Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [121]
So she didn’t talk to Bunny about him anymore. She didn’t tell Bunny how they had supper again the next week, how he kissed her on her cheek when she said good night, how they went to Portland to go to a concert, and that night he lightly kissed her mouth! No, these were not things to be spoken of; it was nobody’s business. And certainly nobody’s business that she lay awake at the age of seventy-four and thought about his arms around her, pictured what she had not pictured or done in years.
At the same time, in her head, she criticized him. He’s afraid to be alone, she thought. He’s weak. Men were. Probably wants somebody to cook his meals, pick up after him. In which case, he was barking up the wrong tree. He spoke of his mother with such frequency, and in such glowing terms—something had to be wrong there. If he wanted a mother, he’d better go looking elsewhere.
For five days it rained. Harsh and heavy—so much for spring. This rain was cold and autumnal, and even Olive, with her need to walk by the river, saw no point in heading out in the mornings. She was not one to carry an umbrella. She had to wait it out, in the car outside Dunkin’ Donuts with the dog in the backseat. Hellish days. Jack Kennison didn’t call, and she didn’t call him. She thought he’d probably found someone else to listen to his sorrows. She pictured him sitting beside some woman at a concert in Portland, and thought she could put a bullet right through his head. Once again she thought about her own death, Let it be quick. She called Christopher in New York. “How are you?” she said, angry because he never called.
“Fine,” he said. “How are you?”
“Hellish,” she answered. “How’s Ann and the kids?” Christopher had married a woman with two children, and now there was his. “Everyone still walking?”
“Still walking,” Chris said. “Crazy, hectic.”
She almost hated him then. Her life had once been crazy and hectic, too. You just wait, she thought. Everyone thinks they know everything, and no one knows a damn thing.
“How was your date?”
“What date?” she asked.
“With that guy you couldn’t stand.”
“That wasn’t a date, for crying out loud.”
“Okay, but how was it?”
“Just fine,” she said. “He’s a nitwit, and your father always knew it.”
“Daddy knew him?” Chris said. “You never told me that.”
“Not knew him knew him,” Olive retorted. “Just knew him from afar. Enough to know he was a nitwit.”
“Theodore’s crying,” Christopher said. “I have to go.”
And then—like a rainbow—Jack Kennison called. “It’s supposed to clear off by tomorrow. Shall we meet on the river path?”
“Don’t see why not,” Olive said. “Six o’clock I take off.”
In the morning, when she drove into the gravelly lot by the river, Jack Kennison leaned against his red car, and nodded, his hands staying in his pockets. He had on a Windbreaker she’d not seen before, blue—it matched his eyes. She had to get her walking shoes from the trunk and put them on in front of him, which annoyed her. Her walking shoes had been bought in the men’s department, right after Henry died. Broad, and beige, they still laced up, they still “walked.” She stood up, her breathing heavy. “Let’s go,” she said.
“I might want to rest on the one-mile bench. I know you like to keep going.”
She looked at him. His wife had died five months ago. “I’ll rest whenever you want to rest,” she said.
The river was to their left, broadening at one point, the small island seen, some of the bushes on it already a bright, bright green.
“My ancestors paddled their canoes up this river,” Olive said.
Jack didn’t answer.
“I thought I’d have grandchildren that would paddle up the river, too. But my grandson’s growing up in New York City. I guess it’s the way of the world. Hurts, though. Have that DNA flung all over like so much dandelion fuzz.” Olive had to walk slower, to match Jack’s ambling stride. It was hard, like not drinking water fast if you were thirsty.
“At least you have DNA to get tossed,” he said, his hands still in his pockets. “I won’t be having any grandchildren. Or not really.”
“What do you mean ‘not really’? How can