Dolores Claiborne

  She was just like me when I was her age, in other words, n look how I turned out--just another cleanin-witch with a permanent stoop in her walk and a bottle of pain-pills in the medicine cabinet for my back. Selena didn't see nothing wrong with that, but she'd just turned fifteen, and at fifteen a girl don't know what the hell she's seein even when she's lookin spang at it. I read that note over n over and I thought, Frig it--she ain't gonna end up like me, old n damn near used up at thirty-five. She ain't gonna do that even if I have to die to keep her from it. But you know something, Andy? I didn't think things'd have to go that far. I thought maybe Joe was gonna do all the dyin that needed to be done around our place.

  I put her note back on the table, did up the snaps on my slicker again, and pulled on my gumrubber boots. Then I walked around back n stood by the big white stone where me'n Selena sat the night I told her she didn't have to be afraid of Joe anymore, that he'd promised to let her alone. The rain'd stopped, but I could still hear the water drippin deep in the blackberry tangle behind the house, and see drops of water hangin off the bare branches. They looked like Vera Donovan's diamond-drop earrings, only not so big.

  That patch covered better'n half an acre, and by the time I'd pushed my way in, I was damned glad I had on my slicker and tall boots. The wet was the least of it; those thorns were murder. In the late forties, that patch had been flowers and field-grass, with the wellhead sittin on the shed side of it, but about six years after me n Joe were married and moved onto the place--which his Uncle Freddy left him when he died--the well went dry. Joe got Peter Doyon to come over and dowse us a new one, on the west side of the house. We've never had a spot of water-trouble since.

  Once we stopped usin the old well, the half-acre behind the shed grew up in those chest-high snarls of scrub blackberry, and the thorns tore and pulled at my slicker as I walked back n forth, lookin for the board cap on the old well. After my hands got cut in three or four places, I pulled the sleeves down over em.

  In the end, I almost found the damned thing by fallin into it. I took a step onto somethin that was both loose and kinda spongy, there was a cracklin noise under my foot, and I drew back just before the board I'd stepped on gave way. If I'd been unlucky, I'd've fallen forward, and the whole cap would most likely have collapsed. Ding-dong-bell, pussy's in the well.

  I got down on my knees, keepin one hand up in front of my face so the blackberry thorns wouldn't scratch my cheeks or maybe put out one of my eyes, and took a good close look.

  The cap was about four feet wide n five feet long; the boards were all white n warped n rotted. I pushed on one of em with my hand, and it was like pushin down on a licorice stick. The board I'd put my foot on was all bowed down, and I could see fresh splinters stickin up from it. I woulda fallen in, all right, and in those days I went about one-twenty. Joe weighed at least fifty pounds more'n that.

  I had a handkerchief in my pocket. I tied it around the top of a bush on the shed side of the cap so I could find it again in a hurry. Then I went back into the house. That night I slept like a lamb, and I had no bad dreams for the first time since I'd found out from Selena what her Prince Charmin of a Dad had been up to with her.

  That was in late November, and I didn't intend to do anythin more for quite awhile. I doubt if I need to tell you why, but I will, anyway: if anythin happened to him too soon after our talk on the ferry, Selena's eyes might turn to me. I didn't want that to happen, because there was a part of her that still loved him and prob'ly always would, and because I was afraid of how she'd feel if she even suspected what happened. Of how she'd feel about me, accourse--I guess that goes without sayin--but I was even more afraid of how she might feel about herself. As to how that turned out ... well, never mind now. I'll get there, I guess.

  So I let time go by, although that's always been the hardest thing for me to do once I've made up my mind about a thing. Still, the days piled up into weeks, like they always do. Every now n then I'd ask Selena about him. "Is your Dad bein good?" is what I asked, and we both understood what I was really askin. She always said yes, which was a relief, because if Joe started up again, I'd have to get rid of him right away, and damn the risks. Or the consequences.

