Open House Read online

  I hang up, refill the potato-chip bowl, and do not answer the phone when it rings again. I sit down with my list, add, LET MACHINE TAKE ALL CALLS.

  6

  I AM AT FRANCO’S, THE SMALL NEIGHBORHOOD GROCERY STORE walking distance from my house. It’s more expensive, but less overwhelming than the supermarket, and there are small touches that offer comfort everywhere. Free coffee. A recipe-exchange board. The soft sounds of classical music in the background, with no overly excited voice breaking in to describe unbelievable savings on London broil. The smell of turkey roasting in the back room.

  The aisles are named for nearby streets, and their signs are hand painted in curly black script. Polite, high school–aged boys with neatly combed hair and clear complexions bag the groceries and, unless refused, bring them out to the car, no tipping allowed. This, of course, only makes customers more anxious to tip. But the boys steadfastly turn the money down, and on their way back into the store, they collect any stray carts and arrange them in a neat line outside the door. I can’t imagine where they find these young men. When they go home at night, it must be to the 1950s.

  The older people who work in the store are department managers. They are vigilant, restacking pyramids of tomatoes, straightening cartons of cottage cheese, stirring up the pasta salad at the deli counter. I like to be checked out by Marie, the cashier who’s worked at Franco’s for thirty-one years, and I wait in line for her now, ignoring the other cashier whose register is free. I want to ask Marie where on the community bulletin board I should pin my sign; some spots might be better than others. I’ve seen ads for places for rent before, stuck between ads for free cats, baby-sitting, piano lessons, carpenters willing to do small jobs. I’ve carefully printed my message on an index card:

  ROOMMATE WANTED

  Large bedroom for rent in very nice house with single

  woman and eleven-year-old son. No smoking. Pets or kids

  okay. Must be employed and responsible. $500/mo.

  It occurred to me, writing it, that it didn’t say enough. But I didn’t know how to add more. Please don’t be one of those types who never wears deodorant, I couldn’t say that. Please become my friend, I need a friend. I couldn’t say that either. No hospitalizations for psychosis, Rita had suggested. Neurotics okay.

  Well, I’ll see who calls, that’s all; then interview them, take it from there. I trust my intuition. I know about people. Except for David. Please don’t be like David.

  “Hey! Wake up,” Marie says, reaching over to pull my cart forward.

  I smile, begin unloading my few groceries.

  “What’s for dinner?” Marie asks, looking over her half glasses to see what I’ve selected. Then, “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s just . . . I need to post a sign, Marie. Where’s a good spot on the board?”

  “What are you selling?”

  “I’m renting a room. In my house.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I need . . . a roommate.” The word is ridiculous. I am forty-two years old.

  Marie hands me my change, tells the other check-out clerk that she’ll be right back. “Come with me,” she says, and leads me into the back room. Cases of soda are piled high; time cards are lined up on a rack on the wall. Get a job.

  “What’s going on, hon?” she asks.

  I shrug, sit down on a box full of seltzer bottles.

  “You and your husband split up or something?”

  I nod.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Marie sighs, leans back against the time clock, crosses her arms over her blue cotton smock. “Franco’s” is gaily embroidered over one breast; over the other she wears her name tag, pinned, as usual, at an odd angle. She doesn’t need a name tag, anyway. Everybody knows her; she is everyone’s surrogate something. She is in her late fifties, overweight in the deeply comforting way. She has compassionate blue eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, beautiful skin that she has told me she owes to mayonnaise masks. I’ve been exchanging mindless pleasantries with her for years: comments on the weather, criticism of the Red Sox, a shared interest in Travis’s growth. Marie was the first person outside the immediate family to hold Travis; I brought him to the store when he was three weeks old.

  “When did this all happen?” Marie asks.

  “A couple of weeks ago. I’m keeping the house, but I’ll need some help with the mortgage payment. So I thought I’d advertise for a roommate.”

  “Oh, boy. I don’t know.”

  “Is there any place on the board that people look at more than other places?”

