Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [70]
“It doesn’t bother you, staying in this house?” Olive asked.
“Staying anywhere bothers me,” Louise answered. “To actually pack up and move—well, that’s always seemed too much.”
“I guess I can see that.”
“Roger lives upstairs,” Louise said. “And I live downstairs.”
“Huh.” Olive was having trouble taking things in.
“Arrangements get made in life. Accommodations get made.”
Olive nodded. What she minded was how Henry had bought her those flowers. How she’d just stood there. She’d kept the flowers, dried them out, all the blue daisies brown now, bent over.
“Has Christopher been a help to you?” Louise asked. “He was always such a sensitive boy, wasn’t he?” Louise smoothed her bony hand over her cashmere-covered knee. “But then, Henry was a nice man, so that was lucky for you.”
Olive didn’t answer. Through the bottom of the drawn blind a thin strip of white light shone; it was morning now. She’d be on her walk by the river if she hadn’t come here.
“Roger is not a nice man, you see, and that made all the difference.”
Olive looked back at Louise. “He always seemed nice enough to me.” In truth, Olive didn’t remember much about Roger; he had looked like a banker, which he was, and his suits had fit well—if you cared about that kind of thing, and Olive did not.
“He seemed nice to everyone,” Louise said. “That’s his modus operandi.” She laughed lightly. “But in ree-al-it-y”—she spoke with exaggerated enunciation—“his heart beats twice an hour.”
Olive sat completely still, her big handbag on her lap.
“Cold, cold man. Brrr…But no one cares, because they blame the mother, you know. Always, always, always, they blame the mother for everything.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“You know that’s true. Please, Olive. Make yourself comfortable.” Louise waved a thin white hand, a strip of poured milk in the dim light. Olive tentatively moved her handbag to the floor, sat back.
Louise folded her hands, and smiled. “Christopher was a sensitive boy just like Doyle. Nobody believes this now of course, but Doyle is the sweetest man alive.”
Olive nodded, turned around, and looked behind her. Twenty-nine times, the newspapers had kept reporting. And on the TV, too. Twenty-nine times. That was a lot.
“Maybe you don’t like my comparing Doyle to Christopher.” Louise laughed lightly again, her tone almost flirtatious.
“How’s your daughter?” asked Olive, turning back to face Louise. “What’s she up to these days?”
“She lives in Boston, married to a lawyer. Which has been helpful, naturally. She’s a wonderful woman.”
Olive nodded.
Louise leaned forward, both hands on her lap. She tilted her head back and forth and chanted softly, “Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to college to get more knowledge.” She laughed her soft laugh, and sat back. “Roger ran right off to his lady friend in Bangor.” Again, the soft laugh. “But she rejected him, poor thing.”
For Olive there was more than an inner silent groan of disappointment. There was an almost desperate urge to leave, and yet she could not, of course, having trespassed, having written Louise back, having asked to visit.
“You’ve probably thought of killing yourself.” Louise said this serenely, as though discussing a recipe for lemon pie.
Olive felt a sudden disorientation, as though a soccer ball had just been bounced off her head. “I hardly see that would solve anything,” she said.
“Of course it would,” Louise said, pleasantly. “It would solve everything. But there’s the question of how to do it.”
Olive shifted her weight, touched her handbag that was next to her.
“Myself, of course, it would be pills and drink. You—I don’t see you as a pill person. Something more aggressive. The wrists, but that would take so long.”
“I guess that’s enough of that,” said Olive. But she couldn’t help adding, “There are people who depend on me. For heaven’s sake.”
“Exactly.” Louise held up