Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [66]
“Well,” said Henry.
“Yes,” agreed Olive. “Well, indeed.”
And so they were getting on their feet, Olive and Henry, finding their way in this retirement-land, when Christopher telephoned one night to say calmly that he was getting divorced. Henry was on the phone in the bedroom, Olive on the phone in the kitchen. “But why?” they asked in unison.
“She wants to,” Christopher said.
“But what happened, Christopher? For God’s sake, you’ve only been married a year.”
“Mom, it’s happened. That’s all.”
“Well, then come on home, son,” Henry said.
“No,” Christopher answered. “I like it out here. And the practice is going well. I have no intention of coming back home.”
Henry spent the evening sitting in the living room with his head in his hands.
“Come on. Snap out of it,” Olive said. “At least you’re not Roger Larkin, for God’s sake.” But her hands were trembling, and she went and took everything out of the refrigerator and cleaned the inside and the racks with a sponge that she dipped into a bowl of cool water and baking soda. Then she put everything back into the refrigerator. Henry was still sitting with his head in his hands.
More and more often, Henry sat in the living room with his head in his hands. One day he said, with sudden cheerfulness, “He’ll come back. You’ll see.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“It’s his home, Olive. This coastline is his home.”
As though to prove the strength of this geographical pull on their only offspring, they traced their genealogy, driving to Augusta to work in the library there, going to old graveyards miles away. Henry’s ancestors went back eight generations; Olive’s went back ten. Her first ancestor had come from Scotland, was indentured for seven years of labor, and then started out on his own. The Scottish were scrappy and tough, surviving things you’d never dream of—scalpings, freezing winters with no food, barns burning from a lightning flash, children dying left and right. But they persevered, and Olive would be temporarily lightened in spirit as she read about this.
Still, Christopher remained gone. “Fine,” he would say when they called him. “Fine.”
But who was he? This stranger living in California. “No, not right now,” he said when they wanted to fly out to visit. “Now isn’t a good time.”
Olive had trouble sitting still. Instead of a lump in her throat, she felt a lump in her whole body, a persistent ache that seemed to be holding back enough tears to fill the bay seen through the front window. She was flooded with images of Christopher: As a toddler, he had reached to touch a geranium on the windowsill, and she had slapped his hand. But she had loved him! By God, she had loved him. In second grade, he had almost set himself on fire, trying to burn his spelling test out back in the woods. But he knew she loved him. People know exactly who loves them, and how much—Olive believed this. Why would he not allow his parents to even visit him? What had they done?
She could make the bed, do the laundry, feed the dog. But she could not be bothered with any more meals.
“What’ll we have for supper?” Henry would ask, coming upstairs from the basement.
“Strawberries.”
Henry would chide her. “You wouldn’t last a day without me, Olive. If I died tomorrow, whatever would become of you?”
“Oh, stop it.” It irritated her, that kind of thing, and it seemed to her that Henry enjoyed irritating her. Sometimes she’d get into the car by herself and go for a drive.
It was Henry who bought the groceries now. One day he brought back with him a bunch of flowers. “For my wife,” he said, handing them to