Olive, Again: A Novel (12 page)

As soon as Olive saw Jack’s car pulling into the driveway she realized that Jack—of course—was driving his sports car, and she hoped Christopher didn’t see it. When Jack knocked on the door, and she let him in, she saw that he was wearing his suede coat, and she thought he looked rich, and sly. But he had the sense not to kiss her. “Jack,” she said. “Hello. Come and meet my son. And his wife,” she added. And then added, “And their kids.”

Jack gave a small bow in his ironical way, his eyes twinkling as they often did, and he followed her into the living room. “Hello, Christopher,” he said, and he held out his hand. Christopher rose slowly from his chair and said, “Hello.” He shook Jack’s hand as though it was a dead fish he had been offered.

“Oh, come on now, Chris.” The words were out of Olive’s mouth before she realized what she had done.

Christopher looked at her with open surprise. “Come
on
?” He said this loudly. “Come
on
? Jesus, Mom. What do you mean, ‘Oh, come on now, Chris’?”

“I just meant—” And Olive understood that she had been frightened of her son for years.

“Oh, stop it, Christopher! Stop it, for Christ’s sake!” This was Ann’s voice; she had walked into the room after Olive, and Olive, turning toward her, was amazed to see that Ann’s face was red, her lips seemed bigger, her eyes seemed bigger, and she said, again, “Stop it, Chris. Just stop it! Let the woman get married. What’s the matter with you?
Jesus!
You can’t even be polite to him? For crying out loud, Christopher, you are
such
a baby! You think I have four little kids? I have
five
little kids!”

Then Ann turned toward Jack and Olive and said, “On behalf of my husband, I would like to apologize for his unbelievably childish behavior. He can be so childish, and this is childish, Christopher. Jesus
Christ
, is this childish of you.”

Almost immediately Christopher held up his hands and said, “She’s right, she’s right, I am being childish, and I’m sorry. Jack, let’s start again. How are you?” And Christopher put his hand out once again toward Jack, and Jack shook it. But Christopher’s face was as pale as paper, and Olive felt—in her utter bewilderment—a terrible pity for him, her son, who had just been so openly yelled at by his wife.

Jack waved a hand casually and said something about it being no problem, he was sure it was a shock, and he sat down and Christopher sat down and Ann left the room, and Olive stood there. She only barely heard as her son asked Jack—who was still wearing his suede coat—what he had done for work, and she only barely heard Jack say he had taught at Harvard his whole life, his subject had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Christopher nodded and said, Cool, that’s cool. Ann walked back and forth with the children’s things, gathering up all their belongings, the children stood in the doorway watching, sometimes going to their mother, and she shook them off. “Move!” she yelled at one of them. Little Henry stood in the doorway of the living room and began to cry.

Olive went to him. “Now, now,” she said. He ran his hand over his wet eyes and looked up at her. Then—and Olive was never sure this really happened, for the rest of her life she didn’t know if she imagined it—he stuck his tongue out at her. “Okay,” said Olive, “okay, then,” and she moved back into the living room, where Jack and Christopher were now standing, finishing their talk.

“All set?” Christopher asked Ann as she passed through the room once more with a wheelie suitcase. Then he turned to Jack. “Very nice to have met you, if you’ll excuse me, I have to help my wife get our brood together.”

“Oh, of course.” And Jack bowed again in his ironical way. He stepped back and put his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, and then he took them out again.

Olive was dazed as they got all their things together, their coats on, the shoes, the blue rubber boots; Ann’s expression remained stony, and Christopher was obsequious in his attempts to be helpful to her. Finally they were ready to leave, and Olive put her own coat on so she could walk them to the car. Jack walked them out as well, and Olive saw her son speak to Jack once more by the passenger side—Ann was to drive—and her son seemed open-faced, and even had a smile as he spoke to Jack. The kids were all buckled in, and then Chris walked to Olive and gave her a half hug, almost not touching her, and said, “Bye, Mom,” and Olive said, “Goodbye, Chris,” and then Ann gave her a hug too, not much of one, and Ann said, “Thanks, Olive.”

And then they drove away.

It wasn’t until Olive saw the red scarf that she had knit for Little Henry lying half under the couch in the living room that she felt something close to terror. She bent down and picked it up, and she took the scarf and returned to the kitchen, where Jack was leaning forward with his arms on the tabletop. Olive opened the door and put the scarf into the garbage bin by the front door. Then she came back inside and sat down across from Jack. “Well,” she said.

“Well,” Jack said. He said it kindly. He placed his large, age-spotted hand over Olive’s own. In a moment he added, “I guess we know who wears the pants in that family.”

“Her mother died recently,” Olive said. “She’s grieving.”

