said, “Why in the world would I have a Christmas tree?”
Ann raised her eyebrows. “Because it was Christmas?”
Olive didn’t care for that. “Not in this house it wasn’t,” she said.
* * *
After Ann had taken the older children into the study, where the couch had been turned into a bed, Olive sat with Christopher and Little Henry, who dangled from his father’s lap. “Cute kid,” Olive said, and Christopher said, “He really is, right?”
From the study she could hear Ann murmuring, and she could hear the higher-pitched voices—but not the words—of the children. Olive stood up and said, “Oh, Christopher, I knit Little Henry a scarf.”
She went into the study—the two older kids in there just stood silently and watched her—and got the scarf she had knit, bright red, and brought it out, and she gave it to Christopher, who said, “Hey, Henry, look what your grandmother made for you,” and the little boy put part of it into his mouth. “Silly thing,” Christopher said to him, and pulled it gently. “You wear it to keep warm.” And the child clapped his hands. Olive thought he was really a fairly amazing child.
Ann appeared in the doorway, flanked with her two kids, who were now in their pajamas. She said, “Um, Olive?” She pursed her lips a moment and then said, “Do you have anything for the other children?”
Olive felt the swiftness of dark rising up through her. It took her a moment to trust herself, then she said, “I don’t know what you mean, Ann. Are you talking about Christmas presents? I sent the children Christmas presents.”
“Yeah?” Ann said slowly. “But that was, you know, Christmas?”
Olive said, “Well, I never heard a word from you, so perhaps they didn’t get them.”
“No, we got them,” Ann said. Then she said to Theodore, “Remember that truck?”
The child shrugged one arm and turned away. And yet they stood there, that beastly mother and her two children from two different men, stood right there in the doorway, as though Olive was supposed to produce—what was she supposed to produce? She really had to bite her tongue not to say, I guess you didn’t like that truck. Or to say to the little girl, And what about that doll? I suppose you didn’t like that either? Olive had to force herself not to say, In my day we thanked people who sent us gifts. No, Olive really had to work not to say this, but she did not say this, and after a few minutes Ann said to the kids, “Come on, let’s get you to bed. Give Daddy a kiss.” And they walked to Christopher and kissed him, then walked right by Olive and that was that. Horrible, horrible children, and a horrible mother. But Little Henry suddenly wiggled out of his father’s lap and dragged his new scarf across the floor to Olive. “Hi,” he said. He smiled at her! “Hello,” she said. “Hello, Little Henry.” “Hi, hi,” he said. He held the scarf toward Olive. “Gank you,” he said. Well, he was a Kitteridge. He was surely a Kitteridge all right. “Oh, your grandfather would have been so proud,” she said to him, and he smiled and smiled, his teeth wet with saliva.
Christopher was looking around the room. “Mom, this place looks awfully different,” he said.
“You haven’t been here in a while,” Olive said. “Things change and your memory is different too.”
* * *
Olive was happy.
Her son was talking to her alone. Little Henry had been put to bed upstairs, and his mother and his tiny baby sister were up there as well. The two older children were tucked into their couch-bed in the study. The light from the lamp in the corner spilled over her son. This was all she wanted: Just this. Chris’s eyes seemed clear; his face seemed clear. The gray in his hair still surprised her, but she thought he looked good. He spoke a great deal about his podiatry practice, the young woman who worked for him, the insurance he had to pay, the insurance that his patients had, Olive didn’t care what he talked about. He talked about their tenant, no longer the guy with the parrot that would screech Praise God anytime someone swore, but a young man with a girlfriend now, they were probably going to get married soon. On and on he talked, her son. Olive was tired, but she stifled a yawn. She would stay here forever to hear this. He