Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [122]
It took him a while to answer, as she suspected it would. She glanced at him and thought he did not look his best; something unpleasant sat on his face, his head thrust forward from his sloping shoulders. “My daughter has chosen to live an alternative lifestyle. Out in California.”
“I guess California’s still the place for that. Alternative lifestyles.”
“She lives with a woman,” Jack said. “She lives with a woman the way others would live with a man.”
“I see,” Olive said. There, in the shade, was the first-mile-marker granite bench. “Want to sit?”
Jack sat. She sat. They looked out over the river. An elderly couple walked by holding hands, nodded to them, as though they were a couple, too. When the couple was out of earshot, Olive said, “So I take it you don’t like that, about your daughter?”
“I don’t like it at all,” Jack said. He raised his chin. “Perhaps I’m shallow,” he said.
“Oh, you’re sophisticated,” Olive answered, adding, “Though I guess in my opinion, that can mean the same thing.”
He looked at her, his old eyebrows shooting up.
“However, I’m not the least bit sophisticated. I’m essentially a peasant. And I have the strong passions and prejudices of a peasant.”
“What does that mean?” Jack asked.
Olive reached into her pocket, found her sunglasses, put them on.
After a while, Jack said, “Be honest. If your son told you he wanted to sleep with men, did sleep with men, was in love with a man, lived with him, slept with him, made a home with him—do you think, really, you wouldn’t mind?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Olive retorted. “I would love him with all my heart.”
“You’re being sentimental,” Jack said. “You don’t know how you’d feel because you haven’t been presented with it.”
Olive’s cheeks grew warm. There was the prick of perspiration beneath one arm. “I’ve been presented with plenty.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that my son married a hellion who moved him to California, then walked out on him.”
“Statistically, Olive, that happens all the time. Fifty percent of the time.”
“So what?” It struck her as a stupid, unfeeling response. “And what are the statistics of having a gay child?” she asked. Her feet looked enormous, stuck out there at the end of her legs. She pulled them in under the bench.
“It changes. Every study they do says something new. But obviously, fifty percent of one’s offspring do not turn out to be gay.”
“Maybe she’s not gay,” said Olive. “Maybe she just hates men.”
Jack Kennison folded his arms against his blue Windbreaker, stared straight ahead. “I’m not sure that’s very nice, Olive. I haven’t offered a theory on why your son married a hellion.”
It took Olive a moment to absorb this. “Ducky,” she said. “A ducky thing to say.” She stood up, and didn’t wait to see if he stood, too. But she heard him behind her, and she slowed enough to walk with him; she was heading back to the car.
“I still don’t know what you mean by saying you’re a peasant. In this country I don’t think it’s peasantry. Perhaps you mean you’re a cowboy.” She glanced at him, was surprised to see he was smiling at her good-naturedly. “I can see you as a cowboy,” he said.
“Fine, I’m a cowboy.”
“A Republican, then?” Jack asked, after a moment.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Olive stopped walking, looked at him through her sunglasses. “I didn’t say moron. You mean because we have a cowboy for a president? Or before that an actor who played a cowboy? Let me tell you, that idiot ex-cocaine-addict was never a cowboy. He can wear all the cowboy hats he wants. He’s a spoiled brat to the manor born. And he makes me puke.”
She was really riled, and it took her a moment to see that he was looking away, his expression closed off, as though inside his head he had backed away, was just waiting for her to finish.
“God,” she said finally. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“You voted for him.”
Jack Kennison looked tired.
“You voted for him. You, Mr. Harvard, Mr. Brains. You voted for that stinker.”
He gave a small bark of a laugh. “My God, you do have the passions and the prejudices of a peasant.”