Elaine Connelly
Elaine Connelly is the most important companion Paul Edgecombe finds in his final years at the Georgia Pines nursing home, a woman whose intelligence, courage, and loyalty make her the only person with whom he shares the full story of John Coffey and the Green Mile. Tall, slim, and erect despite her age, with a beautiful long neck and long hair that falls to her shoulders when she lets it down, she is eighty years old when Paul meets her. She suffers from arthritis in her hands that gives her terrible misery and walks very slowly because of something wrong with her hips, yet she remains clear-eyed, refined, and mentally sharp. She does not think Paul is peculiar or stand-offish, and they spend a great deal of time together. Paul reflects that if he had not reached such a grotesque age, he might speak of her as his ladyfriend, but having a special friend is not so bad, and in some ways even better, because the problems and heartaches that go with being boyfriend and girlfriend have simply burned out of them. He finds that sometimes the embers are better than the campfire, a strange truth he has come to accept.
Role in Paul's Present Life
Elaine becomes Paul's most trusted confidante during his residence at Georgia Pines. She is the one who finds him in the early morning hours after he has watched the film Kiss of Death on the American Movie Channel and been overwhelmed by the resemblance of Richard Widmark's character to William Wharton, the violent prisoner who came to E Block in the fall of 1932. Paul is sitting on the lumpy sofa, bent over his scrawny legs and clutching his knees to still the shakes running through him, feeling cold all over except for his groin, which burns with the ghost of the urinary infection that troubled him that fall. Elaine hurries over to him as fast as her arthritic hips will allow, puts her arm around his shoulders, and asks what is wrong. When he tells her he saw a ghost, she does not dismiss his fear but instead encourages him to continue writing about his experiences, telling him, "Don't let this stop you." She kisses his forehead just above the eyebrow, a gesture that used to make him prickle all over when his wife Janice did it, and still makes him prickle all over when Elaine does it. She understands that what is a few sleepless nights at their age, or seeing a ghost on the television, and asks him if he is going to tell her it is the only ghost he has ever seen.
Alliance Against Brad Dolan
Elaine proves herself a formidable protector when Brad Dolan, the abusive orderly who reminds Paul of Percy Wetmore, begins harassing Paul about his morning walks and his writing. Dolan grabs Paul's wrist, squeezes it painfully, and demands to know what he is writing. Elaine intervenes, her voice like a harsh whipcrack on a dry, hot day, telling Dolan to let the man alone. She stands in the doorway, wearing jeans that show off her slim hips and long legs, a blue ribbon in her hair, her eyes blazing. When Dolan threatens her, she reveals that she is the grandmother of the man who is currently Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, a man who loves his older relatives. The effortful smile drops off Dolan's face as he realizes she is telling the truth. Elaine tells him that if her friends are threatened and abused, she does not just let be, and orders him out of the room without one more word. After Dolan leaves, Paul laughs, remembering how many times Percy Wetmore had threatened his colleagues with his connections, and now, for the first time in his long life, such a threat is being made on his behalf.
Reader of Paul's Memoir
Elaine becomes the first and only reader of Paul's memoir about John Coffey and the Green Mile. When Paul asks if she would read what he has written, she replies, "That would be my honor." She takes the pages he has written and reads them in the sun, and when she finishes, she comes to him with her face very pale and shiny places under her eyes, having been crying. She does not express hate, contempt, or disbelief, but instead hugs him tight and says, "Poor John Coffey. And poor Paul Edgecombe, too." She asks about what happened to Melinda Moores and to Janice, and Paul tells her some of what followed. She accompanies him to bury Mr. Jingles, the mouse that John Coffey healed decades before, after the mouse dies in the shed where Paul has been keeping it. She helps him dig a grave with a trowel and lay the mouse to rest, and afterward they stay on the lawn watching the sunset, arms around each other's waists, watching the bright colors come up in the sky and then fade to ashes of gray. Three months later, Elaine dies quietly in her bed of a heart attack, and Paul finds that he has never let her go, not really, just as he has never let go of Janice or Brutal or all of them.
