A lot has happened. Christopher and Suzanne have moved to California, and then, when Suzanne abruptly leaves him, Christopher announces he's not coming home to Crosby. Henry and Olive, now retired, are crushed, but try to carry on -- Henry takes up woodworking, Olive plants tulips, they join the Civil War society. And, it appears that their marriage has settled into a happy routine. Henry takes over the shopping and meal preparation after Olive says she's done with cooking. (It seems that when women in Crosby reach a certain age, they give up doing what they don't like. Remember Harmon's wife in "Starving"?)

At any rate, it seems like Olive and Henry have put the past, even the terrible night in the hospital, behind them. Henry comes home with a bouquet of blue daisies "for my wife" and they seem comfortable with each other.

And then, poor Henry has a massive stroke. He's in a nursing home, blind and unaware of his surroundings. It doesn't stop Olive, who devotedly comes to visit him and desperately hopes for his recovery, any sign, as she mourns the loss of her son's affection. She realizes too late what she and Henry had had. "What she minded was how Henry had bought her those flowers. How she'd just stood there. She'd kept the flowers, dried them out, all the blue daisies brown now, bent over."

It's a beautiful and heartbreaking theme, of how Olive struggles to adapt and cope and wonder and be plagued with doubts about how her relationship with Christopher has turned out the way it has.

But this story disappointed me, and it's because I didn't like the Louise Larkin thread, which felt like an intrusion.

Louise is a former colleague of Olive's, and she too is lonely -- physically sequestered from the world, as opposed to Olive's emotional distance. We learn through the story why: Louise's son has killed a young woman, stabbing her 29 times.

Strout builds the tension to Olive & Louise's ultimate meeting, and she weaves parallels between their situations.

But I was happy enough with Olive, Henry and the absent Christopher, and I didn't like Louise's situation barging in to the tale.

To be honest, on this one, I'm left a little flat, a little disappointed. Tell me why I'm wrong about this. With "Olive" and Strout, I'm willing to give it another try.

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