This story was performed by Tony-award winning actress Judith Ivey

before live audiences in Dallas, Houston, and Denver as part of the Arts & Letters Live program

sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art. It was originally titled The Bundelays

T H E   M U S E U M O F M A R R I A G E

The Bundlelays are a big mystery to me. They’re that two-story Victorian with the wrap-around porch and the gingerbread molding down on the corner. The house anchors our block. It makes a stately impression, but it would make a better one if they refurbished it like the redone “grandma houses” on gentrified blocks close by. We’re talking total gut redo – they’re still using window units and there’s only one full bath upstairs and a half down and the fixtures are pretty much the originals installed in the late teens.

Their son wanted them to sell, and so behind their backs he roped me into agreeing to list it before I knew what was up. The elder Mr. Bundlelay had “a little stroke” and Mrs. B was sleeping at his hospital room in a chair, so the son gave me a tour. He said they were moving to a condo near him in Las Colinas so that his wife and their grown daughter could look after them.

I’ve specialized in urban properties ever since divorcing a guy I caught selling myunlaundered underwear over the internet. Actually, that was among the least of our problems, but telling people this distracts them from a truly fruitful discussion of our differences. We were living in a brand-new “Coon-ass Gothic” monster with 4500 square feet, way too much of which was wasted space in “cathedral”ceilings unless you convert it into an aviary. From the front it looked just like Darlie Routier’s house in Mesquite, and that like scared me sometimes. Justin grew up on the outskirts ofSan Antonio and went to college on the fringe of Dallas, so our house was way out in the burbs. When we split up, I went zoom! right into the city looking for a real-life neighborhood that hadn’t been ethnically cleansed and bought my house here on Vanderbilt. It took three years to strip it out, replumb, rewire and reroof, install central heat and air and refinish the floors (wonderful oak hiding under wall-to-wall for thirty years). Painted every square inch inside and out. Meanwhile I studied for my broker’s license and I was a manager at Kroger’s. My house isn’t like the Bundlelays’ – it’s a prairie-style bungalow, built in ‘33 as a 2/1, and I added a big bath and a big family room with a fireplace at the back, though I’m the only family right now, if you don’t count Kevin.

The Bundlelays are in their late 80s, and I admit I’ve lusted for that house. When their son called, I toyed with selling this one, rolling up my sleeves and spending a ton of money, winding up with a showcase down there. Put it on the spring homes tour, get featured in magazines. (I admit to premature thoughts too about Kevin’s business – he’s a free-lance photographer, and that Bundlelay house has an unfinished third-story space with dormer windows.) Four bedrooms up, and downstairs are your dining room, parlor, living and breakfast rooms, big kitchen. Ten foot ceilings. It has wonderful features you don’t find any more – fan light with beveled glass above the entrance door, crown molding, Rookwood tile around the fireplace, and diamond glass doorknobs. But the Bundlelays have been there sixty years, and for the last twenty they’ve been short the bustle and the bucks to keep it up. The foundationneeds a $10K redo, then because of that you’d have to strip the walls of that old plastered lathe and Sheetrock them, but that would rid you of that ancient cheesy wallpaper. You’dstart below and not stop until you were on the chimney where a couple bricks are missing and there’s no bird or cinder guard. You’d be a month clearing out their things. One bedroom has towers of National Geographics going back to the 1940s. Nobody’s lived on the second floor in five years – that’s sad – and the son said that they spend the better part of an afternoon hoisting one another up the stairs to bathe in the only tub. He said that they joked that it’s just like going to the swimming hole in their younger days. They sleep in the parlor now.

I told him that in the current market the house might bring $100K at the very most because a buyer would have to plunk down another hundred, agood $30K in the kitchen alone and another $30K for a master bath. Our inner-city property is appreciating, but “as is” can be tough to sell.

