The Repeat Year Read Online Free PDF Page A

ring, and she twisted it self-consciously. “You’re not working today?”
    “No, I had to work the late shift last night.”
    “Really? I thought you and Phil had plans.”
    Olive paused. “There was . . . a big change of plans.” She accepted a cup of punch from Jody Kessler, her mom’s friend and fellow librarian. “I didn’t know you were having this party.”
    “Of course you did. I invited you last week. But to be fair, I didn’t think you’d come since you’ve been dodging these parties since you were a teenager.”
    “These parties? Mom,
these parties
were a tradition you had with Dad.” She didn’t realize how shrill she sounded until she saw Jody peek out from whatever she was doing in the pantry and then disappear as though it were unsafe to return.
    “So was eating dinner and going for a walk. Does that mean I can’t ever do those things again?” Though her tone was light, her smile had evaporated. Without it, Olive could clearly see the crow’s-feet and the hair-thin lines around her mom’s drawn lips. Not a college cheerleader. A widow in only her early fifties.
    “Olive, these parties are for my neighbors and friends—
our
neighbors and friends—to celebrate the new year together.”
    Olive planted her palms on the cool marble countertop. She couldn’t help wondering if these were the same words Harry had used to persuade her mom to host the party. Her fingers curled around the smooth edge. Shouldn’t she be past all this? This back-and-forth with her mom, the subtle insinuations, each fanning the flames of grief and guilt for the other. She had struggled so hard last year to come to terms with her mom’s remarriage. She took a deep breath. “The new year. Right.”
    Her mom leaned forward to tuck an escaped strand of hair behind Olive’s ear. “Is everything okay, honey?”
    The tenderness in that question made her want to burst and spill everything like a shattered decanter of wine. This was the comfort she’d been seeking—the opportunity to place this burden on someone else, someone who had the capacity to bear it, the wisdom to sort it out, or better yet, make it all go away. But this visit was not how she had envisioned it. The party guests, for one. The youthfulness and glow of her mom, for another. She had already disrupted the party enough; there was no need to bring it to a screeching halt by making her mom question her mental stability.
    “Everything’s fine.” She took a small sip of punch. “Is Harry here?”
    Her mom furrowed her eyebrows and searched Olive’s face. “Of course. He’s grilling the salmon fillets.”
    She drifted into the living room, out from under her mom’s worried gaze. It was so like Harry to grill something like salmon. In her mind’s eye, she could see her dad in his University of Wisconsin sweatshirt and red-and-white striped sneakers planted firmly on the deck that he had built, a bottle of Miller Lite in one hand, a metal spatula in the other. It had been only hamburgers and brats for him. The occasional steak or chicken breast. Through the French doors, Olive could see the slim silhouette of Harry at the helm of the grill, like a man tangling with an unruly beast. She didn’t go outside. Instead, she walked to the picture wall. She braced herself for the worst. After the wedding in June, Olive’s mom had hung up a photograph of the five of them, all standing barefoot on the beach—the newlyweds; her brother, Christopher, and his wife, Verona; and then Olive, the only one unpaired, like an unmatched sock. Her eyes sought the place where the picture had hung, which was now marked only by its absence—a conspicuous hole among the other framed memories.
    She stood looking at the wall for a long time. She felt like she might crumple to the floor again, the way she had back at the apartment, so she made her way to the couch. Sherry Witan was sitting on the other end of the couch leafing through a coffee table book. Olive pulled one