  I had other things to worry about as Christmas passed and 1963 got started. One was the money --every day I'd wake up thinkin that this might be the day he'd start spendin it. Why wouldn't I worry about that? He'd got through the first three hundred right smart, and I had no way of keepin him from pissin away the rest while I was waitin for time to take time, as they like to say in his A. A. meetins. I can't tell you how many times I hunted for the goddam savins passbook they had to have given him when he opened his own account with that dough, but I never found it. So all I could do was watch for him to come home with a new chain-saw or an expensive watch on his wrist, and hope he hadn't already lost some of it or even all of it in one of the high-stakes poker games he claimed went on every weekend in Ellsworth n Bangor. I never felt s'helpless in my whole life.

  Then there was the questions of when and how I was gonna do it ... if I ended up havin the nerve to do it at all, that was. The idear of usin the old well as a pit-trap was all right as far as it went; the trouble was, it didn't go anywheres near far enough. If he died neat n clean, like people do on TV, everythin would be fine. But even thirty years ago I'd seen enough of life to know that things hardly ever go the way they do on TV.

  Suppose he fell down in there and started screamin, for instance? The island wasn't built up then the way it is now, but we still had three neighbors along that stretch of East Lane--the Carons, the Langills, and the Jolanders. They might not hear screams comin from the blackberry patch behind our house, but then again they might ... especially if the wind was high and blowin the right way. Nor was that all. Runnin between the village and the Head like it does, East Lane could be pretty busy. There was trucks n cars goin past our place all the time, not as many of them back then, either, but enough to worry a woman who was thinkin about what I was thinkin about.

  I'd about decided I couldn't use the well to settle his hash after all, that it was just too risky, when the answer came. It was Vera who gave it to me that time, too, although I don't think she knew it.

  She was fascinated by the eclipse, you see. She was on the island most of that season, and as winter started to wear thin, there'd be a new clippin about it pinned to the kitchen bulletin board every week. When spring began with the usual high winds n cold slops, she was here even more, and those clippins showed up just about every other day. There were pieces from the local papers, from away papers like the Globe and the New York Times, and from magazines like Scientific American.

  She was excited because she was sure the eclipse would finally lure Donald n Helga back to Pinewood--she told me that again n again--but she was excited on her own account, too. By the middle of May, when the weather finally started to warm up, she had pretty well settled in completely--she never even talked about Baltimore. That friggin eclipse was the only thing she talked about. She had four cameras--I ain't talkin about Brownie Starflashes, either--in the entry closet, three of em already mounted on tripods. She had eight or nine pairs of special sunglasses, specially made open boxes she called "eclipse-viewers," periscopes with special tinted mirrors inside em, and I dunno what else.

  Then, near the end of May, I came in and saw the article pinned to the bulletin board was from our own little paper--The Weekly Tide. HARBORSIDE TO BE "ECLIPSE CENTRAL" FOR RESIDENTS, SUMMER VISITORS, the headline said. The picture showed Jimmy Gagnon and Harley Fox doin some sort of carpentry on the hotel roof, which was as flat n broad then as it is now. And do you know what? I felt somethin turn over in me again, just like I'd felt when I saw that first article about the eclipse pinned up in the very same place.

  The story said that the owners of The Harborside were plannin to turn the roof into a kind of open-air observatory on the day of the eclipse ... except it sounded like the same old business-as-usual with a brand-new label on it to
me. They said the roof was bein "specially renovated" for the occasion (the idear of Jimmy Gagnon n Harley Fox renovatin anythin is pretty funny, when you stop to think of it), and they expected to sell three hundred n fifty special "eclipse tickets." Summer residents would get the first pick, then year-round residents. The price was actually pretty reasonable--two bucks a throw--but accourse they were plannin on servin food n havin a bar, and those are the places where hotels have always clipped folks. Especially the bar.

  I was still readin the article when Vera come in. I didn't hear her, and when she spoke I went just about two feet into the air.

  "Well, Dolores," she says, "which'll it be? The roof of The Harborside or the Island Princess?"

  "What about the Island Princess?" I asked her.

  "I've chartered it for the afternoon of the eclipse," she says.