I’m sitting in my porch swing a few evenings later toking on a glass of white wine when the Bundlelays come up the street. When I see them, this realization hits me: they’ve been married over 60 years! That’s amazing! My biopop did an DB Cooper before I could recognize him and I have to take a snapshot’s word for what he looked like. I had two stepfathers – one on the record and one off. My Mom never married the second one, Frank, out of fear that marriage itself was fatal to the state of matrimony. They broke up anyway,which was a shame, because I really liked him. We still exchange Christmas cards. My Mom said, “I like being married but I just get to where I can’t stand all the crap.” Frank took that day-tripper bus to Bossier City weekly to hit the casinos, and I guess that’s what she meant by “crap.” They argued like a lot about money. Tim – my official stepfather – griped that my Mom smoked and drank too much (which she does), and when he started getting in her face to get reborn, that was the end. He did get me reborn when I was twelve, but I up and died again when I hit high school and hung out with kids who did coke and X and spent their weekends moshing in Deep Ellum. I tossed out my virginity like it was an old t-shirt I got at Disneyland when I was ten. I had a line of boyfriends who each taught me something. (But, oh, will I ever learn?) Matt believed I was more selfish than I really was, and so I learned that I was less selfish than I thought; Chris and I both believed I was more daring than I turned out to be; with Damon I learned that Ialways want to be the boss but I also need someone to keep me from doing that. Justin – my personal underwear broker -- claimed we were “partners,” but it took a while to see not equal partners. He was the silent partner; I was the working partner. He believed in mutual unilateral decision-making. We’d come home from work and eat the meal I’d stopped at Whole Foods to get for us, and then next thing I knew he’d be like standing at the front door in gym clothes, and if I caught him before he left I’d ask, “Where you going?” “Shoot some hoops,” he’d say. He’d play with his old frat brothers for a few hours then go to a bar and he wouldn’t be home until midnight. All this and not word one about his plans. Or asking if I minded. I’d say, “But what if I have plans?” “Fine,” he’d say. “Plans for both of us, I mean.” “Well, you shoulda told me,” he’d say. So one night just as he’s about to waltz wordless out the door, I say, “Oh, hey, mind dropping me off at the airport?” He goes – “The airport?” “Yeah,” I say. He shrugs like that’s fine but his mind’s all twisty with it, shows up on his forehead like the back of a linen skirt after a day on a bus. I grab an empty suitcase, and on the way I jabber about work and never say diddly squat about this supposed trip, so finally he says, “Where you going?” And I say, “London.” He goes –“London?” He’s all puzzled and hurt. I assign him household chores, like I’ll be over there a good six months. He’s weirded out completely but he can’t show it. He pulls to the Departures curb, I get out and go “see ya!” and stroll into the terminal.

I took a cab home. He was watching tiny horse-like animals cavort halfway around the globe on ESPN2. He was surprised to see me. I’d hoped to teach him a lesson, and I couldsee him massaging it, but truth is he wasn’t near enough disturbed by it, and that’s why I say that his “panties ‘r us” enterprise was not our biggest problem.

I got Kevin after reading The Rules From Ellen and Sherrie, but maybe you’d call thatex post facto. The rule I was following when we met was “Show up to parties, dances andsocial events even if you do not feel like it,” because a girl friend had begged me to go withher to a Yanni concert, and, believe me, I did not feel like it! But I’d pretty well lost faith in whatever wisdom I’d accumulated in three decades and was willing to listen to about anybody. I mean, who really knows what hooks people up, what keeps them there.

Right now I’m in flagrant violation of their rule that says you don’t date a man formore than two years – he either proposes or you say adios! I’m working up to emailing their web site about it.

