Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [103]
“It was a therapy group,” Ann said. “So we could learn our own responsibility, accept our accountability, you know.”
Olive didn’t know. She said, “Christopher married the wrong woman, is what he did.”
“But the question is why,” Ann said in a solicitous way, shifting the baby. “If we learn why we do things, we won’t make the same mistakes.”
“I see,” said Olive. She stretched her feet and felt the soft opening of another big run in her panty hose. She needed to go to a drugstore.
“It was just wonderful. Chris and I became very committed to the process, and committed to each other.”
“That’s nice,” Olive finally said.
“The therapist is this amazing guy, Arthur. You just wouldn’t believe how much we’ve learned.” Ann rubbed the dish towel against the baby’s back, looked over at Olive. She said, “Anxiety is anger, Mom.”
“Is it?” Olive thought of the girl’s cigarettes.
“Uh-huh. Almost always. When Arthur moved to New York, we did, too.”
“You moved here because of a therapist?” Olive sat up straight in her beach chair. “Is this a cult?”
“No, no. We wanted to move here anyway, but it’s great—because we still get to work with Arthur. Always plenty of issues to work on, you know.”
“I bet.”
Olive made, right then, a decision to accept all this. The first time around, Christopher married someone mean and pushy, and now he’d married someone dumb and nice. Well, it was none of her business. It was his life.
Olive went down into the basement and dialed the white telephone. Cindy said, “How’s it going?”
“Fine. Different country down here. Can you put him on?” She held the phone between her neck and shoulder, started to peel her panty hose off, and remembered she had no other. “Henry,” she said. “Today’s their wedding anniversary. They’re okay, but she’s dumb, just like I thought. They’re in therapy.” She hesitated, looked around. “You’re not to worry about that, Henry. In therapy they go straight after the mother. You come out smelling like a rose, I’m sure.” Olive drummed her fingers on the washing machine. “I have to go, she’s doing some laundry down here. I’m fine, Henry. I’ll be back in a week.”
Upstairs, Ann was feeding the baby part of a baked sweet potato. Olive sat and watched her, remembering how one year for their anniversary, Henry gave her a key chain with a four-leaf clover pressed inside a piece of thick clear plastic. “I called Henry and told him it was your anniversary.”
“Oh, sweet,” said Ann. Adding, “Anniversaries are nice. A little moment to reflect.”
“I liked getting the presents,” Olive said.
Walking behind her son and his large wife, and the big double stroller pushed ahead of them, Olive thought of her husband, in bed already perhaps; they tried putting them to bed earlier than small children were put to bed. “Spoke to your father today,” she said, but Christopher apparently did not hear her. He and Ann were speaking intently, their heads tilted toward each other as they pushed the stroller along. Oh God, yes, she was glad she’d never left Henry. She’d never had a friend as loyal, as kind, as her husband.
And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light to change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been times when she’d felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist’s gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes. (“Are you all right, Mrs. Kitteridge?” the dentist had said.)
Her son turned to glance at her, and his lucid face was enough to keep her going, because she really was fatigued. Young people had no idea that