Free Olive, Again: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout

on her hips, watching Miss Minnie.
    “Oh, honey,” she finally said to Kayley. “She’s just real old, and real depressed.”
    Kayley leaned down toward Miss Minnie, and she spoke quietly into her ear, feeling the woman’s fine hair against her mouth. “Miss Minnie, it’s me, Kayley. Listen, Miss Minnie?” And then Kayley said, “I love you.” And the woman did not move.
    The next time Kayley visited, Miss Minnie’s room was empty—completely empty, no bed, no chair—and there were two women in it cleaning with mops. “Wait!” Kayley said, but they just kept swirling their mops, and when Kayley went to the front desk, the woman there said, “I’m sorry. We didn’t have your number or we would have called.”
    That night, Kayley’s mother only shrugged and said, “Well, it was bound to occur.”
    “But what happened to the picture of her brother, and her violets?”
    Her mother said, “I imagine they got tossed out.”
    Kayley waited long enough so that her mother would not think she wanted to get away from her, but after some time passed Kayley said, “Mom, I want to go for a bike ride. The evenings are light now,” and her mother looked at her suspiciously. Kayley could not ride fast enough, up Dyer Road, then down Elm Street, and then up past the school, she just could not ride her bike fast enough.
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    When Mr. Ringrose showed up the next week, silently as always, Kayley was dusting the legs of the couch. She turned; she was enormously glad to see him. “Hello,” she whispered as she stood up. It was the first time she had spoken to him. He nodded and gave her a tiny smile, gazing at her through his rimless glasses. She unbuttoned her shirt without pause. She thought his eyes seemed even kinder than usual and she watched him steadily as she moistened her fingers and touched her breasts, the tips becoming hard almost instantly; if Mrs. Ringrose should walk in, she didn’t care! This is how Kayley felt that day as she turned slightly one way, then the other, for the silent Mr. Ringrose.
    She put the envelope of money inside her underwear drawer, and the next three weeks she did the same; she was astonished that one week there was a hundred-dollar bill.
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    School was now out, and on Wednesday mornings and Saturday mornings, Kayley worked at the doughnut shop. She poured coffee and brought out the doughnuts from the back, slipping them into the white paper bags for the customers. One Wednesday she saw Mr. Ringrose walking by the place; he was glancing down at the sidewalk and did not look up through the window. He was slightly bent over, and she almost did not recognize him at first; his white hair was sticking at odd angles from his head. She stopped in the middle of an order to watch him; he seemed to not walk in a straight line. It could not be him, she decided. But she was rattled. No, that could not have been him.
    When she cleaned the Ringrose house the next week, he did not show up, and she felt terribly sad and worried.
    That Saturday, as the sun was slicing through the large glass windows of the doughnut shop, Mrs. Kitteridge walked in. “Oh, Mrs. Kitteridge,” Kayley said; she was surprised at how glad she was to see her. But Mrs. Kitteridge looked at her and said, “Do I know you?” And Kayley blushed.
    “I’m the Callaghan—”
    “Oh, wait. Of course. I remember you, riding your bicycle to that awful nursing home to visit that woman.”
    Kayley said, “Do you still visit your friend there? My friend died.”
    Mrs. Kitteridge looked her up and down. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. Then she added, “Well, not that she’s dead, who wouldn’t want to be dead living in there. Damn smart of her to die. My friend is still alive.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kayley said.
    Mrs. Kitteridge ordered three plain doughnuts and two cups of coffee, and she turned to the man behind her. “Jack,” she said, “say hello to the Callaghan girl.” The man stepped forward; he was a