Anyway, the Bundlelays. They’ve walked in the neighborhood every evening since I moved here except when one is sick, and this was the first I’d seen them since his trip to thehospital. When they got to my front walk, I’d go down and chat about the house. They were about five doors away, though, so I wondered if I’d still be awake by then. They take their walks one step at a time. After each foot they’ve slid forward they seem to stop to discuss whether to suck it up and try another. But they are like really cute. From a distance they look something like a couple in a sack race; between them they’ve only got about two good legs. I believe she’s had one knee replaced but the other’s always acting up, and his arthritic hip has gone so rusty he can’t walk without a cane. They totter along arm-in-arm and butted up against one another for support, leaning in like an A so that they’re almost head-to-head, and although he’s taller, he’s been bending for six decades, and she’s been stretching up, so that from a distance they’re like equal tall. Push-Me-Pull-You. They’re cheek-to-cheek partly because he’s half blind and she’s half deaf. She’s his eyes and he’s her ears. He has to wear those wraparound shades, and she’s got aids in both ears but the batteries always seem to be dead, so they act like ear plugs. He’s had a couple by-passes patched into his system and I think she’s running on someone else’s liver,but I could be wrong. Neither has a gall bladder. I got all this from the son, who’s notexactly in the prime of youth (he has two grandchildren and looks like a cardiac cowboy).Mrs. B’s hands curl into clusters of knobby knuckles, and she can’t handle utensils, so Mr. B cuts her food up—I saw this myself at our last block party—though since he can’t seeit very well she has to direct him. She hollered, “Hon, it’s a weenie!” and he went to work on it with a plastic fork and knife while she guided his wrist like a nuclear lab technician. Son says Mr. B has to help Mrs. B do her buttons and zippers. She can’t bend enough to put onsocks, but she wears slip-on shoes. Because she’s deaf she talks real loud and I guess wanting to be polite he shouts too even when he’s not addressing her.

They’ve stopped to talk with Gloria Something. Drives a red Escort, cocktail waitress. Her duplex was a single until the ‘60s, and she’s at the end of her walk watering a plastic pot of petunias with a hose. People joke that Mr. B’s “the mayor of Vanderbilt Street” because he won’t let you pass without snaring you into a gabfest. He’s a storehouse of “Hee Haw” openers—“You workin’ hard or hardly workin’?” and “You walkin’that dog or is he walkin’ you?” Except when it floods, we’re always short on rain, so it’s a good bet wet or dry weather will make the cut. Right now I bet he’s saying “Hot enough for you?” because it’s warm for September, and I see Mrs. B oscillate her smile from one to the other like an old-timey fan—blissfully deaf, I guess—and it seems a marvel that she could listen to that blather for six decades (or until her hearing went) and not shoot herself. Or him. Now I am pretty much a people person—you don’t work in real estate if you don’t enjoy yakking to near-strangers half the day long—but if I were Mrs. B it might rub me raw that I can’t slip through the daylight world now and then incognito under a head scarf that hides my unwashed hair. Sure as you try to stay invisible there’s Mr. B dragging you by the elbow across a parking lot to shout Howdy to folks who happen to be driving the same make and color car you are.

But, sure, must be things about her that piss him off, as well. Maybe on a festiveoccasion when Mr. B smokes a semi-annual cigar on the porch, she'll go out and stand downwind of it to whine Pee- Yew!! and bat the air and carry on enough to like completely spoil whatever pleasure he’s having. That gets me thinking. Has anybody asked them for the secret of their marital success? I can picture their golden a decade back, a family party and a toast by that son. They’d have been milked of their wisdom earlier, and so the secret would be included in the toast. They say they owe it all to… what? Pot roast every Sunday? Fabulous bj’s? If we get cozy because I’m their realtor, I can take Mrs. B for lunch at the S & S Tea Room and ask her advice about Kevin, think I’ve even got the hat for it. Sure, she’s like old enough to be my great- grandmother and she might not get it (or hear it!) if I tell her Kevin used to be AC/DC (not that he was—but you can’t be certain, right?), but you know she’s got a Truth socked away that transcends generations. Better advice from her than from those geeks on Sally Jesse or Ricki Lake.

Fifty yards and closing. That’s submarine talk, learned it from Justin, big Tom Clancy fan. He would read a Clancy novel even if it were only about a giant screwdriver, not an unlikely possibility, I bet. (Well, okay, a giant electric screwdriver.) Mr. B has on his geezer- glasses and this big, fringed sombrero such as you get as a souvenir on a Caribbean cruise when you weigh anchor in PR—both the Bs got basal cells whacked off their noggins and he’sgot a pock on his nose—scuffed opera slippers without socks (Eww, Mr. B! Those ankles!), khaki pants (sometimes he wears seersucker shorts with black wing-tips and black nylon dress socks pulled like about to his knees), a short-sleeve sport shirt with a pattern I can’tmake out from here, and I’m presuming beneath it an undershirt with shoulder straps like old men wear even in the shower, I guess.

