Olive could not believe. Christopher and Ann had to go over to the side of the parking area and have a conversation; Olive took out her sunglasses and put them on. When Christopher returned he said, “Theodore, you’re going with your mother, and, Henry, we’re putting your car seat in your grandmother’s car.” So Olive waited, chilly in her coat even though the sun was bright, while Christopher got the car seat and put it into her car, and she heard him swearing that the seatbelt wasn’t working, and she said, “It’s a used car, Chris,” and he stuck his head out of it finally and said, “Okay, we’re all set.”
“You drive,” she said, and he did.
* * *
Ann sat on a rock that looked out at the ocean, even though the rock must have been very cold—it was windswept and had no moisture on it, but it still must have been cold—while Christopher ran back and forth on the beach with the kids. Olive watched this from the edge of the parking lot, her coat pulled tight around her. After a few minutes she made her way to Ann, who looked up at her, the baby asleep in her arms. “Hello, Olive,” Ann said.
Olive couldn’t figure out what to do. The rocks were wide, but she couldn’t get herself down to a sitting position. So she stood. Finally she said, “How’s your mother, Ann?”
Ann said something that got lost in the wind.
“What?” Olive said.
“I said she’s dead!” Ann turned her head back to Olive, yelling this.
“She died?” Olive yelled this back. “When did she die?”
“A couple months ago,” Ann yelled in the wind toward Olive.
For a number of moments Olive stood there. She had no idea what to do. But then she decided she would try and sit next to Ann, and so she bent down and placed her hands carefully on the rock and finally got herself seated.
Olive said, “So she died right before you had Natalie?”
Ann nodded.
Olive said, “What a hell of a thing.”
“Thank you,” said Ann.
And Olive realized that this girl, this tall, strange girl—who was a middle-aged woman—was grieving. “Did she die suddenly?” Olive asked.
Ann squinted toward the water. “I guess. Except she never took care of herself, you know. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when she had her heart attack.” Ann waited a moment, then turned her face toward Olive. “Except I was surprised. I’m still surprised.”
Olive nodded. “Yuh, of course you are.” After a moment Olive added, “It’s always a surprise, I think. Even if they’re languishing for months, they still just go away. Horrible business.”
Ann said, “Do you remember that song, I think it’s a black spiritual—‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child’?”
“ ‘A long way from home,’ ” Olive finished.
“Yeah, that one,” Ann said. Then Ann said, “But I always felt that way. And now I am.”
Olive considered this. “Well, I’m very sorry,” she said. Then she asked, “Where was she living when she died?”
“Outside of Cincinnati, where she always lived. Where I grew up, you know.”
Olive nodded. From the corner of her eye she watched this girl—this woman—and she thought, Who are you, Ann? She knew the girl had a brother somewhere, but what was his story? She couldn’t remember, she only knew they had no contact, was he on drugs? He might have been. The mother had been a drinker, Olive knew that. And her father had divorced the mother years ago; he’d been dead for a long time. She said again, “Well, awful sorry.”
“Thanks.” Ann stood up—remarkably easily, considering she was holding the baby—and then she walked away. She just walked away! It took Olive many moments to stand up, she had to heave herself onto one arm and roll herself a bit to get her foot under her.
“Oh, honest to God,” she said. She was panting by the time she got back to the car.
* * *
On the way back, Olive said, “Chris, why didn’t you tell me Ann’s mother died?”
He made a sound and shrugged.
“But why wouldn’t you tell me such a thing?” Through the window were the trees still bare, their limbs dark, poking toward the sky. They passed by a field that looked soggy and matted down in parts, the streaming sun showing it all.
“Oh, her mother was nuts. Whatever.”
In the backseat Henry sang out, “Goggie, goggie. Train, airplane! Daddy, Mama!” Olive turned to look at him, and he smiled at her.
“He’s just singing all the words he knows,” Christopher said. “He