Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout [90]
Winnie went out the back door and around to the side of the house where there were ferns and lily leaves pressed against the foundation, and she looked into her mother’s bedroom window. Anita lay on her side with her hands tucked under her cheeks, her eyes closed, her mouth partly open. She seemed bigger than usual; the tops of her arms and her bare ankles were pale and fleshier than Winnie had noticed before. There was something deeply uncomfortable about the sight, as though Winnie had come across her mother naked. She went down to the shore and gathered up some starfish and laid them out on a big rock above the tide line to dry.
The sun was setting over the water. Winnie watched it through the bedroom window. It looked like the postcards they sold at Moody’s. On her bed, Julie sat painting her fingernails. She had spoken to Bruce, who was on his way back to Boston, and no, he wouldn’t press charges. But he had said he thought Anita—and Julie whispered this, leaning forward—was a fucking nut.
“That’s not nice,” Winnie said. She felt herself blush.
“Oh, baby girl.” Julie sat back. “When you get out of here,” she said, “if you ever do get out of here, you’ll find out not everyone lives like this.”
“Like what?” Winnie said, sitting down on the foot of her bed. “Lives like what?”
Julie smiled at her. “Let’s start with toilets,” she said. She held up a pink fingernail and blew on it gently. “People have toilets, you know, Winnie, flush toilets. And let’s move on to shooting people. Most mothers don’t shoot their daughter’s boyfriends in the driveway.”
“I know that,” Winnie said. “I don’t have to go away to know that. We’d have a flush toilet, too, except Daddy says a septic tank—”
“I know what Daddy says,” Julie told her, twisting the cap to the nail polish carefully, her fingers splayed out. “But it’s Mom. She wants to stay in this house because her poor now-lost-and-legendary father bought it when she got pregnant with me, and Ted didn’t have a nickel to spare. Daddy’d move out of here tomorrow, he’d move into town.”
“There’s nothing wrong with living here,” Winnie said.
Julie smiled calmly. “Mommy’s little girl.”
“I am not.”
“Oh, Winnie,” Julie said. But she was squinting at her baby finger, and then she unscrewed the nail polish again. “You know what Mrs. Kitteridge said in class one day?” Julie asked.
Winnie waited.
“I always remember she said one day, ‘Don’t be scared of your hunger. If you’re scared of your hunger, you’ll just be one more ninny like everyone else.’ ”
Winnie waited, watching Julie do her baby fingernail once more with the perfect pink polish. “Nobody knew what she meant,” Julie said, holding her nail up, looking at it.
“What did she mean?” Winnie asked.
“Well, that’s just it. At first I think most of us thought she was talking about food. I mean, we were just seventh graders—sorry, Doodle—but as time went by, I think I understand it more.”
“She teaches math,” Winnie said.
“I know that, dopey. But she’d say these weird things, very powerfully. That’s partly why kids were scared of her. You don’t have to be scared of her—if she’s still teaching next year.”
“I am, though. Scared of her.”
Julie looked at her sideways. “Lot scarier stuff right here in this house.”
Winnie frowned, pushed her hand into the pillow near her on her bed.
“Oh, Winnie,” Julie said. “Come here.” She held out her arms. Winnie stayed where she was. “Oh, poor Winnie-doodle,” Julie said, and she moved down the bed to where Winnie was, put her arms around her awkwardly, holding her hands out to keep the nail polish from smudging. Julie kissed the side of Winnie’s head, and then she let her go.
In the morning, Anita’s eyes were puffy, as though all that sleep had exhausted her. But she sipped her coffee, and said brightly, “Whew, that was some sleep I had.”
“I don’t want to go to church this morning,” Julie said.