But she pulled her hand away. It came to her then with a horrible whoosh of the crescendo of truth: She had failed on a colossal level. She must have been failing for years and not realized it. She did not have a family as other people did. Other people had their children come and stay and they talked and laughed and the grandchildren sat on the laps of their grandmothers, and they went places and did things, ate meals together, kissed when they parted. Olive had images of this happening in many homes; her friend Edith, for example, before she had moved to that place for old people, her kids would come and stay. Surely they had a better time than what had just happened here. And it had not happened out of the blue. She could not understand what it was about her, but it was about her that had caused this to happen. And it had to have been there for years, maybe all of her life, how would she know? As she sat across from Jack—stunned—she felt as though she had lived her life as though blind.

“Jack?”

“Yes, Olive?”

She shook her head. What she would not tell Jack was the alarm she had felt when she saw Ann yell at her son, and what came to her as she sat here now was the fact that it had not been the first time Ann had yelled at him like that; these were openings into the darkness of a relationship one saw by mistake, as if inside a dark barn, the door had been momentarily blown off and one saw things not meant to be seen—

But it was more than that.

She had done what Ann had done. She had yelled at Henry in front of people. She could not remember who, exactly, but she had always been fierce when she felt like it. So there was this: Her son had married his mother, as all men—in some form or other—eventually do.

Jack spoke quietly. “Hey, Olive. Let’s get you out of here for a while. Let’s take a drive, then come to my place. You need a break from being here.”

“Good idea.” Olive stood and went and got her coat and her big black handbag and she let Jack walk her out to the Subaru. He helped her in, and then got in himself, and they drove away. Olive almost looked back behind her, but she closed her eyes instead: She could see it perfectly anyway. Her house, the house she and Henry had built so many years ago, the house that looked small now and would be razed to the ground by whoever bought it, the property was what mattered. But she saw behind her closed eyes the house, and inside her was a shiver that went through her bones. The house where she had raised her son—never, ever realizing that she herself had been raising a motherless child, now a long, long way from home.

I
t was not until the Larkin house burned to the ground that people found out Louise Larkin was not living there anymore. The newspaper said she was in the Golden Bridge Rest Home. “That means she’s gone completely dopey-dope,” Olive Kitteridge said to Jack Kennison as she looked up from the paper. “But my word, what a sad thing about her husband.” Louise Larkin’s husband had died in the fire; apparently he had lived only in the upstairs of the house, and the fire had started in the kitchen. It was drug-related, according to the newspaper that Olive was reading. The headline said: 83-Year-Old Man Dies in House Fire: Drug Users Suspected.

The next day’s newspaper confirmed the part about the drug users. An arrest had been made. Two people who were drug addicts, and who had assumed the place was vacant, had broken into the house to steal things—to steal copper—and then the fire had started as a result of their cooking meth. They had both made it out of the burning house, but by the time the fire was reported, at four in the morning, there was not much the firemen could do. The place was big, but it was wooden and old, and it went like kindling. Now it sat, the charred remains, right there as you drove into the town of Crosby, Maine, and it was really a sad thing to look at.

It was autumn and the leaves had changed but were not yet falling, and the maples by the Larkin home screamed out their beautiful colors, but to be honest the place had been sad to look at for a while even before it burned almost to the ground. The grass had grown knee-high, and the bushes were no longer trimmed, covering the large, majestic windows in the front. It was no surprise that people were surprised to hear that Roger Larkin had been living upstairs there all along. But what a terrible way to die! Burned to death while two drug addicts cooked their awful stuff right below you. There was a lot of talk, naturally. The Larkins had always thought they were better than others; their son was in prison for that terrible crime; Louise had been a pretty woman, this was acknowledged by the townspeople, she had been a guidance counselor in the high school here—but she had never been right since her son stabbed that woman twenty-nine times. Where was the daughter? Nobody knew.

Jack and Olive were driving out of town, and as they went past the burned-down Larkin place, Olive said, looking out the car window, “Sad, sad, sad.” Then she craned her neck a bit and said, “Oh, someone’s parked out there. Behind the tree. Whose is that?”

The car belonged to the Larkin daughter.

Suzanne had driven up from Boston the evening before, staying at the Comfort Inn on the outskirts of Crosby, making the reservation under her husband’s name. This morning she had gone to the house—what remained of it—and called the only person in town she knew anymore, who in fact was the person who had called her to tell her about the situation when it happened, and this was her father’s lawyer, Bernie Green. He said he would come pick her up; she couldn’t remember how to get to his house.

Help
me
help
me
help
me
help
me
. Suzanne had been thinking this since she had seen the ghastly ruins of the house in the daylight this morning. Only one corner of the house remained, the rest was a pile of dark rubble and broken glass and blackened planks. A covering of low clouds swept over the sky, almost quilted in appearance. Sitting in her car, her knees bouncing, she picked at the skin near her fingernails; through the windshield she could see that the trunk of the maple tree had been charred as well.
Help me help me help me.