She’s wearing polyester pants in an apricot hue, a white long- sleeved blouse tuckedinto the waistband, a string of colored beads, and a less flamboyant version of his hat. Her plastic glasses have lenses big as headlights and the curvy earpieces attach at the bottoms.I doubt either has purchased a single garment since 1975.

I don’t mean to sound snotty. They’re very dear. I wish they’d been my parents and I’d spent my childhood there with my growth marked on the door each birthday instead of ina string of apartments that looked the same in different cities, apartments with tropical names in land-locked states: Palm Breeze, Enchanted Isle. (Of course if your family has money like Justin’s, then you live in a brand-new treeless suburb with a good olde English name like Village Oaks Estates or Sherwood Forest Oaks or Oakety-Oak Oaks.)

“Hi!” I holler when I saunter down to intercept them. “I don’t know if you remember,but we met at last year’s block party? Jennifer Walden?”

I stick my hand between them, and Mrs. B gives it a soft massage then passes it to Mr.B. He’s not like completely blind. He has one of those Rotarian walnut-cracker grips, but I was captain of my volleyball team in high school and I’m up to it.

“Yes, yes!” he yells at me. “Mother was just telling me about you. Hot enough for you?”

“I’ll say! We sure could stand some rain.”

Mrs. B is giving me like this beatific smile but her eyes are vacant, and I swear shecan’t hear a word I say. Lunch would be a trial, that’s for sure.

Mr. B surprises me by saying, “Philip says you’d like to sell our house.”

It seems a friendly offering, but the phrasing is a little pointed. I smile and say, “He asked me to check the market, you know, similar listings and such. Nothing official. I hope that’s okay with you.”

Mrs. B says, “He’s always been the sweetest boy. We hate to say no to him.”

Her batteries must be working. To defend myself I say, “He told me you were moving to Las Colinas to be closer to him.”

“Oh we know he wants us to!” says Mrs. B. She’s clutching Mr. B’s right bicep with both hands as if it were a fireman’s pole. “I’m afraid he worries far toomuch about us. He’s very sweet that way.”

“Couldn’t stand it out there for a minute!” hollers Mr. B. The pattern on Mr. B’s shirtturns out to be ranks of pointers with a paw lifted. “It’s like the moon!”

“Traffic,” puts in Mrs. B as explanation.

Mr. B says, “Nope! We’ll be right here I reckon until the place falls down around our ears.”

“We’re used to it, you see.” Mrs. B pats Mr. B’s forearm to punctuate this.

We jaw a bit, then Mrs. B says, “Hon, we best be turning around, this is about as far as I can go,” though I wonder if she really means this is as far as I think you ought to go. Thing is, you see, so many stories about Wonderful Lasting Marriages seem to be built on the wife’s unheralded sacrifices. I need to let Philip know what they said. I am disappointed — not about losing a chance to sell the house but to buy it. My investment as a realtor hasn’t amounted to more than a few hours on my laptop comping recent sales and taking the tour (which I’d have paid for!). The thought comes before I can squelch it that they won’t last another five years, andthere’s no way one can live alone there without the other. Best thing for me is not be pushy,just let Philip know I have a passionate interest.

I hate having that ugly thought. Now when I drive by, I’ll be like mentally checking their blood pressure. I suspect Philip told them this was my idea hoping that I’d put the screws tothem or glad-hand them into thinking I could make them rich beyond their wildest dream$.

By this time Kevin’s an hour later than he said he’d be and I’m a little toasted from the wine and tired of waiting so I cook pasta and Ragu and eat it and decide he can worry about himself. When he gets in I tell him I couldn’t wait, and he says, “Oh, I stopped at Taco Bueno in Plano on the way back,” which I accept as an apology for not calling even knowing that Sherrie and Ellen would scream at me for that.

While he’s eating two scoops of the butter pecan I bought this very day, I ask, “Kevin, what do you think would keep two people married for over sixty years?”

He gives me this look, so I add, “Academic question only.” “Religion,” he says.

