And she thought how she, Olive, had always held it against Andrea that she was French-Canadian. She had. Almost without knowing it, she’d held it against all the L’Rieuxs. And against the Labbes and the Pelletiers, although once in a while a kid surprised her, like the Galarneau girl who had light in her face and was so smart, Olive had liked her. Was this the truth? It was the truth. Olive sat down on the edge of her bed. It’s a class thing, like shooting heroin. Only that’s not so much lower-class anymore.
Jack’s voice: “You’re a snob, Olive. You think being a reverse snob is not being a snob? Well, you’re a snob, my dear.”
Olive had approached Andrea L’Riuex that day at the marina because the girl was famous. That’s why she had sat herself down and talked to her like she knew her. If Andrea L’Rieux had never become the Poet Laureate of the United States, if she had just been what Olive would have expected of her—another woman with children and sort of happy and mostly unhappy (her sad-faced walks)—then Olive would never have approached her. She hadn’t even liked the girl’s poetry, except for the line about the darkness and the red leaves. But she had sat down across from her because she was famous. And also because she, Olive, was—Andrea was right—lonely. She, Olive Kitteridge, who would not have thought this about herself at all. She said fiercely, out loud, “You remember this, Olive, you fool, you remember this.”
In the semi-dark of the bedroom, Olive got out her small computer, and she went to Andrea’s Facebook page. She had never written a comment before, and she at first couldn’t figure out how to do it. But then she did, and she wrote, “Saw your new work. Good for you.” She sat looking out the window at the darkness of the field; only one streetlamp, far away, could be seen from here. She went back to the computer and added a line: “Glad you’re not dead.”
For a long time, Olive sat on the bed; she was just looking through the glass at the dark field. It seemed to her she had never before completely understood how far apart human experience was. She had no idea who Andrea L’Rieux was, and Andrea had no idea who Olive was, either. And yet. And yet. Andrea had gotten it better than she had, the experience of being another. How funny. How interesting. She, who always thought that she knew everything that others did not. It just wasn’t true. Henry. This word went through Olive’s mind as she gazed through the window at the darkness. And then: Jack. Who were they, who had they been? And who—who in the world—was she? Olive put one hand to her mouth as she contemplated this.
Then Olive put the computer away and got back into bed. She spoke the words softly out loud: “Yup, Andrea. Good for you. Glad you’re not dead.”
The End of the Civil War Days
The MacPhersons lived in a large old house on the outskirts of Crosby, Maine. They had been married for forty-two years, and for the last thirty-five they had barely spoken to each other. But they still shared the house. In his youth, Mr. MacPherson—his name was Fergus—had had an affair with a neighbor; back then there was no forgiveness and no divorce. So they were stuck together in their house. For a while their younger daughter, Laurie, had come back home briefly, her marriage had broken up and she and her six-year-old son came to live with them—both Fergus and his wife had been gladdened by their arrival, in spite of its cause—but very soon Laurie said that “their continued arrangement,” as she put it, was too unhealthy for her child, and so she left, moving to a small apartment near Portland.
Their arrangement was this: They lived with strips of yellow duct tape separating the living room in half; it ran over the wooden floor and right up against the rug that Ethel MacPherson had put on her side of the room; and in the dining room the tape was there as well, running over the dining room table, dividing it in half exactly, running down into the air and then onto the floor. Each night Ethel made dinner and placed her plate on one side of the taped table, and placed her husband’s plate on the other side. They ate in silence, and when