of his stroke, that he would never wear again—she had gotten rid of those quick as a flash. Camel-hair-colored suede shoes, the laces not yet dirty a bit.
But Jack’s clothes she held on to, and the smell of them still arrived faintly when she opened the closet. There was the dark green cardigan with the leather elbow patches he wore when they went to dinner the first time, and the blue gabled one from when they’d had their first real fight and he had said, “God, Olive, you’re a difficult woman. You are such a goddamn difficult woman, and fuck all, I love you. So if you don’t mind, Olive, maybe you could be a little less Olive with me, even if it means being a little more Olive with others. Because I love you, and we don’t have much time.”
She’d heard him.
And then he’d said, sitting on the bed, “Let’s get married, Olive. Sell the house you had with Henry and move in here. Please marry me, Olive.”
“Why?” she had asked.
His slight smile, with one corner of his mouth turned up. “Because I love you,” he said. “I just plain goddamn love you.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you’re Olive.”
“You just said I was too much Olive.”
“Olive. Shut up. Shut up, and marry me.”
When he died in his sleep beside her, oceans of terror rolled over her. Day after day she was terrified. Come back, she kept thinking, oh please please please come back! Eight years they’d had together, as quickly over as an avalanche, and yet—horrible—she thought of him at times as her real husband. Henry had been her first, and then Jack had been her real one. Horrible thought, and it could not be true.
* * *
How quickly now darkness fell!
For Olive this meant a change in the way she lived. She did not drive when it was dark, and so by four o’clock she was in bed, watching her television set. She dozed a little bit, and would wake frightened. And then it would subside. She watched the news, and she was interested. What a hell of a mess this country was in. Then she ate her dinner, and had a glass of wine. The wine had arrived in her life with Jack. Before then Olive had never once imbibed. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Olive, would you have a glass of wine?” he said to her once, before they were married. “If anyone could use a glass of wine it’s you.” He himself had whiskey, and no small amount of it. But she had never seen him drunk. Still, she had bristled when he said that, about her needing a glass of wine. And yet he had been right. Because when she had one a few nights later, she felt like she was— She just felt all right.
And alone, without Jack, the wine still helped her. She never had more than one glass, but she thought it still helped her.
* * *
Winter came.
It snowed as though it would not stop, white swirling stuff, or white gritty stuff, every few days a new storm hit. For Olive, these were days of torture. She could not believe how long time was—how long the afternoons were—she could not believe it! And yet she should have known, she must have known, because of when Henry had his stroke. But she was always going to the nursing home then, it seemed she had been busy. Had she been? Well, she was not busy now. She had the newspaper delivered because there were days she could not drive with all the snow. And one day she saw a small article about Andrea L’Rieux. The bus driver who had hit her had been drunk; the investigation had just closed. Really? Olive read through it again, and tossed the paper aside. Well, so Janice Tucker had been right. Andrea had not been trying to kill herself after all. “Fine,” Olive said out loud. “Fine, fine, fine.”
She looked at the clock and it was only two.
* * *
And then May finally arrived.
Olive opened the door to step outside, only wanting to see the view of the woods that spread out beyond the curved driveway. From the front door one could see the long, large field, but Olive liked this view too, she supposed because it reminded her of the woods by the house with Henry. Turning to go back inside, she saw in her mailbox a magazine; it was sticking partway out as though to get her