Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [81]
A stumbling sound on the deck above her, and then a slurred voice, “I’m sorry, Marlene. Really, you have to believe me.” And then the murmuring sounds of Marlene herself, telling Kerry it’s time to go sleep it off, and after that, clumping sounds down the deck stairs; more silence.
Back inside the house, Olive puts a brownie into her mouth and goes off to find the bathroom. Coming out, she runs into the woman with the long gray hair, who is right now sticking a cigarette butt into a potted plant that sits on a table in the hallway. “Who are you?” Olive says, and the woman stares at her. “Who are you?” the woman answers, and Olive walks past her. That is the woman who bought Christopher’s house, Olive realizes with an inner lurch, that woman who hasn’t the decency to respect even a poor potted plant, let alone everything Olive and Henry worked for, their son’s beautiful house, where their grandchildren were going to grow up.
“Where’s Marlene gone to?” Olive asks Molly Collins, who still has Marlene’s apron on, and is walking around the living room officiously collecting plates, balled-up paper napkins. Molly looks over her shoulder and says vaguely, “Gee, I’m not sure.”
“Where’s Marlene gone?” Olive asks Susie Bradford, who comes by next, and Susie says, “Around.”
It’s Eddie Junior who tells her. “Kerry got drunk and Mom’s gone to put her in bed.” He says this with a dark look at the back of Susie Bradford, and Olive likes the boy a good deal. She did not have this young fellow in school. She left teaching years before to tend to her own family. Christopher out in California. Henry over in Hasham, at the home. Gone, gone. Gone to hell.
“Thank you,” she says to Eddie Junior, who, in his young eyes, seems to have some awareness of hell himself.
It is no longer a lovely April day. The northeast wind that blows against the side of the Bonney house has also brought the clouds in, and now a sky as gray as November hangs over the bay, and against the dark rocks the water slaps ceaselessly, swirling seaweed around, leaving it bumpily combed out along the higher rocks. Right down to the point the rocky coastline looks barren, almost wintry, only the skinny spruce and pines show dark green, for it is far too early for any leaves to come out; even close to the house the forsythia is only budded.
Olive Kitteridge, on her way to find Marlene, steps over a smashed-looking crocus by the garage’s side door. Last week, after the day that was warm enough to take the dog to Henry in the parking lot, it snowed, one of those April dumpings of pure white that all melted the very next day, but the ground in places is still soggy from the assault, and certainly this crushed yellow crocus has been done in. The side door of the garage opens directly to stairs, and Olive walks up them cautiously, stands on the landing; two sweatshirts are hanging on hooks, a pair of muddied yellow rubber boots stand side by side, toes facing in opposite directions.
Olive knocks on the door, looking at the boots. She bends over and places one boot on the other side of its mate, so they look like they go together, could walk off together, and she knocks again. No answer, so she turns the knob, pushes the door open slowly, walks in.
“Hello, Olive.”
Across the room, facing her, Marlene sits like an obedient schoolgirl in a straight-backed chair by Kerry’s double bed, her hands folded in her lap, her plump ankles crossed neatly.