  "You never!" I says, but I knew the second after it was out of my mouth that she had; Vera had no use for idle talk, nor idle boastin, neither. Still, the thought of her charterin a ferry as big as the Princess kinda took my breath away.

  "I did," she said. "It's costing me an arm and a leg, Dolores, most of it for the replacement ferry that will run the Princess's regular routes that day, but I certainly did do it. And if you come on my excursion, you'll ride free with all drinks on the house. " Then, kinda peekin at me from underneath her eyelids, she says, "That last part should appeal to your husband, wouldn't you agree?"

  "My God," I says, "why'd you charter the damned ferry, Vera?" Her first name still sounded strange to me every time it came out of my mouth, but by then she'd made it clear she hadn't been jokin--she didn't mean to let me go back to Mrs. Donovan even if I wanted to, which I sometimes did. "I mean, I know you're excited about the eclipse and all, but you coulda got an excursion boat almost as big down to Vinalhaven, and prob'ly at half the expense."

  She gave a little shrug and shook her long hair back at the same time--it was her Kiss-My-Back-Cheeks look if I ever seen it. "I chartered it because I love that tubby old whore," she says. "Little Tall Island is my favorite place in all the world, Dolores--do you know that?"

  As a matter of fact I did know it, so I nodded my head.

  "Of course you do. And it's the Princess which has almost always brought me here--the funny, fat, waddling old Princess. I'm told it will hold four hundred comfortably and safely, fifty more than the roof of the hotel, and I'm going to take anyone who wants to go with me and the kids." Then she grinned, and that grin was all right; it was the grin of a girl who's glad just to be alive. "And do you know something else, Dolores?" she asked me.

  "Nope," I says. "I'm flummoxed."

  "You won't need to bow and scrape to anyone if you--" Then she stopped, and give me the queerest look. "Dolores? Are you all right?"

  But I couldn't say anything. The most awful, most wonderful pitcher had filled my mind. In it I seen the big flat roof of The Harborside Hotel filled with people standin around with their necks craned back, and I seen the Princess stopped dead in the middle of the reach between the mainland and the island, her decks also chockablock with people lookin up, and above it all hung a big black circle surrounded by fire in a sky filled with daytime stars. It was a spooky pitcher, enough to raise the hackles on a dead man, but that wasn't what had gut-punched me. It was thinkin about the rest of the island that done that.

  "Dolores?" she ast, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you have a cramp? Feel faint? Come over and sit down at the table, I'll get you a glass of water. "

  I didn't have a cramp, but all at once I did feel a little faint, so I went where she wanted and sat down ... except my knees were so rubbery I almost fell into the chair. I watched her gettin me the water and thought about somethin she'd said the last November--that even a mathematical dunderhead like her could add n subtract. Well, even one like me could add three hundred and fifty on the hotel roof and four hundred more on the Island Princess and come out with seven hundred and fifty. That wasn't everybody that'd be on the island in the middle of July, but it was an almighty slug of em, by the Jesus. I had a good idear that the rest would either be out haulin their traps or watchin the eclipse from the shingle and the town docks.

  Vera brought me the water and I drank it down all at once. She sat down across from me, lookin concerned. "Are you all right, Dolores?" she ast. "Do you need to lie down?"

  "No," I says, "I just come over funny for a few seconds there."

  I had, too. All at once knowin what day you plan to kill your husband on, I guess that'd be apt to bring anyone over funny.

  Three hours or so later, with the warsh done and the marketin done and the groceries put away and the carpets vacuumed and a tiny casserole put away in the refrigerator for her solitary supper (she mighta shared her bed with the hunky from time to time, but I never saw her share her dinner-table with him), I was gatherin up my things to leave. Vera was sittin at the kitchen table, doin the newspaper crossword puzzle.

  "Think about coming with us on the boat July twentieth, Dolores," she says. "It will be ever so much more pleasant out on the reach than on that hot roof, believe me."

  "Thank you, Vera," I says, "but if I've got that day off, I doubt I'll go either place--I'll probably just stay home."

  "Would you be offended if I said that sounds very dull?" she ast, lookin up at me.

