William said to Margaret, as he raised his glass, “Great job tonight, Margaret. Really, really great job.”
And Bob saw how pleased Margaret was, and so he echoed it, as did Lucy, and Margaret said, “Well, one never knows how it goes over, but I always try.” And all three of them said that she had succeeded, and she seemed to settle down after that, and she asked William how his parasites were going: William was a parasitologist who was working with potato farmers in Aroostook County, trying to help develop a new potato breed, one that was able to withstand climate change. William answered her at great length (Lucy rolled her eyes at Bob), but they all listened; there was a comfortableness to their friendships with one another.
Then Margaret said, “And how is Chrissy doing?”
William leaned back in his chair and said, “Why that name? Aiden. I still can’t figure it out.” He ran a hand through his white hair, making it stand up on his head.
Lucy said, “She’s fine, thanks, Margaret. She’s doing much better with her postpartum stuff, I just saw her a few weeks ago, and they’re getting into the swing of it.”
“But why that name?” William asked again, one of his long legs crossed over the other. He tugged on his big white mustache, then sipped from his wineglass.
“I think it’s a great name,” said Bob, and Margaret agreed.
“But there’s not a drop of Irish in either of them,” William persisted, and Lucy reached over and tapped William’s knee and said, “Enough with the name, William.” She said it pleasantly.
On one of their walks Lucy had told Bob that she thought William had secretly been hoping the baby would be named after him. William said now, “He’s a cute guy. Imagine a boy in the family, so great.”
“So great,” Margaret said, and then she mentioned that the locksmith in town was a heroin addict, and that mental health was the biggest crisis in the nation right now. Lucy—Bob noticed this—was drinking more than she usually did, and her face got pink. But it was all perfectly agreeable, they chatted about any number of things.
William said, “I figure I have two jobs: Lucy, and the parasites.” He added, “Lucy comes first, though.”
And yet here was something strange: When they got up to leave, Bob saw that Lucy had tears in her eyes. And her mouth trembled downward briefly. “Bye-bye,” she said, and she went down the stairs carefully, touching the wall, followed by William.
“Lovely night,” Margaret said, and Bob agreed that it had been.
—
But Bob thought about this, and he said to Margaret as they got into bed, “I think Lucy got upset tonight toward the end. I don’t really like how William infantilizes her.”
“I know, you’ve said that before.” Margaret pulled back the covers and got under them, wearing her long flannel nightgown. “But I told you I think he just feels guilt about all his previous—”—she put her fingers in quotes—“—misdeeds.” Margaret shifted herself so that she was looking at Bob with a hand beneath her head. “I think that’s what it’s about. It makes him feel important to take care of her. It’s their role thing.”
Bob said, “It’s his role thing. She’s not a child.”
Margaret appeared to think about this. “No, but she is childlike.” Margaret added, turning onto her back, “She’s an artist, that’s how they are.”
—
But Margaret continued to lie in the dark and she thought about Lucy and William, she was really fond of both of them. Lucy, this came to Margaret as a crack of light opening on a horizon, Lucy had a loneliness to her that she usually covered well, but it was a loneliness—and this was the crack widening on the horizon—that Margaret now understood about herself, that Margaret had devoted her life to the service of others because she desired—deeply, almost without knowing until right now—to connect with another person. She pondered this; it was one of the reasons she liked Lucy, because she could feel connected to her. Margaret did not always feel connected to her congregation—their earnest faces, or their bored faces, or the old man, Avery Mason, who always fell asleep in his front pew—this came to her then—and she thought, Oh, of course I feel connected to them. And she turned over in bed and within minutes she was lightly snoring.
*
As we mentioned earlier, housing prices in Crosby, Maine, had been going through the roof since the pandemic. And there were new condos and apartment buildings going up everywhere. Out by the old airfield you could see the construction of building after building—and they were not cheap, these new places. In the town itself, an old brick mill was being turned into condos, and these were even more expensive. The former police station was being turned into condos as well. Where were all these people coming from? Where was all the money coming from? No one seemed to know. But people agreed: It was going to change the town forever.
