“That’s what I thought.” And Jim returned the letter to his pocket.
—
Olive Kitteridge sat in a chair in the corner and watched. She watched as Margaret gave her toast to Bob, she watched as William made his announcement about Lucy. Olive watched and watched, and every so often a person might lean down and say “Hello,” and Olive would say, “Hello, who are you?” And it was usually a congregant of Margaret’s. Another woman came and spoke to her. “I’m Bob’s first wife, Pam,” she said, smiling down at Olive.
“Where do you live?” Olive asked, and the woman said, “New York City.”
“What do you do?”
And the woman laughed and said, “I do nothing. I’m just a rich woman who lives in New York. It sounds pretty ghastly, and it kind of is, but that’s what I do.”
“I see,” Olive said, turning her head, and so the woman walked away.
—
But Olive watched everyone. For two hours she sat there and studied everybody in the room. Margaret brought her over a piece of birthday cake, and Olive said “Thank you” and ate the cake. It was not bad; she would have liked another slice, but Margaret didn’t return, and so she put the paper plate down on the floor beside her. A man approached her and said, “Hi, I’m Jim Burgess, Bob’s brother.” He stuck his hand out, and Olive shook it with no enthusiasm. “How are you?” she said to him, and he laughed slightly and said, “I’m miserable. My wife died a few months ago and my son doesn’t like me.” Olive looked up into this man’s face. “Ay-yuh,” she said. “Well, join the club.” She liked his face; she thought it had character in it. But then the Pam woman tapped Jim on his shoulder, and they walked away together.
As soon as Bob was within hearing distance Olive called to him, and he turned, his face bright, and he came to her and said, “Yes, what is it, Olive?” Olive told him she wanted to go home. “I know it’s your party, but I want you to drive me home. It will take a while to get me down the front steps but then it shouldn’t be long, and you can get back to your festivities.”
“Of course.” Bob helped her up, found the light coat she had been wearing, got her cane, took her arm, and said to Margaret, “I’ll be back, Olive wants to go home.”
“Goodbye, Olive!” people called to her, and this surprised Olive. She waved a hand over her head, and she allowed Bob to help her down the front steps and then into his car. He had a firm grip on her, which pleased her.
As they drove out of the driveway, she was quiet, but when they got onto Main Street, Olive said, “You know, Bob, the first story I told to Lucy was about people living with ghosts in their marriage. Did she tell you?”
“She did.”
“We also discussed that day a crush without consequences that a person can have in a marriage and how that’s very different from living with a ghost in the marriage. Now, I have thought all along that you and Lucy lived each with the ghost of the other, but I saw tonight that I was wrong. What you had was a crush.”
Bob turned his head to look at her. He did not say anything.
“And I also saw tonight that Margaret is your linchpin. The story of Muddy Wilson and his wife being his linchpin.”
“I don’t remember that story so well.”
Olive flapped her hand. “To tell you the truth, I never thought much of Margaret before tonight, but she came across, did a good job. And she is your linchpin, meaning you are lucky to have her.”
“I am,” Bob agreed. He said nothing about Margaret forgetting her PIN and the quiet worries he had had as a result.
“William is a snot-wot, but that’s Lucy’s business, not mine. I couldn’t believe he announced their upcoming marriage at your birthday party.” Olive held up a hand as though to ward off any objection Bob might give to this. “I’m just saying I thought that was very poor manners.”
“What about the Addie story? What was that about?” Bob asked Olive, looking over at her.
“That was about the same thing that every story Lucy and I have shared is about. People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they’ve not suffered are lying to themselves.
“Say,” Olive said, in a lighter tone. “I was interested in meeting your brother Jim tonight. What a tortured man! But oh, I liked him. He was real. Not easy to find someone who is real. Your first wife, what was her name?”
“Pam Carlson.” He had turned in to the parking lot of the Maple Tree Apartments. He pulled into a parking place near the back door of Olive’s apartment and turned off the car.
“She seemed a little nitwitty to me.”
“I love her,” Bob said.
“Yuh, I know you do. I could see that.”
“And your sister Susan,” Olive continued. “Pleasant. With her old fatty boyfriend.”
“Is he fat?” Bob asked this sincerely.
Olive looked at him. “Well, he’s not a skinny-pinny. Where’d she find him?”
“High school. They had three dates and he dumped her. But he was the chief of police during the time that Susan’s son got into all that trouble with the pig’s head in the mosque.”
“That was Susan’s son who did that? Oh my word, I remember that. That whole thing was awful.”
“Yup. Yeah, it was. He was a kid. He’s straightened out now.”
Olive was silent for a long moment. Then she said, meditatively, “It’s quite a world we live in, isn’t it. For years I thought: I will miss all this when I die. But the way the world is these days, I sometimes think I’ll be damned glad to be dead.” She sat quietly looking ahead through the windshield. “I’ll still miss it, though,” she said.
Bob was watching her. He said, “I like you, Olive.”
“Phooey. Now help me get out of this car,” Olive replied.
14
The heart wants what the heart wants. This is true, and Bob’s heart still wanted Lucy. But there is another thing to consider, which is that the heart is only one part of an organism, and the organism’s job is to survive. This desire to survive was already in ascendance with Bob, and this desire grew, and the desire of his heart— It did not shrink, but it did not continue to grow. And there was discomfort, of course, as there is in such things, but Bob held on to the new sense of hope he felt in living his life with Margaret. He watched her for forgetfulness, but he noticed nothing new.
There were moments, though, when he endured a keen sickness of loss, and then it would pass. And so back and forth he went in these swings of emotion. But he did not contact Lucy between his birthday party and her wedding, which took place two weeks after Bob’s party. And she did not contact him.
