“Oh, hello, Olive,” she says. It has taken Marlene years to stop calling her Mrs. Kitteridge, which is what happens when you have people in school. And of course the opposite is true, which is that Olive continues to see half the town as kids, as she can still see Ed Bonney and Marlene Monroe as young schoolkids, falling in love, walking home day after day from school. When they reached the Crossbow Corners, they would stand and talk, and sometimes Olive would see them there as late as five o’clock, because Marlene had to go one way and Ed the other. Tears have appeared in Marlene’s eyes, and
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