Water by the Spoonful: Scene Fourteen Summary & Analysis

In a hotel room in Puerto Rico, Yaz types on her laptop, introducing herself to the forum members as Freedom&Noise and asking if they will let her be the new administrator in place of Haikumom. She admits that she does not have any drug history or experience with chat rooms, but remembers when Odessa disappeared from her life when she was a child, popping up again ten years later with a Narcotics Anonymous necklace. Meeting her again, Yaz realized that she had never done anything so difficult in her life as fight an addiction, so she wants to give back to the world and to Odessa. Yaz is in the midst of composing a haiku for the forum when Elliot enters.

Elliot tells her to close the computer; he doesn’t want to be reminded of Philadelphia while he’s in Puerto Rico. Yaz tells Elliot about a list of achievements she made as a little girl and buried in a park so she could dig it up when she was thirty and cross them all off. The goals were all for herself: be married with kids, tenure, perform concerts at Carnegie Hall, and compose original pieces of music. But now the goals seem worthless since she’ll “never have the courage to go to that spot with a shovel and face [her] list full of crumbs, decoys, and bandaids.”

Elliot thinks those goals sound okay, but Yaz denies it, especially compared to what Odessa did for other addicts and Ginny did for their community. She wasn’t around to stop Elliot from being shot in the leg and she wasn’t there to help him through his own addiction. Rather than a list of goals, she wants to dig a hole and bury a scream. Elliot tells her that for a second, it was as if he was talking to Mami Ginny, not Yaz. Yaz remarks that Odessa saved Elliot’s life when she gave him up, and then begins gathering her things so that they can go spread Mami Ginny’s ashes.

Yaz leaves the room to make a phone call, and as soon as she is gone, the Ghost appears. Elliot calls for Yaz but she does not return. As the Ghost reaches to touch Elliot, Elliot grabs him and they begin fighting. However, the Ghost is not trying to hurt Elliot, only looking for his wallet, and when he finds it begins rifling through it and emptying it onto the floor, searching for something. The Ghost reaches and touches Elliot’s face, freezing him in place, and slides his fingers across Elliot’s nose, eyes, mouth, as if he is “taking inventory.” The Ghost disappears, leaving Elliot shaken. He pulls a bottle of pills from a pocket, puts one in his palm, and then pours the entire bottle into his palm, “wanting to throw them away.”