“I know,” she said. “I know. I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
—
They were at the parking lot now, and Bob turned to her. “Lucy—” And then he did not know what to say.
“I hear what you’re saying,” she said, brushing back her hair from her face.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I know. But I heard you,” Lucy said.
*
When he was eating with Margaret that night, Bob said, “I’m sorry about the fight we had, Margaret.” And why did he say this? Because of his walk with Lucy? Margaret only reached over and touched his arm.
—
But after that latest walk, Bob thought of Lucy almost constantly. He kept going over their talk, trying to remember it accurately and worried that he did not. She became a golden blur to him. But she had said she envied someone her age who could just leave their life? What did that mean? She had said, I hear you. She had said, I hear what you’re saying. I heard what you said.
—
And who—who who who in this whole entire world—does not want to be heard?
—
If he went an hour without thinking of her, he gave himself a treat—say, a donut—which he ate with pleasure. It did not happen very often. Meaning he did not eat very many donuts.
5
A few days later Bob drove out to see Matt Beach. The sky was clear, and it was not cold. Bob pulled into the driveway, and Matt came out of his house while his dog barked hysterically beside him. “Matt,” Bob called. “Let’s go get you a cellphone.”
Matt stood there looking perplexed. “Why?” he finally said.
“Because.” Bob gestured for Matt to get into the car. “Come on, let’s go do it.”
Matt turned and put the dog back inside the house. Then, as he got into Bob’s car, he said, “Who am I going to call?”
“Me,” said Bob. “You’re going to call me.”
*
It put Bob’s mind (partly) at rest to get the cellphone for Matt. Matt was like a twelve-year-old kid when he finally had the phone. “Look at all the things it does!” Bob asked Matt if he would mind being on the locator app of Bob’s phone, and Matt said he wouldn’t mind, it was okay. “It’ll mean I know where you are every minute, so don’t do it if you want your privacy,” Bob said.
“Oh no, that would be great!” Matt said. “You are the only person in the world who cares where I am.” But he said it cheerfully. Then he said, “Can I see where you are too?”
“Sure,” Bob said. So he set that up for Matt as well. “Now you’re the only person who can track me,” Bob said. “I don’t even let my wife track me.”
“Why not?” Matt asked, and Bob said it was because sometimes he went off to have a cigarette.
“She doesn’t know you smoke?” Matt asked. “Even I know you smoke.”
“How?” Bob asked, and Matt said, “Because I can smell it.”
“Oy,” said Bob, and Matt said, “I like how you say Oy.”
—
Bob could not wait to tell Lucy all about it.
*
Olive Kitteridge called Bob Burgess back. “The people were named Donnelly. And their daughter had been a guidance counselor at the high school those Beach kids went to. And the guidance counselor’s mother told me, although she was not supposed to tell me, that Diana had been sexually abused by her father. Apparently that’s why Diana went on and became a high school guidance counselor, because she felt like that Donnelly woman had saved her life.”
—
Bob found the name of Patricia Donnelly, who had been the guidance counselor of the school at the time Diana was there, he remembered the woman now. But she had died twenty-two years ago. And her mother was in the memory care unit at the High Farm nursing home. There were no other family members to be found. He did an extensive search to see if the guidance counselor had reported any abuse, but there was no record of such a thing.
*
That night, when Matt called him, Matt said, “I’m calling you from my new cellphone,” and Bob said he knew that. Matt said, “And guess what? I’m tracking Diana now too! She let me. But when I asked her if she wanted to track me, she laughed and said, ‘You never go anywhere,’ and that kind of hurt my feelings.”
Bob said, “Forget it. She’s got stuff on her mind, like her divorce and stuff.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Matt said.
Then Bob said, “Matt, did anything happen between your father and your sister? Anything, you know, like—ah—inappropriate?”
Bob heard Matt hesitate. And then Matt said, “I’m six years younger than her. I really don’t know what happened.”