“Anything else?”

“Habit? Or money, maybe—one has it and the other doesn’t.” Kevin’s Dad left his Momafter their twenty-eighth anniversary.

His Dad wanted to find himself but still hasn’t even after five years and the surprise was that his Mom did and she didn’t know she’d be looking.

“Okay, then, happily married.”

“Happily married for sixty years? I don’t know anybody like that.”

“How about the Bundlelays?”

He shrugs and ducks his head toward his bowl. He has really great hair like George Clooney’s and he keeps it in a ponytail with a silver and turquoise clip; he was shooting photos at the Yanni concert for a pr agency—he had on hiking boots and snug jeans and a photographer’s vest, and he leaped about nimble as an gymnast to get his shots and he looked so damn cool, you know?

He says, “What makes you think they’re happy?”

“Well, they look happy. They act like they’re happy together.” “Maybe it’s an act. A public face, you know.”

I shouldn’t let this piss me off, but I realize too late that we’re not talking about theBundlelays. “Why do you need to think they’re unhappy?”

“Jesus, Jennifer! I don’t need to think anything about them! I don’t know them! I’m just going by the odds!”

I get up to water my African violets over my sink so he can’t see my face. S & E wouldapprove of that, at least. I say, “My mortgage is due tomorrow,” and he says, “My checkbook’s out in the car,” and I shrug and say, “Whenever,” meaning before tomorrow. Kevin pays half the mortgage because he lives here, and we’re supposed to split expenses, but I hate to nickel-and-dime somebody. The mortgage actually has fifteen days’ grace, so I think I’m really sending him another message.

Befriending Mrs. B makes my conscience grumble—I’m afraid she’ll think I’m sucking up to handle the deal, and I’m afraid I’ll think that, too. When I call Philip, I tell him I believethat they can be happy only in that house. To me it’s a gestalt, the house and their happiness, but that’s not anything I can prove—I guess it’s what a realtor would think.

I say, “Maybe they need someone to come in every day for a while and clean and cook a little, check on them.”

He says, “Oh, I’ve gone down that road. They said it’d be like having guests all the time.” He adds, “I sure would appreciate it if you’d stop by now and then.”

He feels free to ask that since I failed him otherwise. I think he’s saying he’ll keep me at the top of his list if I do.

I say, “Oh sure I will. They’re really great! It’s wonderful to see a couple stick together like that. They’re an inspiration!” I want him to know I’ll do it for personal reasons.

I do what he asks and then some. Mr. B has lots of doctors’ appointments and Mrs. Bisn’t much for driving—they have an ‘85 Buick still showing under a 100K and I don’t suppose she drove it much until his sight went so bad everybody was afraid for him to get behind the wheel. I drive them to Presbyterian several times in my Explorer and shuttle them to Eckerd’s. I keep telling them I don’t mind going alone to pick up their prescriptions, but they say something like, “Oh no! Least we can do is go get them ourselves!” Which makes the trips four times longer. Getting them in and out of the car is worse than strapping in a bunch of toddlers.

Couple times a week I drop by about 4:30 if I have a window between showings and I say like, “Gee, you know, I could sure go for a LuAnn platter down at Luby’s—would you joinme?” They appreciate this because when you’re there before 5:30 everybody in line is like banging along on walkers, canes or crutches, and sure enough the Bs know everyone and more often than not we wind up sharing somebody’s table, and believe me by now I am an expert on exactly what happens when you get a hip or a knee replaced. I could assist in a by-pass blindfolded and know like all the loopholes in Medicare and Medicaid.

Once I asked Kevin to come along and he looked at me like I’m out of my mind. I want him to see how they make it through the line and to the table and through the meal and back out to the car with so many little mutual ministrations there’s not a single instant when some part of the one—a finger, a sleeve, an elbow—isn’t touching a part of the other. Mostly it’s her clinging to him and him using his weight to ease her up and down, in and out. I say clinging but it could be called massaging or stroking. If I have the guts I’ll ask her if they still have sex. Oprah did a show on it. I guess because I think they’re such a marvel I want to showthem off to the world as a goal for everybody to reach for—hey, a possible standard, that’s the point!