There was a woman named Charlene Bibber, who was fifty-five years old, and she had lived in Crosby all her life. She cleaned apartments at the Maple Tree Apartments retirement community three mornings a week, and she found herself now in possible financial trouble. Her property taxes, like everyone else’s, had gone way up. Her husband had died many years before, and—sadly for them both—they had been unable to have children. So Charlene had recently sold the small house she had lived in with her husband, although it broke her heart to do so, and while it made her feel flush for a few days, she began to understand as she did the math that if she lived for another twenty-five years she could easily end up on the street. Because even with the sale of her small house she could not afford the rent of these newer places. After selling the house, she moved into one of the big old wooden houses that had cheap apartments, not unlike the one Ricky Davis—with his huge rear end—had lived in, until a few years earlier, when you first entered town. These old houses were very much in the town, tucked away a block or two over from the center of Crosby. And yet—oddly—it would be fair to say that the more affluent people of town, especially of course the newcomers, did not even see them. Partly this was location: You had to go down side streets you might not normally go down, but even if these well-off people happened to drive by these places, they still did not see them in a certain way.
—
Charlene understood this. Weariness moved through her all the time.
—
She took an extra job as a checkout clerk at the big grocery store, but standing on her legs all day was very painful for her back, and she had to give it up after three months. And yet she was back working at the food pantry once a week. Charlene had not had enough food as a child, and this still stung her, so she stood there every week and packed bags of groceries for those families waiting outside in their cars for the food.
It had been at the food pantry—more than two years ago now—that she had first met Lucy Barton, who was filling in for Margaret Estaver one day. Charlene had found herself talking and talking to this Lucy woman. Charlene had found her to be different, quietly accessible as a listener, and later Charlene was embarrassed at how much she had talked to her, she felt that her loneliness had been leaking all over her, but later, when she saw Lucy in the park one day, Lucy said, “Oh Charlene! Come walk with me by the river!”
—
And since then, every few weeks, Charlene met Lucy by the river, and they mostly sat on one of the large granite benches near the start of their walk because Charlene had trouble walking too far. The day after Christmas, Lucy called her, and they were now sitting on one of these benches, bundled up against the cold. Lucy asked Charlene how her Christmas had been.
“I spent it alone,” Charlene said, and Lucy placed her mittened hand on Charlene’s knee. “I didn’t have to,” Charlene explained. “My cousins up in the county asked me there, but that’s a three-hour trip each way and that’s a lot of gas.”
“I know it is.”
“But the day wasn’t so bad, really. I mean, Jerry and Louise came down—”—this was a couple who lived upstairs from Charlene that Lucy knew about—“—and they’re nice. Jerry’s having a terrible time because of his treatments. But he managed to sit there for a while with us. And then there’s Boober.” Boober was Charlene’s dog, a rescue collie. Oh, Charlene loved him! “He’s kind of saved my life,” she said now. She had told this to Lucy before, and Lucy nodded. And then Charlene said: “So on Christmas night I sat and had myself a really long think with myself. And this is what I thought: People are shits.”
Lucy watched her.
“When I sold my house, that horrible realtor came to me and said, Charlene, sell that house right now, someone wants to buy it. And so I did. And then at the closing, that same realtor said to me as we were leaving, ‘Should have held on to this place longer, Charlene, we could have gotten twice the money for it.’ He said that, Lucy! But he was just so anxious to get whatever money he could, he took that first offer. Piece of crap.”
Lucy let out a big sigh and said, “Oh, that’s awful.”
“Life is just hard.”
Lucy looked at her and then gazed out at the river. “I know,” she said.
“How’s your sister? She liking you any better?” Charlene asked.
“No.” The two women looked at each other and laughed. Lucy said, “No. Vicky’s life is hard too. Like I’ve told you.”