As Bernie pulled into the driveway, his tires rolling over the patches of black ash, Suzanne had a sensation of floating toward his car; she had known this man since she was a child. Tall, slightly overweight, he got out and opened the door on the passenger’s side, and she got in, whispering, “Bernie,” while he said, “Hello, Suzanne.” They drove to his house in silence; a shyness had come over her.

“You look like your mother used to,” said Bernie once he was standing in his office on the second floor of his house on River Road. “Have a seat, Suzanne.” He gestured toward the chair with the red velvet seat cushion. Suzanne sat. “Take your coat?” Bernie asked, and Suzanne shook her head.

“How is your mother? Does she know?” Bernie sat down heavily in his chair behind the desk.

Suzanne sat with the back of her hand to her mouth, then she leaned forward and said, “She’s really
gone,
Bernie. Last night when I said I was her daughter, she told me her daughter had died.”

Bernie just looked at her, his lids partway down. After a minute he asked, “How’s your work, Suzanne? Are you still in the AG’s office?”

“Yeah, yeah, work is good.
That
part is good,” Suzanne answered, sitting back. A tiny part of her relaxed.

“What division?”

“Child protection,” Suzanne said, and Bernie nodded.

Suzanne said, “It kills me, the job. I have a case right now—” Suzanne waved a hand briefly. “Never mind. It’s always like that, but I love it, my job.”

Bernie watched her.

After a few moments Suzanne said, “You know, I don’t think my father ever thought I was a real lawyer. You know.”

“You are a real lawyer, Suzanne.”

“Oh, I know, I know. But for him, you know, Mr. Investment Banker, something like working in the attorney general’s office, in child protection especially—I don’t know. But he was proud of me. I guess.” She looked at Bernie; he was looking down now.

“I am sure he was, Suzanne.”

“But did he ever say that to you? That he was proud of me?” Suzanne asked.

“Oh, Suzanne,” said Bernie, raising his tired eyes. “I know he was proud of you.”

Suzanne glanced over at the far window, with its long white drapes and a red valance at the top; the clouds could be seen through the drapes’ opening, spreading themselves out above the river. Suzanne looked back at Bernie. “Bernie, can I tell you something?” Bernie’s eyebrows rose slightly in encouragement. “When I was a little girl I used to have this stuffed dog called Snuggles. And I
loved
Snuggles, he was so soft. And when I came up here two years ago to help my father put my mother in that home, I found out— Well, I didn’t even know Snuggles still existed, but my mother had become attached to it. And she was asleep when I got there last night and she was just
clinging
to Snuggles, and the people there—the aides—told me she loves that dog, sleeps with it, never lets it out of her sight.” Suzanne bit the inside of her mouth, pushing her cheek with a finger.

Bernie said, “Oh, Suzanne,” and let out a big sigh.

Suzanne’s stomach growled; her head felt a little swimmy. She had had nothing except a cup of coffee early this morning, but she was vaguely glad to have the chattiness rise within her. Glancing about, she saw that Bernie’s office was smaller than she had remembered; there was that gorgeous view of the river, which she did seem to remember. In the corner was a tall clock that was not working. Suzanne crossed her legs, kicking her foot slightly; her brown suede boot bumped against the desk. “My mother—” Suzanne paused. “I don’t know if you know this—she had a little drinking problem. Honestly, I think she was always a little crazy. I think Doyle got her genes, that’s what I think.”

“And how is Doyle?” Bernie asked this impassively, his hands in his lap.

“Well, he’s medicated.” Suzanne had to wait a moment before she could continue; her brother’s story was carved into her deeply; it sat quietly tucked deep beneath her ribcage all the time. “So he’s okay, but he’s a little bit of a zombie. Which is not bad, since he’ll be there for the rest of his life. Before they got him doped up, he just cried all day long. All day long that poor boy wept.”

“Oy vey,” said Bernie. He shook his head, and Suzanne felt a sudden deep
deep
affection for this man she had known from such a young age. She saw that his eyes were blue, they were large eyes, watery with age. “Let’s get back to your mother for just a minute, Suzanne. So she didn’t know who you were yesterday? And she has no idea about the fire? She has no idea your father died? Does she know anything about Doyle anymore?”

Suzanne sat back, her foot kicking into the air, and said, “No, I don’t think she has any idea about my father, and honestly?” Suzanne looked at this man across from her. “I didn’t tell her.”

“I understand,” said Bernie. “What would be the point?”

“Well, exactly,” said Suzanne. “What would be the point? My father said that when he went to visit her, she’d get really abusive—” Suzanne passed a hand through the air. “Oh, who knows. Anyway. She didn’t mention Doyle, so I didn’t either.”

“No.” Bernie shook his head, kindly. “No, no, of course not.”

