Free Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout Page A

tell them about visiting her mother in the nursing home today; she might or might not mention the bruises on her mother’s arm.
    â€œA request, Angie.” Betty dropped a cocktail napkin on her way past, while she held the tray of drinks in the flat of her uplifted hand; you could see how heavy it was for her by the way she swayed her back as she moved around the chairs. “From that man,” she added, moving her head toward the corner.
    â€œBridge Over Troubled Water” was written on the napkin and Angie kept playing Christmas carols, smiling her smile. She did not look at the man in the corner. She played every Christmas carol she could think of, but she was not inside the music now. Perhaps another drink would help, but the man in the corner was watching and he would know it was not coffee alone in the cup Betty brought her. His name was Simon. He had once been a piano player, too.
    Fall on your knees, O hear the angels’ voices…. But it was like she had fallen overboard and had to swim through seaweed. The darkness of the man’s coat seemed to press against her head, and there was a watery terror that had to do with her mother; get inside, she thought. But she was very shaky. She slowed down, played “The First Noel” quite lightly. She saw a large snowy field now, with a crack of gentle light along the horizon.
    When she finished, she did something that really surprised her. Later she had to wonder how long she had been planning this without quite knowing. The way she didn’t quite allow herself to know when Malcolm had stopped saying “I think about you all the time.”
    Angie took a break.
    Delicately, she pressed the cocktail napkin to her lips, slipped out from behind the piano, and walked toward the restroom, where there was a pay phone. She did not want to bother Joe for her pocketbook.
    â€œDarling,” she said quietly to Walter, “do you have some change?”
    He stretched out a leg, reached into his pocket, handed her the coins. “You’re the candy shop, Angie,” Walter said slurringly.
    His hand was moist; even the coins felt moist. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said.
    She went to the phone and dialed Malcolm’s number. Not once, in twenty-two years, had she called him at home, although she had memorized his number long ago. Twenty-two years, she thought, as she listened to the buzz of the ring, would be considered a very long time by most people, but for Angie time was as big and round as the sky, and to try to make sense of it was like trying to make sense of music and God and why the ocean was deep. Long ago Angie had known not to try to make sense of these things, the way other people tried to do.
    Malcolm answered the phone. And here was a curious thing—she didn’t like the sound of his voice. “Malcolm,” she said softly. “I can’t see you anymore. I’m so terribly sorry, but I can’t do this anymore.”
    Silence. His wife was probably right there. “Bye, now,” she said.
    On her way past Walter, she said, “Thank you, darling,” and he said, “Anything for you, Angie.” Walter’s voice was thick with drunkenness, his face glistening.
    She played the song Simon wanted then, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” but it wasn’t until she was almost through that she allowed herself to look at him. He did not return her smile, and a flush went through her.
    She smiled at the Christmas tree. The colored lights seemed terribly bright, and for a moment she felt baffled that people did this to trees—decorated them with all that glitter; some people looked forward to this all year. And then another flush of heat rose through her, to think how in a few weeks the tree would be stripped, taken down, hauled out onto the sidewalk with tinsel still sticking to it; she could picture how awkward this tree would look, perched sideways on the snow, its chopped