  She frowns. “Are you sure about this? You could get a real nut.”

  “Well, I don’t know what else to do. I can’t afford it by myself.”

  “Wait a minute!” Marie says. “I’ve got a prospect for you. My mother needs a place.”

  “Your mother!”

  “Her rent’s going up again. She can’t afford her own apartment anymore, but she doesn’t want to live with me—wants to keep her independence. She’s an awfully nice woman, Sam, real quiet, tidy, loves children. And you know all those great recipes I gave you? They’re hers.”

  A grandmother. Probably a real one, too, not one like my mother is to Travis. Someone who wears pearl studs and pastel dresses that reach mid-calf, rather than gold stretch pants with tight sweaters and multiple necklaces. It could work, why not? And if I can rent out the basement, too, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about the salary at any job I take.

  I tear a piece of paper from my grocery bag. “Here’s my number. Have her call me. I’d love to meet her.”

  “There is one thing . . .”

  “Yes?” Incontinence.

  “She has a boyfriend. They’re . . . close.”

  “Oh! Well, one of us might as well have one.”

  I shoulder my purse, stand. “Thanks, Marie.”

  She nods, sad for me. Although, I realize, I’m not sad for myself. Not at the moment. The relief makes me feel light. Maybe I really am lighter. Grief has a catabolic effect. That must make you lose weight. In the car, I check my face in the rearview mirror. It looks exactly the same. And then, just like that, I am sad again. I start the car, turn on the radio, hear What becomes of a broken heart? Good question.

  “THIS IS SUCH a crazy time,” I tell Rita. “One minute I feel awful, and then I feel kind of . . . ecstatic.”

  “Yeah, that’s what everybody says.” She is making dinner; I hear water running, the muted clanging of pots and pans. “That you just ride this emotional roller coaster.”

  “Exactly. The other night, I was lying in the bathtub crying. Today I feel like the day I got married is the day the lights went out. That I’m lucky to be rid of him.”

  “You are.”

  “What are you making?”

  “Chicken,” Rita says. “What else does anyone eat anymore? Imagine how the hens feel bringing their children into the world.”

  “Listen, I think I found a roommate.”

  A beat, and then Rita says, “You can’t have, already! You have to take some time, Sam. You have to be careful!”

  “It’s a seventy-eight-year-old woman, for God’s sake. I know her daughter.”

  “What does Travis think about that?”

  “Well, I haven’t told him. He knows we’re going to be getting a roommate, but he doesn’t know who, or when. I want to make sure she’s really moving in before I tell him about her.”

  Rita sighs. “You want to live with an old lady. Now, there’s a major improvement. Maybe you can go play Bingo together, wear each other’s shawls. That’s it, I’m coming out there. You need me.”

  “I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. She likes to cook, for one thing. And I want to rent out the basement, too. I’ll get someone more my age for down there. Or someone much younger, maybe a twenty-year-old. A biker, how’s that?”

  I hear the doorbell and say, “She’s here—the woman! She’s here to meet me.”

  “At night? She goes out at ni
ght?”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Be careful!”

  “Of an old woman?”

  “Remember Bette Davis? Baby Jane?”

  “I’ll call you later.” I hang up, push my hair back from my face, and go to the door.

  But it is not the woman at the door; it is David, ringing the bell to be sure I understand that he no longer lives here, I suppose. “He wanted to come home,” David says. He looks over his shoulder at Travis, moving slowly up the sidewalk.

  “You were supposed to keep him till bedtime!”

  “He wanted to come home, Sam, what do you want me to do? Why does he have to be gone, anyway? What are you doing?”

  Travis comes in, drops his book bag on the hall floor, heads for the kitchen. “What’s to eat?”

  “What happened?” I ask David.

  He shrugs. “He’s tired, I think. Has he been sleeping? Have you been putting him to bed on time?”

  “What’s to eat?” Travis yells.

  “You were supposed to eat with Dad,” I yell back. “I didn’t make anything! I don’t have anything!”

