Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [115]
“Rebecca, we’ve run upper and lower GI’s on you, done the blood work. And what you have to accept is that you’re fine. You have a sensitive stomach. A lot of people do.”
Back in the waiting room, Rebecca put her coat on, standing near the window and gazing out, as if she were interested in the parking lot below. For a moment, her head didn’t ache, her stomach didn’t ache, there was nothing in her except a thrill as clean as fresh water. Like she was the pure flame her lighter became. Nearby, a man read a magazine. A woman filed her nails. Rebecca put the vase into her knapsack and left.
That night they sat on the floor watching an old movie on television. Anyone looking through the window would have seen Rebecca sitting, leaning against the couch, David next to her, holding a bottle of seltzer water, as ordinary-looking as a couple could be.
“I never shoplifted when I was a kid,” Rebecca said.
“I did,” said David, still watching the movie. “I stole a watch from the drugstore I worked in. I stole a lot of things.”
“I never did it, because I was scared I’d get caught,” Rebecca said. “Not because it was wrong. I mean, I knew it was wrong, but that’s not why I didn’t do it.”
“I even stole a present for my mother’s birthday,” David said, and he chuckled. “Some kind of pin.”
“Most kids probably do it at some point,” Rebecca said. “I guess. I don’t know. When I was little, I never went over to other kids’ houses and they never came to mine.” David didn’t say anything. “My father said it didn’t look good,” Rebecca explained. “For a minister’s kids to show favorites. In a small town like that.”
David kept looking at the television. “That stinks,” he said. “Watch this. I love this part. The guy’s going to get chopped up by that boat propeller.”
She looked out the window at the dark. “Then I got to ninth grade,” she said, “and my father decided the church shouldn’t be spending money on a housekeeper for us anymore, so after that I cooked. I used to cook special meals for him practically soaked in butter. God,” she said.
David hooted. “There he goes. Gross.”
“I bet legally that makes me some kind of criminal.”
“What’s that, honey pie?” David said. But Rebecca didn’t say it again. David patted her foot. “We’ll bring our kids up differently. Don’t you worry.”
Rebecca still didn’t say anything.
“This is a great movie,” David said, settling back against her legs. “This is just great. In a minute, they cut off that cat’s head.”
Something was going on at the bar. Three police cars pulled into the parking lot and the lights were left flashing while the police went inside. Rebecca waited by the kitchen window, the lights zinging across her arm, across the kitchen floor. Two of the policemen came out of the bar holding a man between them with his hands behind his back. They stood the man against one of the cars, and then one of the policemen said to him, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.” The policeman’s voice was not kind or unkind, just steady and clear. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, you have the right to have an attorney appointed to you.” It was like poetry, the way the Bible was like poetry if you heard it read the right way.
The other policemen came out of the bar, and pretty soon they put the man in the backseat, and then all three cars drove away. The kitchen seemed dark without their flashing lights. She could make out the Maalox spoon by the corner of the sink, a few glinting white specks on it. For a long time, Rebecca sat at the kitchen table in the dark. She pictured the doctor’s office, the streets the bus took to get there. In Maisy Mills no buses ran at night. She thought it might take her almost half an hour to walk. If you can’t figure out something, Jace had once told her, don’t watch what you think, watch what you do.
She watched herself take the barbecue starter stuff from beneath the sink, put it into her knapsack. She watched herself quietly slip from her underwear drawer