Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [118]
“In a moment, I’ll try. I’d like to sit here a moment.”
Olive glanced at him quickly. He was crying. She looked away, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him reach into his pocket, heard him blow his nose, a real honk.
“My wife died in December,” he said.
Olive watched the river. “Then, you’re in hell,” she said.
“Then, I’m in hell.”
In the doctor’s waiting room she sat, reading a magazine. After an hour, the nurse came out and said, “Mr. Kennison’s worried about you waiting so long.”
“Well, tell him to stop it. I’m perfectly comfortable.” And she was. In fact, it had been a long time since she’d been this comfortable. She wouldn’t have minded if it took all day. It was a newsmagazine she was reading, something she hadn’t done for quite a while—she turned one page quickly, because she couldn’t stand to look at the president’s face: His close-set eyes, the jut of his chin, the sight offended her viscerally. She had lived through a lot of things with this country, but she had never lived through the mess they were in now. Here was a man who looked retarded, Olive thought, remembering the remark made by the woman in Moody’s store. You could see it in his stupid little eyes. And the country had voted him in! A born-again Christian with a cocaine addiction. So they deserved to go to hell, and would. It was only her son, Christopher, she worried about. And his baby boy. She wasn’t sure there would be a world left for him.
Olive set the magazine aside and leaned back comfortably. The outer door opened, and Jane Houlton walked in, took a seat in the waiting area not far from Olive. “Say, that’s a pretty skirt you’re wearing,” said Olive, although she had never cared for Jane Houlton one way or another, Jane being a kind of timorous thing.
“Do you know, I got this on sale at a store that was closing in Augusta.” Jane smoothed her hand down over the green tweed.
“Oh, wonderful,” said Olive. “Every woman loves a bargain.” She nodded appreciatively. “Very good.”
She drove Jack Kennison back to the parking lot by the river so he could get his car, and then she followed him home. In the driveway of his house on the edge of the field, he said, “Would you like to come in and have some lunch? I might find an egg, or a can of baked beans.”
“No,” said Olive, “I think you should rest. You’ve had enough excitement for one day.” The doctor had taken a whole bunch of tests, and so far nothing had been found to be wrong with him. Stress fatigue, is what the doctor, for the moment, had diagnosed. “And the dog’s been cooped up in the car all morning,” Olive added.
“All right, then,” Jack said. He raised a hand. “Thanks very much.”
Driving home, Olive felt bereft. The dog whined, and she told him to stop it, and he lay down on the backseat, as though exhausted from the morning himself. She telephoned her friend Bunny and told her the story of finding Jack Kennison on the path by the river. “Oh, the poor man,” said Bunny, whose husband was still alive. A husband who had driven her nuts for most of her married life, arguing about how to raise their daughter, wearing a baseball hat when he sat down to lunch—all this had driven Bunny batty. But now it was as though she’d won a lottery, because he was still alive, and Olive thought Bunny could see what it was like, her friends losing their husbands and drowning in the emptiness. In fact, Bunny—Olive sometimes thought—didn’t really want to be around Olive too much, as though Olive’s widowhood was like a contagious disease. She’d talk to Olive on the phone, though. “How lucky you came by and found him,” Bunny said. “Imagine, lying there.”
“Somebody else would have ambled along.” Olive added, “I might just give him a call later to make sure he’s all right.”
“Oh, do,” said Bunny.
At five o’clock, Olive looked up his number in the phone book. She started to dial, then stopped. At seven o’clock, she called. “You all right?” she asked, not introducing herself.
“Hi, Olive,” he said. “I seem to be. Thanks.”
“Did you call your daughter?”