  Travis comes back into the hallway. “You don’t have anything?”

  I look at David, see the same question in his eyes. Outside, I see an older model gray Oldsmobile pull under the streetlight. A man gets out, dressed in a dark suit and hat, and goes around to open the door for an older woman. She takes a long look at the house, reaching behind herself to straighten the back of her dress.

  “You and Travis have to leave,” I tell David quietly. “Right now.”

  He turns to watch the couple coming up the walk. “Who’s that?”

  “I’m interviewing a roommate.”

  “Are you kidding?” He looks again.

  I’m not sure, suddenly, of anything. But with an authority that surprises me, I say, “Take Travis out for dinner. Right now. He was supposed to eat with you.”

  “I told you, he doesn’t want to go!”

  “Take him anyway.”

  From behind me, I hear Travis say, “That’s our roommate? Old people?”

  I take him gently by the arm. “It’s the woman I’ll be talking to. You go and get some dinner with Dad. I’ll talk to you when you get home, I’ll tell you all about it. Don’t worry about a thing.” I push him out the door with David, then straighten to wave to the couple. The woman is carrying a black patent leather pocketbook by the handle, using both hands. She is smiling. Her boyfriend cradles her elbow, guides her tenderly along. He has a white mustache, neatly trimmed, and he is wearing a bow tie. This woman can move in tonight. They both can.

  THE PHONE RINGS just after I’ve gone to sleep. I squint to see the numbers on the clock. Eleven-thirty.

  “You told her she could move in, didn’t you?” Rita asks, when I pick up the receiver.

  “Oh, hi. I was sleeping.”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Great.”

  “It is great. You’d like her.”

  “I’m sure I would. I’m also sure I wouldn’t want to live with her.”

  “Why not? What is this prejudice you have against older people? I never knew this about you.” I get out of bed, quietly close the bedroom door.

  “I’m not prejudiced. I just think you should think a little more about who you want to live with, I mean, didn’t the last experience teach you anything?”

  “She’ll be fine. She has a wonderful boyfriend, this old, refined-looking gentleman who just . . . he is so vigilant, so attentive. We had tea together. We had a nice time. She’s moving in next week. Tomorrow I’m getting all David’s stuff moved out.”

  “To where?”

  “Oh, he found a condo already. I think he’d been looking for a while.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Listen, Rita, I’m going back to sleep. We can fight tomorrow.”

  I hang up, then go to Travis’s room. He’s asleep, the phone didn’t wake him. That’s good—he had a rough night. He didn’t understand why he had to leave with David when he wanted to stay home. He didn’t understand why we really are getting a roommate, despite my careful explanations.

  I stand beside him, my arms wrapped around myself, then reach down to pull the covers up to his shoulders. He stirs slightly, resettles himself. I kiss the top of his head, then go to sit in the chair in the corner of his room. I can smell him in the air. It is such a fine smell, faintly like earth, but saltier. I pick up one of his stuffed animals, an ancient bear, and hold it on my lap. Its size is close to the size Travis was when I first began reading out loud to him—I can rest my chin on the top of the bear’s head, just as I used to do with Travis.

  I don’t hold Travis anymore, of course—not to read to him, or for any other reason, either. I wish I’d known that the last time was going to be the last time. But of course that information would have been as painful as this moment. When Travis had gotten his first haircut, after all, the barber had handed me his handkerchief with a smile, then a box of tissues, with no smile.

  I lean my head back, close my eyes. I am so deeply tired. And I am afraid. The truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not fair that my son has a mother like this. His mother should know what she’s doing.

  7

  LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, A SMALL MOVING TRUCK PULLS up to the curb. Promove. Sounds like someone David might hire. Two men who look as though they must be father and son get out of the truck, talk to each other before they start for the door. I wonder what they’re saying. Remember—this is a divorce situation, here. We’ll have to be careful. Don’t say anything to the Mrs.—she might start bawling.

  I open the door, stand waiting on the porch. “Hi!” I say. Oh, God.

  “Mrs. Morrow?” the older man says.

