yes. look, during the last five years we were married, i had. i was getting more and more. unhappy, more and more frustrated. i needed to talk to somebody. i needed to find out if it was me, if i was going crazy or what. but every time i turned to ted – my ex-husband, he couldn't handle it. he became very. i don't know, very threatened. i mean, whenever i would bring up anything he would act like it was some kind of personal attack. anyway, we became more and more separate. more and more isolated from one another. finally, i had no other choice, i had to leave. and because of my ex- husband's attitude – his unwillingness to deal with my feelings, i had come to have almost no self-esteem. at the time i left, i sincerely believed that there was something wrong with me – that my son would be better off without me. it was only when i got to california and started into therapy i began to realize i wasn't a terrible person. and that just because i needed some creative and emotional outlet other than my child, that didn't make me unfit to be a mother. because my son is here. and his father is here. as a mother, i don't want my child to be separated from his father. because he's my child. because i love him. i know i left my son, i know that's a terrible thing to do. believe me, i have to live with that every day of my life. but just because i'm a woman, don't i have a right to the same hopes and dreams as a man? don't i have a right to a life of my own? is that so awful? is my pain any less just because i'm a woman? are my feelings any cheaper? i left my child – i know there is no excuse for that. but since then, i have gotten help. i have worked hard to become a whole human being. i don't think i should be punished for that. i don't think my son should be punished for that. billy's only six. he needs me. i'm not saying he doesn't need his father, but he needs me more. i'm his mother. yes. no. no. no. no. no. no. permanently. i don't recall. i don't recall. somewhere in between. yes. i. i don't know. ah. i guess i'd have to say. with my child. i suppose. yes. we were married two years before the baby. and then four very difficult years. i was not a failure. i consider it less my failure than his. it did not succeed. yes. ted. i'm sorry. i just mentioned it in passing. i never thought he'd use it. please, ted. i never would have brought it up if i thought – ted, do you love him? ted, do you love him? i love him too. i don't think i ever knew how much until now. ted, when we got married it was because i was twenty-seven years old and i thought i should get married and. when i had billy it was because i thought i should have a baby. and i guess all i did was mess up my life and your life and – please. please don't stop me. this is the hardest thing i've ever had to do. after i left. when i was in california, i began to think, what kind of mother was i that i could walk out on my own child. it got to where i couldn't tell anybody about billy – i couldn't stand that look in their faces when i said he wasn't living with me. finally it seemed like the most important thing in the world to come back here and prove to billy and to me and to the world how much i loved him. and i did. and i won. only. it was just another "should." . sitting in that courtroom. hearing everything you did, everything you went through. something happened. i guess it doesn't matter how much i love him, or how much you love him. i guess it's like you said, the only thing that counts is what's best for billy. i don't know, maybe that's all love is anyway. ted, i think billy should stay with you. he's already got one mother, he doesn't need two. he's yours. i won't fight you for him any more. he's yours. only can i still see him? okay. i think i'll go talk to my son now. how do i look?