to do? And why did they have so many children? Ann had had Theodore with one man, Annabelle with another, and now she had spit out two more babies with Christopher. What in God’s name was that about? Christopher was not a young man.
* * *
—
In fact, when Olive saw him stepping out of the car she could not believe—she could not believe—that he had gray in his hair now. Christopher! She walked toward him, but he was opening the doors of the car, and little children spilled out. “Hi, Mom.” He nodded at her. There was the little dark-haired girl, dressed in a bulky pink nylon coat, also wearing a pair of knee-high rubber boots, robin’s-egg blue, who turned away immediately, and the blond boy, older, who stared at Olive; Ann was taking her time getting the baby out of the car. Olive went to Christopher, her son, and she put her arms around him, and felt the awkwardness of his older man’s body in her arms. She stepped back, and he stepped back, then he reached into the car and leaned over a child in an apparatus that looked like a small pilot seat for a child headed to outer space; he brought out the kid, and said to his mother, “Here’s Henry.”
The child looked with large slumbering eyes at Olive, and he was placed, standing, on the ground, where he held on to his father’s leg. “Hello, Henry,” Olive said, and the child’s eyes rolled up slightly, then he pressed his face into his father’s pant legs. “Is he all right?” Olive demanded, because the sight of him, dark-haired like his mother, dark-eyed as well, caused her to think immediately: This is not Henry Kitteridge! What had she thought? She had thought she would see her husband in the little boy, but instead she saw a stranger.
“He’s just waking up,” Christopher said, picking the child up.
“Well, come in, come in,” Olive said, realizing then that she had not spoken yet to Ann, who held the baby patiently nearby. “Hello there, Ann,” Olive said, and Ann said, “Hello, Olive.”
“Your boots are as blue as your hat,” Olive said to the little girl, and the little girl looked puzzled and walked to her mother. “It’s an expression,” Olive explained—the child wore no hat.
Ann said, “We got those boots for our trip to Maine,” and this confused Olive.
“Well, take them off before you come inside,” Olive said.
In New York, Ann had asked if she could call Olive “Mom.” Now Ann did not move toward Olive, and so Olive did not walk toward Ann, but turned and walked into the house instead.
Three nights they were to stay.
Once in the kitchen, Olive watched her son carefully. His face at first seemed open, pleased as he looked around. “Jesus, Mom, you’ve really cleaned up. Wow.” Then she saw the shadow come. “Wait, have you given away everything of Dad’s? What’s the story?”
“No, of course I haven’t.” Then she said, “Well, sure, some of it. He’s been gone a while, Chris.”
He looked at her. “What?”
She repeated what she had said, but she turned away as she said it. Then she said, “Theodore, would you like a drink of water?” The boy stared at her with huge eyes. Then he shook his head slightly and walked over to his mother, who, even as she was holding the baby, was shrugging her way out of a bulky black sweater. Olive could see that Ann’s stomach bulged through her black stretch pants, although her arms seemed skinny in a white nylon blouse.
Ann sat down at the kitchen table and said, “I’d like a glass of water, Olive,” and when Olive turned around to hand it to her, she saw a breast—just sticking out in plain view, right there in the kitchen, the nipple large and dark—and Olive felt a tiny bit ill. Ann pressed the baby to her, and Olive saw the little thing, eyes closed, clasp onto the nipple. Ann smiled up at Olive, but Olive thought it was not a real smile. “Phew,” Ann said.
Christopher said nothing more about his father’s possessions, and Olive took that as a good sign. “Christopher,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”
Then a look passed over her son’s face that let her know this was not his home anymore—this is what Olive thought she saw on his face—but he sat down at the kitchen table, his long legs stretched out.