  “Yes!”

  “We’re here to pick up a few of Mr. Morrow’s things?”

  “Yes!” I step out of the way to let them in. “The study is the last room on the right, upstairs. The master is to the left—you’ll find all his clothes at one end of the closet.”

  “This won’t take too long,” the man says, and something in the kind tone of his voice reaches my knees. I go into the kitchen, where I will find something to do. I can’t watch them. We’d gotten ham and cheese subs for lunch. While we sat on the empty living-room floor and watched the moving men carry his desk upstairs, David put his Coke bottle up to mine for a toast. “I love this house,” he said. “We’re never moving.”

  I organize pots and pans, wipe out cupboards, line up spice bottles. When I hear the man call out, “All set!” I come into the living room.

  “All set,” he says, again, quietly. Beside him, his son frankly stares at me, three fingers on his hip, football-player style.

  “So, if you could just sign here.”

  “Oh, sure.” I take the man’s ballpoint pen—it’s greasy—and start to sign my name. And then I drop the pen onto the clipboard and put my hands to my face.

  “Oh, boy,” the man says. And then, “I’m awful sorry, Miss.”

  I stop crying, pick up the pen, sign my name. Say thank you. Watch them drive away. Go upstairs and regard the empty room. David, we can’t do it in here! Shhhhh! Take off your clothes, we’ll be so quiet we won’t hear us.

  I sit in the middle of the floor and rock like an autistic. There is comfort in it. In the corner, I see a paper clip, and I pick it up and hold it. Then I put it in my pocket. And then I go to the bedroom, look in the closet. Yup. They got it all.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, stare at the wall. Then I take the paper clip out of my pocket and put it in the top drawer of the nightstand.

  Now. Now I’ll call Karen Wheeler to tell her it’s safe for Travis to come home, and that he can bring Ben, too, if he wants. And I know what Karen will say. She’ll say Oh, well, why doesn’t Travis just stay here for a while? Because she won’t want Ben here. Because what
if it’s contagious?

  Ben answers the phone when I call. “Hey, Ben,” I say. “It’s Travis’s mom. I just wanted to tell you that Travis can come home anytime. And you can come, too, if you want. Stay for dinner?”

  “Oh, okay. Hold on a second.” He puts the phone down and I hear him say, “Hey, T. Want to go over to your house? Your mom says it’s okay.”

  Silence. And then Ben comes back to the phone. “He says we’ll just stay here. Okay?”

  “. . . Sure. Can I speak to him, though?”

  Another moment, and then Ben comes back to the phone again. “Mrs. Morrow?”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s doing something now. He’ll says he’ll see you later.”

  “Oh. All right. Thank you, Ben.”

  “It’s just . . . We’re playing this computer game. He’s at the hard part.”

  He’s a sweet kid, Ben. He forgives me.

  WHEN TRAVIS COMES home, he asks if the study is completely empty. “Yes,” I say. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Why would I want to see an empty room?”

  But after we’ve gone to bed, I hear his door open and I know exactly where he’s going. And I know he needs to be alone, going there. My body lies in bed while my mind stands beside him, apologizing, apologizing, apologizing.

  8

  MARIE IS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE, READY TO HELP HER MOTHER move in. It is Saturday morning, a crisp and clear late October day, the sky a rare dark blue. When I went out for the paper, I stood shivering in the driveway for a while, looking up appreciatively until I felt dizzy. Then I came back inside to make banana bread. It’s almost a reflex—every time I feel happy, I need to make something to eat. Also every time I feel sad.

  So there is the rich smell of banana bread in the air now, as well as freshly brewed coffee; and Marie sniffs deeply as she takes off her coat. “Smells good!” she tells me. Then, looking around, “Say, this is a nice house! Maybe I’ll move in, too. You know, leave the old man. He probably wouldn’t notice anyway.”

  Really? I almost ask. I show Marie the rest of the house, including the study where her mother will be living. “Perfect,” Marie says. And then, looking at me, “You okay?”