This is what Suzanne did not tell Bernie: that two years ago, on an instinct, she had driven up to visit her parents spontaneously, and when she had stepped up to the door of the house, she heard screaming inside. She had taken her key and let herself in, and in the living room her father was standing over her mother, who was sitting in a chair in a dirty nightgown, and her father was holding her mother by the wrists, lifting her and shoving her back down into the chair, lifting and shoving and yelling at her, “I can’t
do
this anymore, goddammit, I
hate
you!” And her mother was screaming and trying to get away, but Suzanne’s father kept her wrists in his hands. When her father turned and saw Suzanne, he sank down on the floor by the chair and began to weep, hard. Suzanne had never seen her father weep before, it had been unimaginable to her that he could. Her mother kept screaming from where she sat in the chair.

“Suzanne,” her father said, his face wet, his chest heaving, “Suzanne, I can’t do it anymore.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Suzanne said. “She’s been getting so much worse, you shouldn’t have to take care of her alone.” Suzanne had finally gotten her mother to bed, but she had seen the bruises on her mother’s wrists, and she had been shocked to find more bruises on her mother’s ankles, on her upper arms too, even at the top of her chest. Her father had stayed on the living-room floor, and she sat down beside him; his red T-shirt was wet. “Dad,” she said. “Dad, she’s got bruises all over her.” Her father said nothing, just hung his head in his hands.

She had hired round-the-clock aides to come in, meeting with each one, telling them that her mother had fallen, but she had been scared—scared to death—that they would say something to the authorities, although they never did. But in one week’s time there was a sudden opening at the Golden Bridge Rest Home, and Suzanne helped her father move her mother in, and Suzanne’s father retreated to the upstairs, where he had been living for a while. Her father had said to Suzanne, “Please don’t come back here again, you have your life, and you must live it.” He had become a shell of a man, not even recognizable to her.

Suzanne thought now that she—Suzanne—had not been quite right in the head since this had happened.

She said, “So every week, you know, I spoke on the phone with my father.”

Bernie scratched the back of his head. “Tell me,” he said.

“Every week I called him. Even if it was only for a few minutes. I mean, what did the man have to
say
? But we would chat, and I spoke to him the night he died. I mean, before he died, of course,” and Suzanne’s saying that made her think: Oh, I’m really not right in the head. She said, “I think I’m not right in my head. Not like my mother being crazy, just everything—”

Bernie raised his large hand. “I know what you’re saying. You’re fine. You’re under stress. You’re not crazy, Suzanne. Of course you feel you’re not right in your head.”

Oh, she loved him, this man.

Suzanne closed her eyes briefly. “Thank you,” she said. And then she started to cry. She wanted to wail her head off, but her weeping came out only in little fits and starts. It was like waiting to throw up, she thought—how you could sense it but it wasn’t here yet. She was surprised that he had a box of tissues—she hadn’t noticed them—sitting right on his large wooden desk. He pushed them forward to her, and she pressed a tissue to her eyes. After a moment she said, “So you have people in here all ready to cry, like therapists do?” She tried to smile at him. “I mean, you’re all set with the Kleenex box.”

“People come here in various states of distress,” Bernie said, and she realized of course that would be true.

“Well, I’m distressed,” she said. She blew her nose, and scrunched the tissue up in her hand. Her crying went no further.

“Of course you’re distressed. Your father, to whom you spoke each week on the telephone, has died horribly in a fire. I would think you’d be quite distressed, Suzanne.”

“Oh, I am. I am. And also, I might be getting divorced.”

At this news, Bernie’s eyelids dropped all the way down, and he shook his head in what Suzanne thought was great sympathy. After a moment he looked up and asked, “Your sons?”

Suzanne noticed a small wastebasket under the desk, and she bent down and tossed her tissue into it. “Well, they both started college last year. One at Dartmouth, the other at Michigan. They have no idea we might be separating, thank God. But it’s just— Oh, it’s all awful.”

Bernie nodded.

Suzanne said, “It’s my fault, Bernie.” She hesitated and then said the words: “I had an affair. A stupid, stupid little affair with a—oh, a kind of creepy man—and when I tell my husband I know he’ll
completely
flip out and he’ll want a divorce.” She added, “My husband is really—” She paused, looking for the right word. “Well, he’s traditional.”

Bernie moved a piece of paper on his desk just slightly with his hand, and then finally he nodded one small nod.

“Why do you act like this is so normal?” Suzanne squeezed her nose with her fingers.

Bernie let out a sigh and said, “Because it is, Suzanne.”

“Oh, man, not for me, it isn’t. I feel like I’ve set off a bomb in my life. For years I felt like I was safe on an— I don’t know, like an island. I had floated away from all those troubles that poor Doyle had, I was safe on my island with my
own
family, my husband and my boys, and now I’ve blown it up.”