Ordinary, everyday relationships offer more intrigue than a murder case in Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. In small Crosby, Maine, a curmudgeonly 90-year-old woman, Olive, forms a companionship with Lucy, a writer, and they exchange stories. Both agree that all people, even the most ordinary, have stories to live and learn from. The stories may draw curiosity, intrigue, hope and other reactions, patterns others can observe and learn from even if the person living the tale does not.
Olive observes a budding relationship between Lucy and Bob, a lawyer in town who is not so happily married, and during the course of their exchanges, Olive relays stories about love, including unrequited love and the damage accompanying destroyed marriages. At one point, Olive tells Lucy a story about people who live with ghosts in marriage. Couples who don’t communicate, who don’t really care about the other and constantly pine for someone they cannot have. A person simply may not be available at that moment in time. Those who once enjoyed close relationships might remind others to appreciate the bird in hand.
The meetings between Bob and Lucy and happy and innocent, including regular walks along the river with deep, uplifting conversations. Each believes the other is truly listening and listens in turn. Their respective partners do not object and even support the deep friendship. Bob is conflicted as his wife calls Lucy childlike and Lucy raises no quick objections when Bob recalls how his wife was once labeled a narcissist. Trust is on the line.
Any number of factors blunt the potential love affair. A bad haircut results in Bob going into a period of hiding. Bob abruptly cancels a NYC trip with Lucy in the airport after a potential suspect passes by and he takes off to follow. Lucy is rude to a woman in the grocery store, not realizing Bob is observing. Irritation at an immature comment and cutting retort. A naïve client idly mentioning how much he admires and appreciates Bob’s wife. Perhaps all combine into the inescapable knowledge that such a relationship is wrong because it hurts others.
Toward the novel's end, Lucy and Olive talk about people who are their partner’s linchpin, and how they fail to thrive without that partner. Lucy finds herself wondering, “How many people out there are able to be strong – or strong enough – because of the person they’re married to.”
Some people have reserves of strength on their own and others do not. Lucy may often seem shallow and immature, almost selfish in her quest for details, but still can prompt others toward self-reflection.
By the end, Lucy and Bob separately decide that they cannot be together and each take steps to recalibrate, easing the relationship’s intensity. “We like to think that our lives are within our control, but they may not be completely so. We are necessarily influenced by those who have come before us.”
Influenced yes, but we can and should shape the plots we live.
Love comes in many forms, and love can be shared, but taking what belongs to another will trouble more than satisfy. All have stories to live and learn from. The smallest of stories, the unrecorded ones, often matter the most deeply.
