Read Olive, Again: A Novel for Free Online

“and I’m taking her to the hospital.”
    “But I didn’t want to spoil things,” Ashley said to Marlene; she stood there, confusion on her wet face.
    “Now,” said Olive. “Right now. In my car. On the lawn.”
    “Oh, Olive, let’s call an ambulance. What if she has the baby while you’re driving? Stay here, Olive. Let me call.” Marlene reached for the phone on the wall and it seemed to take forever for someone to answer.
    Olive said, “Well, I’m taking her, so you can tell whoever you get what my car looks like and they can follow me if they want.”
    “But what does your car look like?” Marlene seemed to wail this.
    “Take a look at it,” Olive commanded. Ashley had already gone through the doorway and was getting into the backseat of Olive’s car. “Tell the ambulance driver to pull me over if he shows up.”
    As she opened the back door of her car, Olive saw the girl’s face and realized: This is it. This girl was going to have her baby. “Take your pants off,” Olive said to her. “Now. Take them off.” Ashley tried, but she was writhing in pain, and Olive looked through her bag, her hands shaking, and found the shears she always carried with her. “Lie back.” Olive leaned into the car, but she was afraid she would poke the girl’s belly with the shears, so she went around to the door on the other side and opened that, and she was able to cut the pants successfully. Then she walked back around the car again and pulled the pants off the girl. “Stay lying back,” she said firmly, oh, she was a schoolteacher all right.
    The girl spread her knees, and Olive stared. She was amazed. Pudendum went through her mind. She had never seen a young woman’s—pudendum. My word! The amount of hair—and it was—well, it was wide open! There was blood and gooey stuff coming out; what a thing! Ashley was making grunting sounds, and Olive said, “Okay, okay, stay calm.” She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do. “Stay calm!” She yelled this. She reached and touched Ashley’s knees, opening them more. In a few minutes—Olive had no idea how many minutes—Ashley let out a huge sound, a large groan and screech combined. And out slipped something.
    Olive thought the girl had not delivered a baby at all, but rather some lumpish thing, almost like clay. Then Olive saw the face, the eyes, the arms— “Oh my goodness,” she said. “You have a baby.”
    She was hardly aware of the man’s hand on her shoulder as he said, “All right then, let’s see what we have.” He was from the ambulance, she had not even heard it drive in. But when she turned and saw his face, so in charge, she felt a rush of love for him. Marlene stood on the lawn, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, Olive,” she said. “Oh, my word.”
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    Olive stood up now and walked through her house. It felt no longer a house but more a nest where a mouse lived. It had felt this way for a long time. She sat down in the small kitchen, then she got up and walked past “the bump-out room,” as she and Henry had called it, now with the purple quilt spread messily on the large window seat—this is where Olive had slept since her husband’s death—and then she went back to the living room, where pale water streaks from last winter’s snow showed on the wallpaper near the fireplace. She sat on the big chair by the window and rocked her foot up and down. The evenings were interminable these days, and she remembered when she had loved the long evenings. Across the bay the sun twinkled, now low in the sky. A shaft of light cut over the floorboards and onto the rug in the living room.
    Olive’s unease grew; she could almost not stand it. She rocked her foot higher and higher, and then when the sky had just turned dark she said out loud, “Let’s get this over with.” She dialed Jack Kennison’s number. She had lain down beside the man almost a month ago; it still felt like she had dreamed it. Well, if Bertha