They worry about each other like a lot. If they’re separated by more than abouttwenty feet, he calls out, “Evie, you ok?” and she’ll say, “Right here, Daddy,” and each gives me a run-down on the other’s current health when one is out of sight or earshot. I never hear either cut the other. He tells me her memory is going, but he says it like the loss is his. She says he always expects people to do their best and gets disappointed a lot,but you know she admires him for it.

Mr. B’s recuperation is slow, and he has a relapse one night that zips him back to Presbyterian. The son comes in from Las Colinas to stay with his mother, though she insists on sleeping in that chair. I coax her out to dinner at the Black-eyed Pea on Greenville by offering to pick her up at the hospital and to take her back.

She orders beef stew because she can handle it with a spoon but hardly eats a thing.

“He’s in good hands, Eveline.” I’m leaning over the table so I won’t have to shout and Imake my lips easy to read. “Those doctors and nurses they know what they’re doing.”

“I always have this silly notion that nothing could happen if I’m there,” she says. “Or if it does I sure don’t want him to face it all alone.”

“Nothing’s going to happen. I just know he’s going to be okay, really!” Of course I knowno such thing, but it’s what you say, isn’t it?

She chuckles. “You know he told me that if he goes first he wants me to find another fellow to look after me.”

I smile. “Does he have any candidates?”

She laughs. “Oh my word, no! Well, there was this friend he knew I was sort of sweeton, but he’s been dead for fifteen years.”

She picks at her stew while I finish my plate, then out of a silence she says, “I hope he does go first.”

I guess my raised brows show my shock. I’m afraid to ask her to explain for fear I’ll learn something I don’t want to know, and for a tiny instant I see how much I’ve invested in the idea that happiness with a man is possible.

But I can’t help asking, “Really?”

“Yes,” she says. “I can’t stand to think about how lonely he would be without me.”

Her eyes water up. I have this humongous lump in my throat, too. It seems like agood moment to tell her what’s in my heart and to see what advice she might give. I tell her how much I admire their mutual devotion and that if I do nothing else in my life but manage to have their kind of marriage, I’ll consider myself a great success.

“What do you think has kept you two together all these years?” I ask.

“Oh, hon!” she declares. “I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can say

that would be of any use to you! Why we’re together is just because we’re Eveline and Haroldand it wouldn’t apply for a minute to anybody else. You know how they always ask those oldfolks on their hundredth birthday what do they owe their longevity to, and they always say the most foolish things! ‘Why, I smoked three cigars and drank a pint of whisky every day.’ Or they say it’s having faith in the Lord or eating turnips!’ Truth is they don’t have the foggiest.”

“You don’t think it’s because you really love each other?” I might have been whining.

“Of course we really love each other. But lots of people do that and can’t stand to bein the same room for more than five minutes at a time.”

I decide to explain about Kevin. I tell her how we met and how he came to live in my house and what I want from a husband—I always wanted a man who will worry about me and my health and welfare, my feelings and my progress through life, who wants to tell me each little thing that happened to him while we’re away from one another, who isaffectionate and playful and smart and funny. And now and then he can give me a littletrinket out of the blue and say it made him think of me and I wouldn’t care if it only cost adollar ninety-eight.

“And is your Kevin like that?” “Not much.”

“Well, does he love you and do you love him?”

I think about her category of people in love who can’t stand to be in the same room. Iguess Kevin fits it because this is how he acts toward me.

“I guess,” I say. “Aw, hon, I’m sorry!”

She looks so sad for me that I about break down and bawl. “Me

too.”

“If I do know one thing it’s that when it happens you won’t be

doing any guessing,” she says. “You’re an awfully good girl. You keep looking, you hear me?”  

Mrs. B gets her terrible wish. Mr. B turns for the worst. She’s dozing in the chair when he dies in his sleep. Philip tells me, because Mrs. B is so despondent she has to be sedated an inch this side of comatose, and on the day of Mr. B’s funeral, just as I’m about to walk down to help her get to the church, her heart defibrillates; the ambulance whizzes past meand by the time I reach the house they’re rushing her out on a gurney with a mask over her face.

