Good night, he said.
They climbed out of the pickup and walked one after the other up the sidewalk and knocked on the door and stood waiting without turning to look back at him, and then she opened the front door. She had changed clothes since the afternoon and now was wearing a handsome blue dress. He thought she looked slim and pretty framed in the doorway. She let them in and closed the door, and afterward he drove up Chicago past the little houses set back from the street in their narrow lots, the lawns in front of them all brown with winter and the evening lights turned on inside the houses and people sitting down to dinner in the kitchens or watching the news on television in the front rooms, while in some of the houses some of the people too, he knew well, were already starting to argue in the back bedrooms.
When they entered the house Ike and Bobby found that she had already set the table in the little dining room. It was pleasant, with lighted candles and the flames reflecting in the glasses and silverware, and out in the kitchen she had hamburger chili ready to dish up and a round chocolate cake, which she had made specially for them. She wanted it to be festive.
Well come in, come in, she said. Don’t be strangers. Take off your coats. I have everything ready.
We ate at home, Bobby said, looking at the table. We didn’t know you’d have supper.
Oh. Didn’t you? She looked at him. She had both hands on the back of a chair. She looked at his brother. I thought you would eat here. I thought that was understood.
We can eat some more, Ike said.
Don’t be foolish. You don’t have to make yourselves sick.
No. We’re still hungry, Mother.
Are you?
Yes, we are.
I am, Bobby said.
They sat down and ate the supper she had prepared. They were able to eat quite a lot while she told them about her decision to go to Denver. They listened to her without saying anything since Guthrie had already told them about it. She said she wanted them to come visit her soon and that her leaving was going to be better for everyone, including the two of them, even if they couldn’t see it yet, because soon she’d be able to act like their mother again, and then when she was feeling completely better they would all decide what to do next, didn’t they think that would be all right? They didn’t know, they said. Maybe, they said. She said she guessed that would have to do, that it was about as much as she could hope for right then.
After supper they played a game of blackjack which she had taught them a year ago. She went to the closet and opened her purse and took out some coins and they used these to bet with, determining for the sake of the game that the coins were all the same worth, even the quarters and pennies. During the card game she sat across from them on the carpet with her stockinged legs folded back to the side and her dress covering her knees. She acted as though she were happy, as though they were having a real party, and made little jokes to tease them, and once she stood up and brought each of them more cake from the kitchen and they ate it sitting on the floor together. They watched her with their heads down and smiled when she said things.
Later they put on their pajamas in the bathroom and then went into her bedroom and got into the bed that she used.