Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [58]
And she was happy right now, it was true. Jane Houlton, shifting slightly inside her nice black coat, was thinking that, after all, life was a gift—that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren’t just moments, they were gifts. And how nice, really, that people should celebrate with such earnestness this time of year. No matter what people’s lives might hold (some of these houses they were passing would have to hold some woeful tribulations, Janie knew), still and all, people were compelled to celebrate because they knew somehow, in their different ways, that life was a thing to celebrate.
He put the blinker on, pulled out onto the avenue. “Well, that was nice,” she said, sitting back. They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicated meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.
Downtown the cars moved slowly on Main Street, passing by streetlamps that had large wreaths hung on their poles, and shop windows and restaurants that were lit up. Just past the movie theater, Bob saw a parking spot next to the curb and pulled the car over; it took some time, he had to work hard to ease in between the others. Someone from behind them honked with annoyance.
“Oh, phooey to you.” Jane made a face through the dark.
He straightened the wheels, turned the engine off. “Wait there, Janie, till I come around.”
They weren’t young anymore, this was the thing. They kept telling each other as though they couldn’t believe it. But they had each of them in this last year suffered a mild heart attack; hers first—feeling, she said, as though she had eaten too many of the grilled onions at dinner that night. And then his, months later, not feeling like that at all, more like someone had sat hard on his chest, but with his jaw aching the same way Jane’s had.
They felt okay now. But she was seventy-two and he was seventy-five and unless a roof fell down on them both together, one would, presumably, be living without the other at some point in time.
Shop windows twinkled with Christmas lights, and the air smelled like snow. He took Jane’s arm and they walked down the street, where restaurant windows displayed different arrangements of holly or wreaths, and some windowpanes had their corners spray-painted white. “The Lydias,” Jane said. “Wave, honey.”
“Where?”
“Just wave, honey. Over there.”
“There’s no point in my waving if I don’t see who I’m waving to.”
“The Lydias, right there in the steak house. Ages since we’ve seen them.” Jane was waving cheerfully, excessively. He saw the couple through the window now, on either side of a white tablecloth, and he waved, too. Mrs. Lydia was motioning for them to come in.
Bob Houlton put his arm through Jane’s. “I don’t want to,” he said, waving his other hand at the Lydias.
Jane waved more, shook her head, gestured, mouthing each word with exaggeration: “We’ll see you lay-ter. At the concert?” Nodding. More waving, they were on their way. “She looks good,” Jane said. “I’m kind of surprised how good she looks. She must have colored her hair.”
“Did you want to go in?”
“No,” said Jane. “I want to look in store windows. It’s nice out here, not too cold.”
“Now fill me in,” he said, as they continued walking, thinking of the Lydias, whose name was not actually Lydia, but Granger—Alan and Donna Granger. The daughter, Lydia Granger, had been friends with the middle Houlton girl, and Patty Granger had been friends with the youngest Houlton girl. Bob and Jane referred to the parents of their daughters’ friends, even now, by the children’s names.
“Lydia’s been divorced a few years now. The guy bit her. That part’s supposed to be a secret, I think.”
“Bit her? Or beat her?”
“Bit.” Jane snapped her teeth together twice. “You know, chomp, chomp. He was a veterinarian, I think.”
“Did he bite the kids, too?”
“I don’t believe he bit the children. Two children. One of them is hyperactive, can’t concentrate, whatever it is these days when a kid can’t sit still. The Lydias won’t mention it,