Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [89]
Winnie didn’t know if she should start the cookie dough or not. She took some butter out of the refrigerator and the telephone began to ring. “Get that,” Julie said, sitting up straight. “Quick.” She was in the chair by the corner, and she started pushing at the other chairs that were in her way. The phone rang another ring.
“Are you home?” Winnie asked. “You know, if it’s Bruce or something?”
“Winnie, just get it,” Julie said. “Before Mom hears it. Hurry. Yes, of course I’m home.”
“Hello?” Winnie said.
“Who,” Julie mouthed. “Whoo?”
“Hello,” said Jim. “How’s everything?”
“Hi, Daddy,” Winnie said.
Julie turned and left the kitchen.
“I’m just checking in,” said Jim. “Checking in.”
When Winnie hung up, the phone started to ring again. “Hello?” she said. No one said anything. “Hello?” she said again. Through the phone she heard the sound of a tiny bell.
“Winnie,” said Bruce. “I want to talk to Julie without your mother around.”
“Here I am,” said Anita, coming through the back door. “What’s the story with the cookie dough? You kids decide to make it or not?”
“I don’t know,” Winnie said, still holding the phone.
“Who’s that?” her mother asked.
“Okay, goodbye,” Winnie said into the phone, and hung up.
“Who was that?” her mother said. “Was that Bruce? Winnifred, tell me, was that Bruce?”
Winnie turned around. “It was Daddy,” she said, not looking at her mother. “He’ll be home pretty soon.”
“Oh,” said her mother. “Well.”
Winnie put a stick of butter in the bowl and tried to smoosh it with a spoon. Moody’s store, she thought. The bell she’d heard when Bruce called was the little bell on the screen door at Moody’s.
Anita said, “One of the fish has that fungus again.”
Julie was down on the shore, sitting on a rock not much bigger than her bottom, staring out at the water. She turned her head slightly when Winnie’s feet made a sound on the seaweed, then she looked back at the water. Winnie turned over rocks, looking for white periwinkles. She used to collect them when she was little, watching the way their muscly foot would cling to the rock, and then close up tight when she touched it with her hand. But today Winnie left them alone. The desire to collect them was gone, it was only habit that made her look. A lobster boat passed by, and Winnie waved. It was good manners to wave to someone in a boat.
“Bruce called,” she said. Julie turned her head. “And it wasn’t from Boston either, I think. I think he was up at Moody’s.” A loud bang sounded from up by the road.
“He called?” Julie said. There was another bang.
“What is that?” Winnie said. “Fireworks?”
“Oh, Jesus,” Julie said, scrambling up over the rocks. “Winnie, that was a gun.”
Anita was in the driveway holding the rifle with both her hands, but carefully, sort of, not aiming it at anything. “Hi there,” she said. Her eyes were shiny, and there were drops of sweat in the pale pockets of skin right below them.
“What are you doing?” Julie said. Anita looked back at the rifle in her hands, looking down at the end of it. “Mom,” Julie said.
“He’s all right,” said Anita. She kept looking at the gun, peering at the trigger. “He drove up and drove away—that’s all.” Her finger was on the trigger. “This hasn’t been used in years,” she said. “I think it got jammed. Don’t these things sometimes get jammed?”
“Mom,” said Winnie, and there was this sharp, short crack of a sound and the gravel in the driveway sprayed out. Julie screamed and Anita screamed, only hers was a surprised shout really, but Julie’s scream kept on going.
Anita held the gun away from herself. “Goodness,” she said. Julie ran to the house yelling. Anita was rubbing her arm.
“Mommy,” Winnie said. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she answered, brushing a hand across her forehead. “It’s kind of hard to say.”
This time Anita did take a pill, Winnie saw her take it, obediently at the kitchen sink when Uncle Kyle asked her to, and then she went to bed. Uncle Kyle asked Julie if Bruce was the type to press charges, and Julie and Jim