Open House by Elizabeth Berg

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.
    “T HIS 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 night?”
    “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
any
thing?”
    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?