Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [46]
Olive Kitteridge’s car was in Daisy’s little driveway, and when he saw it, he knew. Inside, Daisy was crying and making tea, and Olive Kitteridge was sitting at the table not crying, tapping a spoon against the table relentlessly. “That goddamn know-it-all daughter-in-law of mine,” she said. “To hear her talk, you’d think she was an expert on every goddamn thing. She said, ‘Olive, you couldn’t really have expected her to get well. People with that disease never actually get over it.’ And I said to her, ‘Well, they don’t all die, Suzanne,’ and she said, ‘Well, Olive, many of them actually do.’ ”
“The funeral’s private,” Daisy told Harmon. “Just the family.”
He nodded.
“She was taking laxatives,” Daisy said, putting a cup of tea in front of him, wiping at her nose with a tissue. “Her mother found them in a drawer in her room, and it made sense, I guess, because she’d stopped gaining the few ounces she’d been gaining. And so she went into the hospital on Thursday—” Here Daisy had to sit down and put her face into her hands.
“It was an awful scene,” Olive told him. “From what the mother described. Nina didn’t want to go, of course. They had to call people, get officials involved, and off she went kicking and biting.”
“Poor little thing,” said Daisy.
“She had the heart attack last night,” Olive said to Harmon. Olive shook her head, slapped lightly at the table with her hand. “For the love of Jesus,” she said.
It had been dark a long while by the time he left.
“Where in the world have you been?” Bonnie said. “Your supper’s all cold.”
He didn’t answer, just sat down. “I’m not that hungry, Bonnie. I’m sorry.”
“You better tell me where you’ve been.”
“Driving around,” he said. “I told you I’ve been kind of blue.”
Bonnie sat down across from him. “Your being so blue makes me feel awful. And I don’t feel like feeling awful.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Kevin called him at the store a few mornings later. “You busy, Dad? Got a minute?”
“What’s up?”
“I just wanted to know if you’re okay, if everything’s okay.”
Harmon watched Bessie Davis looking through the lightbulbs. “Sure, son. Why?”
“I was thinking you seemed a little depressed these days. Not yourself.”
“No, no. Swimmingly, Kevin.” A phrase they’d used since Kevin had learned to swim late, when he was almost a teenager.
“Martha thinks you might be mad because of Christmas and the carrot soup.”
“Oh, Jesus, no.” He saw Bessie turn, walk down toward the brooms. “Is that what your mother said?”
“No one said anything. I was just wondering.”
“Has your mother been complaining to you?”
“No, Dad. I just told you. It’s me. Wondering, that’s all.”
“Don’t you worry,” Harmon said. “I’m just fine. And you?”
“Swimmingly. Okay. Stay cool.”
Bessie Davis, the town’s old maid, stood and talked for a long time while she bought a new dustpan. She spoke of her hip problems, her bursitis. She spoke of her sister’s thyroid condition. “Hate this time of year,” she said, shaking her head. Harmon felt a rush of anxiety as she left. Some skin that had stood between himself and the world seemed to have been ripped away, and everything was close, and frightening. Bessie Davis had always talked on, but now he saw her loneliness as a lesion on her face. The words Not me, not me crossed over his mind. And he pictured the sweet Nina White sitting on Tim Burnham’s lap outside the marina, and he thought, Not you, not you, not you.
On Sunday morning, the sky had a low overcast, and the lights in Daisy’s living room glowed from beneath the little lamp shades. “Daisy, I’m just going to say this. I don’t want you to answer, or in any way feel responsible. This is not because of anything you’ve done. Except be you.” He waited, looked around the room, looked into her blue eyes, and said, “I’ve fallen in love with you.”
He felt so certain of what was coming, her kindness, her tender refusal, that he was amazed when he felt her soft arms around him, saw the tears in her eyes, felt