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Let it be quick,
she thought now,
meaning her death—a thought she had several times a day.
She squinted. A body was slumped on the path not far from the first mile’s stone
bench. Olive stopped walking. It was an old man—she could see that much, as
she walked tentatively closer—a balding head, a big belly. God in heaven. She
walked with faster steps. Jack Kennison lay on his side, his knees bent, almost
like he’d decided to take a nap. She leaned down and saw his eyes were open.
His eyes were very blue. “Are you dead?” she asked loudly.
His eyes moved, looked into hers. “Apparently not,” he said.
She looked at his chest, his big stomach bulging out beneath his L.L.Bean
jacket. Then she looked in both directions, up and down the path. No one was in
sight. “Have you been stabbed or shot?” She leaned closer to him.
“No,” he said. Then he added, “Not that I remember.”
“Can you move?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried.” His big stomach was moving, though, slowly
up and down.
“Well, try.” She touched her sneaker to his black walking shoe. “Try to move
this leg.”
The leg moved.
“Good,” said Olive. “Try an arm.”
Slowly, the man’s arm moved onto his stomach.
“I don’t have one of those cell phone things,” Olive said. “My son keeps
saying he’ll buy me one, but he hasn’t. I’m going back to the car and drive to
call someone.”
“Don’t,” said Jack Kennison. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Olive stood, uncertain. It was a mile away, her car. She looked at him, lying
there, his blue eyes watching hers. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then you ought to get to a doctor.”
“Okay.”
“I’m Olive Kitteridge, by the way. Don’t believe we’ve ever formally met. If
you can’t get up, I think I should go find you a doctor. I hate them, myself. But
you can’t just lie there,” she said. “You might die.”
“I don’t care,” he said. A small smile seemed to come to his eyes.
“What?” Olive asked loudly, bending way down toward him.
“I don’t care if I die,” the man said. “Just don’t leave me here alone.”
Olive sat down on the bench nearby. The river was calm, barely seemed to be
moving. She bent toward him again. “Are you cold?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“It’s nippy out.” Now that she had stopped walking, she felt a chill herself.
“Do you hurt?”
“No.”
“Is it your heart, do you think?”
“I don’t know.” He began to stir. Olive stood and put a hand beneath his arm,
though he was much too heavy for her to do any good. Still, after a great deal of
struggling, he managed to get himself up, and settled on the bench.
“All right,” said Olive, sitting down beside him. “This is better. Now we wait
for someone to come along with a phone.” She added suddenly, “I don’t care if I
die either. I’d like to, in fact. Long as it’s quick.”
He turned his balding head toward her, studied her tiredly with his blue eyes.
“I don’t want to die alone,” he said.
“Hell. We’re always alone. Born alone. Die alone. What difference does it
make? Long as you don’t shrivel for years in a nursing home like my poor
husband did. That’s
my
fear.” She pulled at her sweater, clutched it closed with a
fist. She turned to look at him carefully. “Your color seems all right. You don’t
have any idea what happened?”
Jack Kennison stared out at the river. “I was walking. I saw the bench and felt
tired. I don’t sleep well. So I sat down and started to feel dizzy. I put my head
between my legs, and next thing I knew I was lying on the ground, with some
woman squawking at me, ‘Are you dead?’ ”
Olive’s face became warm. “You seem less dead every minute,” she said. “Do
you think you can walk?”
“In a moment, I’ll try. I’d like to sit here a moment.”
Olive glanced at him quickly. He was crying. She looked away, and from the
corner of her eye, she saw him reach into his pocket, heard him blow his nose, a
real honk.
“My wife died in December,” he said.
Olive watched the river. “Then, you’re in hell,” she said.
“Then, I’m in hell.”
In the doctor’s waiting room she sat, reading a magazine. After an hour, the
nurse came out and said, “Mr. Kennison’s worried about you waiting so long.”
“Well, tell him to stop it. I’m perfectly comfortable.” And she was. In fact, it
had been a long time since she’d been this comfortable. She wouldn’t have
minded if it took all day. It was a newsmagazine she was reading, something she
hadn’t done for quite a while—she turned one page quickly, because she
couldn’t stand to look at the president’s face: His close-set eyes, the jut of his
chin, the sight offended her viscerally. She had lived through a lot of things with
this country, but she had never lived through the mess they were in now.
Here
was a man who looked retarded, Olive thought, remembering the remark made
by the woman in Moody’s store. You could see it in his stupid little eyes. And
the country had voted him in! A born-again Christian with a cocaine addiction.
So they deserved to go to hell, and would. It was only her son, Christopher, she
worried about. And his baby boy. She wasn’t sure there would be a world left for
him.
Olive set the magazine aside and leaned back comfortably. The outer door
opened, and Jane Houlton walked in, took a seat in the waiting area not far from
Olive. “Say, that’s a pretty skirt you’re wearing,” said Olive, although she had
never cared for Jane Houlton one way or another, Jane being a kind of timorous
thing.
“Do you know, I got this on sale at a store that was closing in Augusta.” Jane
smoothed her hand down over the green tweed.
“Oh, wonderful,” said Olive. “Every woman loves a bargain.” She nodded
appreciatively. “Very good.”
She drove Jack Kennison back to the parking lot by the river so he could get his
car, and then she followed him home. In the driveway of his house on the edge
of the field, he said, “Would you like to come in and have some lunch? I might
find an egg, or a can of baked beans.”
“No,” said Olive, “I think you should rest. You’ve had enough excitement for
one day.” The doctor had taken a whole bunch of tests, and so far nothing had
been found to be wrong with him.
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