Mr. B’s funeral goes on without her. We go to hers two days later. I tell you it about wrecks me for a while, I get awfully sentimental thinking about what they stand for in mymind and how maybe they were the Very Last Happily Married Couple.

Kevin changes his schedule so that he’s beside me for the second one, even does it without asking. I start thinking about the house again, only not in a greedy way. I mean not greedy for a showcase that will bring me glory as a realtor and homeowner. Maybe greedy for the luck or the feng-shui or the vibes or whatever is in the house that makes me think that living in it could make us happy, me and Kevin. I even worry that redoing the darn thing might jinx us. Or maybe even removing their things would—I have this idea that if I buy the place I have to keep it as a shrine, turn it into The Museum of Marriage.

And of course Philip shows up hardly two weeks after Mr. and Mrs. B are buried inRestland north of LBJ. It’s a Monday evening after a weekend of two twelve-hour days of showing and gabbing and I’ve twisted Kevin’s arm to help me in the yard. He’s running the hedge clippers while I’m on the mower and Philip has to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

While the men sit on the porch chairs, I go fix three glasses of iced tea, and when I come back, Kevin is saying, “You know offhand how many square feet are in that atticspace?” and Philip says, “Well, it’s about the same as the other floors but not all of it’s useable because of the roof lines up there,” and Kevin says, “Is there flooring or just the bare rafters?” and Philip says, “Oh, it’s fully floored. Old pine, great stuff, about yay wide”and holds his index fingers apart in the air. I don’t know who brought up the subject. But when I serve their tea, Philip says, “Jennifer, I don’t want to seem premature, but soon as the will gets probated, we can startthe ball rolling about the house.”

I get this terrible knot in my stomach. “Have you thought about keeping it in the family, Philip? You and your wife could make it a beautiful showcase, you know. Or maybe one of your children would like to keep it.”

He grew up there and surely has a soft spot for it. Or I think he should, at least.

“Well, sentiment aside, it’s the difference between getting a hundred grand and spending one.”

Kevin says, “Do remember if there are outlets up there or not?”

Philip says, “Well, there’s an overhead fixture, you know a pull chain with just a bulb, so the service does go up there.”

Kevin says, “You suppose it’d be much trouble to run a water line up from the second-floor bathroom?”

“Probably not,” says Philip. “Drain too. You thinking about a dark room?”

“And a studio.”

We sit watching neighbors come and go in their yards, to their cars. One thing about living in houses that don’t have attached garages—people have to show themselves. Kevin’s foot is jittering against the decking; he’s excited. Philip keeps looking up the sidewalk as ifexpecting somebody—Mr. and Mrs. B?—but it turns out it will be his wife walking up to tell him she’s ready to head home to Las Colinas.

He asks about a contract, and I say, “Gee, Philip, I’m really sorry, but this is anincredibly busy time for me. How about I talk to another of our agents about handling the house? I know somebody who will really do a great job for you,” and I give him a verbal resume of our agency’s top producer.

He shrugs, agrees out of politeness to receive the call, says good evening and strolls down the walk to meet his wife.

“Wow!” says Kevin. “I thought you’d shoot your granny for a chance to sell that house! Ithought you wanted to buy it. Is it like a conflict of interest or something?”

“Yes, it’s like a conflict of interest.” “So will you make an offer on it?” “I don’t think so.”

He is totally baffled. I’m a little surprised myself. “Really?” “Really. Why don’t you buy it and redo it!”

“Me?”

“Why not? You make enough money.”

“Well, I just never thought about being a home-owner.”

“I see,” I say. “But you think of yourself as someone who lives in a home, am I right?”

We’re silent for a bit. He’s like bewildered by this turn. Finally, he says, “I just figured you’d buy it and fix it up. You were talking about it. And I’d help. Just like you said, we’d have more space.”

“Tell you what,” I say, “You buy it and fix it up, then you ask me to come live with you there.”

“Would you? You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe so, maybe no. It’s a risk you’d have to take.”

“Aw, I know you would,” he says. “That house? You’d do it.” “You never know,” I say.