Read a Review

You
know before you know, of course. You are bending over the dryer,
pulling out the still-warm sheets, and the knowledge walks up your
backbone. You stare at the man you love and you are staring at
nothing: he is gone before he is gone.  

The last time I tried to talk to David was a couple of weeks ago.
We were in the family room--David in his leather recliner, me
stretched out on the sofa. Travis was asleep--he'd had his eleventh
birthday party that afternoon, the usual free-for-all, and had
fallen into bed exhausted. The television was on, but neither of us
was watching it--David was reading the newspaper and I was
rehearsing.  

Finally, "David?" I said.  

He looked up.  

I said, "You know, you're right in saying we have some serious
problems. But there are so many reasons to try to work things out."
I hoped my voice was pleasant and light. I hoped my hair wasn't
sticking up or that my nose didn't look too big and that I didn't
look fat when I sat up a bit to adjust the
pillow.  

"I was wondering," I said, "if you would be willing to go to see
someone with me, just once. A marriage counselor. I really
think--"  

" Samantha," he said.  

And I said, "Okay."  

He returned to the paper, and I returned to lying on the sofa, to
falling down an elevator shaft. There were certain things I could
not think about but kept thinking about anyway: how to tell the
people I'd have to tell. How lonely the nights would be (that was a
very long elevator shaft). How I believed so hard and for so long
that we would be able to overcome everything, and now I would have
to admit that we could not. How wrenching it is when the question
you want to ask is "Why don't you want me?" but you cannot ask it
and yet you do not ask--or talk about--anything
else.  

"David?" I said again, but this time he did not look up.

Excerpted from OPEN HOUSE by Elizabeth Berg Copyright (c) 2000
by Elizabeth Berg. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a
division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.