Olive Kitteridge Read Online Free PDF

mass with her in-laws. He was relieved when that day was over, when a week went by, and another, although the holidays loomed, and he felt trepidation, as though he were carrying something that could not be set down. When the phone rang during supper one night, he went to get it with a sense of foreboding. He heard Denise make small screaming sounds—Slippers had gotten out of the house without her seeing, and planning to drive to the grocery store just now, she had run over the cat.
    â€œGo,” Olive said. “For God’s sake. Go over and comfort your girlfriend.”
    â€œStop it, Olive,” Henry said. “That’s unnecessary. She’s a young widow who ran over her cat. Where in God’s name is your compassion?” He was trembling.
    â€œShe wouldn’t have run over any goddamn cat if you hadn’t given it to her.”
    He brought with him a Valium. That night he sat on her couch, helpless while she wept. The urge to put his arm around her small shoulders was very strong, but he sat holding his hands together in his lap. A small lamp shone from the kitchen table. She blew her nose on his white handkerchief, and said, “Oh, Henry. Henry.” He was not sure which Henry she meant. She looked up at him, her small eyes almost swollen shut; she had taken her glasses off to press the handkerchief to them. “I talk to you in my head all the time,” she said. She put her glasses back on. “Sorry,” she whispered.
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œFor talking to you in my head all the time.”
    â€œNo, no.”
    He put her to bed like a child. Dutifully she went into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas, then lay in the bed with the quilt to her chin. He sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hair until the Valium took over. Her eyelids drooped, and she turned her head to the side, murmuring something he couldn’t make out. As he drove home slowly along the narrow roads, the darkness seemed alive and sinister as it pressed against the car windows. He pictured moving far upstate, living in a small house with Denise. He could find work somewhere up north; she could have a child. A little girl who would adore him; girls adored their fathers.
    â€œWell, widow-comforter, how is she?” Olive spoke in the dark from the bed.
    â€œStruggling,” he said.
    â€œWho isn’t.”
    The next morning he and Denise worked in an intimate silence. If she was up at the cash register and he was behind his counter, he could still feel the invisible presence of her against him, as though she had become Slippers, or he had—their inner selves brushing up against the other. At the end of the day, he said, “I will take care of you,” his voice thick with emotion.
    She stood before him, and nodded. He zipped her coat for her.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    To this day he does not know what he was thinking. In fact, much of it he can’t seem to remember. That Tony Kuzio paid her some visits. That she told Tony he must stay married, because if he divorced, he would never be able to marry in the church again. The piercing of jealousy and rage he felt to think of Tony sitting in Denise’s little place late at night, begging her forgiveness. The feeling that he was drowning in cobwebs whose sticky maze was spinning about him. That he wanted Denise to continue to love him. And she did. He saw it in her eyes when she dropped a red mitten and he picked it up and held it open for her.
I talk to you in my head all the time.
The pain was sharp, exquisite, unbearable.
    â€œDenise,” he said one evening as they closed up the store. “You need some friends.”
    Her face flushed deeply. She put her coat on with a roughness to her gestures. “I have friends,” she said, breathlessly.
    â€œOf course you do. But here in town.” He waited by the door until she got her purse from out back. “You might go square dancing at