  When did you ever worry about offendin me or anyone else, you snooty bitch? I thought, but accourse I didn't say it. And besides, she really did look concerned when she thought I might be gonna faint, although that coulda been because she was afraid I'd go down on my nose n bleed all over her kitchen floor, which I'd waxed just the day before.

  "Nope," I says. "That's me, Vera--dull as dish-water. "

  She gave me a funny look then. "Are you?" she says back. "Sometimes I think so ... and sometimes I wonder."

  I said goodbye n went on home, turnin the idear I'd had over n over as I went, lookin for holes. I didn't find none--only maybes, and maybes are a part of life, ain't they? Bad luck can always happen, but if people worried about that too much, nothin would ever get done. Besides, I thought, if things go wrong, I c'n always cry it off. I c'n do that almost right up to the very end.

  May passed, Memorial Day came n went, and school vacation rolled around. I got all ready to hold Selena off if she came pesterin about workin at The Harborside, but before we even had our first argument about it, the most wonderful thing happened. Reverend Huff, who was the Methodist minister back then, came around to talk to me n Joe. He said that the Methodist Church Camp in Winthrop had openins for two girl counsellors who had advanced-swimmin qualifications. Well, both Selena and Tanya Caron could swim like fish, Huffy knew it, and to make a long story at least a little shorter, me n Melissa Caron saw our daughters off on the ferry the week after school let out, them wavin from the boat and us wavin from the dock and all four of us crying like fools. Selena was dressed in a pretty pink suit for the trip, and it was the first time I got a clear look at the woman she was gonna be. It almost broke my heart, and does still. Does one of you happen to have a tissue?

  Thank you, Nancy. So much. Now where was I?

  Oh yes.

  Selena was taken care of; that left the boys. I got Joe to call his sister in New Gloucester and ask if she and her husband would mind havin em for the last three weeks or so of July and the first week of August, as we'd had their two little hellions for a month or so in the summer a couple of times when they were younger. I thought Joe might balk at sendin Little Pete away, but he didn't--I s'pose he thought of how quiet the place'd be with all three gone and liked the idear.

  Alicia Forbert--that was his sister's married name--said they'd be glad to have the boys. I got an idear Jack Forbert was prob'ly a little less glad than she was, but Alicia wagged the tail on that dog, so there wasn't no problem--at least not there.

  The problem was that neither Joe Junior nor Little Pete much wanted to go. I didn't really blame em; the Forbert boys were both teenagers, and wouldn't have so much a
s the time of day for a couple of squirts like them. I wasn't about to let that stop me, though--I couldn't let it stop me. In the end I just put down my head n bulldozed em into it. Of the two, Joe Junior turned out to be the tougher nut. Finally I took him aside and said, "Just think of it as a vacation from your father. " That convinced him where nothin else would, and that's a pretty sad thing when you think about it, wouldn't you say?

  Once I had the boys' midsummer trip settled, there was nothin to do but wait for em to be gone, and I think that in the end they were glad enough to go. Joe'd been drinkin a lot ever since the Fourth of July, and I don't think even Little Pete found him very pleasant to be around.

  His drinkin wasn't no surprise to me; I'd been helpin him do it. The first time he opened the cupboard under the sink and saw a brand-new fifth of whiskey sittin in there, it struck him as odd--I remember him askin me if I'd fallen on my head or somethin. After that, though, he didn't ask any questions. Why would he? From the Fourth til the day he died, Joe St. George was all in the bag some of the time and half in the bag most of the time, and a man in that condition don't take long to start seein his good fortune as one of his Constitutional rights ... especially a man like Joe.

  That was fine as paint with me, but the time after the Fourth--the week before the boys left and the week or so after--wasn't exactly pleasant, just the same. I'd go off to Vera's at seven with him layin in bed beside me like a lump of sour cheese, snorin away with his hair all stickin up n wild. I'd come home at two or three and he'd be plunked down out on the porch (he'd dragged that nasty old rocker of his out there), with his American in one hand and his second or third drink of the day in the other. He never had any comp'ny to help him with his whiskey; my Joe didn't have what you'd call a sharin heart.