I held her hand n thought about how the world is—how sometimes bad men have accidents and good women turn into bitches. I looked at the awful, helpless way her eyes rolled so she could look up into my face, n I marked how the blood from the cut in her scalp ran down the deep wrinkles in her cheek, the way spring rain runs in plow furrows goin downhill.
I says, “If it’s what you want, Vera, I’ll help you.”
She started to cry then. It was the only time when she wasn’t all dim n foolish that I ever saw her do that. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, it is what I want. God bless you, Dolores.”
“Don’t you fret,” I says. I raised her old wrinkled hand to my lips n kissed it.
“Hurry, Dolores,” she says. “If you really want to help me, please hurry.”
“Before we both lose our courage” was what her eyes seemed to be sayin.
I kissed her hand again, then laid it on her stomach n stood up. I didn’t have no trouble that time; the strength’d come back into my legs. I went down the stairs n into the kitchen. I’d set out the bakin things before going out to hang the warsh; I had it in mind that it’d be a good day to make bread. She had a rollin pin, a great heavy thing made of gray marble veined with black. It was layin on the counter, next to the yellow plastic flour canister. I picked it up, still feelin as if I was in a dream or runnin a high fever, n walked back through the parlor toward the front hall. As I went through that room with all her nice old things in it, I thought about all the times I’d played that trick with the vacuum cleaner on her, and how she’d got back at me for awhile. In the end, she always wised up and got her own back... ain’t that why I’m here?
I come out of the parlor into the hall, then climbed the stairs toward her, holdin that rollin pin by one of the wooden handles. When I got to where she lay, with her head pointed down and her legs twisted under her, I didn’t mean to take no pause; I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to do it at all. There wasn’t going to be any more talk. When I got to her, I meant to drop on one knee n brain her with that marble rollin pin just as hard as I could and as fast as I could. Maybe it’d look like somethin that’d happened to her when she fell and maybe it wouldn’t, but I meant to do it either way.
When I knelt beside her, I saw there was no need; she’d done it on her own after all, like she done most things in her life. While I was in the kitchen gettin the rollin pin, or maybe while I was comin back through the parlor, she’d just closed her eyes n slipped off.
I sat down beside her, put the rollin pin on the stairs, picked up her hand n held it in my lap. There are some times in a person’s life that don’t have no real minutes in em, so, you can’t count em up. All I know is that I sat n visited with her awhile. I dunno if I said anything or not. I think I did—I think I thanked her for lettin go, for lettin
me
go, for not makin me have to go through
all
of it again—but maybe I only thought those things. I remember puttin her hand against my cheek, then turnin it over and kissin the palm. I remember lookin at it and thinkin how pink n clean it was. The lines had mostly faded from it, and it looked like a baby’s hand. I knew I ought to get up and telephone someone, tell em what happened, but I was weary—so weary. It seemed easier to just sit there n hold her hand.
Then the doorbell rang. If it hadn’t, I would have set there quite awhile longer, I think. But you know how it is with bells—you feel you have to answer em, no matter what. I got up and went down the stairs one at a time, like a woman ten years older’n I am (the truth is, I
felt
ten years older), clingin to the bannister the whole way. I remember thinkin the world still felt as if it was made of glass, and I had to be damned careful not to slip on it n cut myself when I had to let go of the bannister n cross the entry to the door.
It was Sammy Marchant, with his mailman’s hat cocked back on his head in that silly way he does —he prob’ly thinks wearin his hat that way makes him look like a rock star. He had the regular mail in one hand and one of those padded envelopes that come registered mail just about every week from New York—news of what was happenin with her financial affairs, accourse—in the other. It was a fella named Greenbush took care of her money, did I tell you that?
I did? All right—thanks. There’s been so much globber I can hardly remember what I’ve told you and what I haven’t.
Sometimes there were papers in those registered mail envelopes that had to be signed, and most times Vera could do that if I helped hold her arm steady, but there were a few times, when she was fogged out, that I signed her name on em myself. There wasn’t nothing to it, and never a single question later about any of the ones I did. In the last three or four years, her signature wa’ant nothin but a scrawl, anyway. So that’s somethin else you c’n get me for, if you really want to: forgery.
Sammy’d started holdin out the padded envelope as soon as the door opened—wantin me to sign for it, like I always did with the registered—but when he got a good look at me, his eyes widened n he took a step backward on the stoop. It was actually more of a jerk than a step—and considerin it was Sammy Marchant doin it, that seems like just the right word. “Dolores!” he says. “Are you all right? There’s blood on you!”
“It’s not mine,” I says, and my voice was as calm as it woulda been if he’d ast me what I was watchin on TV and I told him. “It’s Vera’s. She fell down the stairs. She’s dead.”
“Holy Christ,” he says, then ran past me into the house with his mailbag floppin against one hip. It never crossed my mind to try n keep him out, and ask y’self this: what good would it have done if I had?
I followed him slow. That glassy feelin was goin away, but it seemed like my shoes had grown themselves lead soles. When I got to the foot of the stairs Sammy was halfway up em, kneelin beside Vera. He’d taken off his mailbag before he knelt, and it’d fallen most of the way back down the stairs, spillin letters n Bangor Hydro bills n L. L. Bean catalogues from hell to breakfast.
I climbed up to him, draggin my feet from one stair to the next. I ain’t ever felt s‘tired. Not even after I killed Joe did I feel as tired as I felt yest’y mornin.
“She’s dead, all right,” he says, lookin around.
“Ayuh,” I says back. “Told you she was.”
“I thought she couldn’t walk,” he says. “You always told me she couldn’t walk, Dolores.”
“Well,” I says, “I guess I was wrong.” I felt stupid sayin a thing like that with her layin there like she was, but what the hell else
was
there to say? In some ways it was easier talkin to John McAuliffe than to poor dumb Sammy Marchant, because I’d done pretty much what McAuliffe suspected I’d done. The trouble with bein innocent is you’re more or less stuck with the truth.
“What’s
this?”
he asks then, n pointed at the rollin pin. I’d left it sittin on the stair when the doorbell rang.
“What do you
think
it is?” I ast him right back. “A birdcage?”
“Looks like a rollin pin,” he says.
“That’s pretty good,” I says. It seemed like I was hearin my own voice comin from far away, as if it was in one place n the rest of me was someplace else. “You may surprise em all n turn out to be college material after all, Sammy.”
“Yeah, but what’s a
rollin pin
doin on the
stairs?”
he ast, and all at once I saw the way he was lookin at me. Sammy ain’t a day over twenty-five, but his Dad was in the search-party that found Joe, and I all at once realized that Duke Marchant’d probably raised Sammy and all the rest of his not-too-brights on the notion that Dolores Claiborne St. George had done away with her old man. You remember me sayin that when you’re innocent you’re more or less stuck with the truth? Well, when I seen the way Sammy was lookin at me, I all at once decided this might be a time when less’d be quite a bit safer’n more.
“I was in the kitchen gettin ready to make bread when she fell,” I said. Another thing about bein innocent—any lies you do decide to tell are mostly unplanned lies; innocent folks don’t spend hours workin out their stories, like I worked out mine about how I went up to Russian Meadow to watch the eclipse and never seen my husband again until I saw him in the Mercier Funeral Home. The minute that lie about makin bread was out of my mouth I knew it was apt to kick back on me, but if you’d seen the look in his eyes, Andy—dark n suspicious n scared, all at once—you might’ve lied, too.
He got to his feet, started to turn around, then stopped right where he was, lookin up. I followed his gaze. What I seen was my slip, crumpled up in a ball on the landin.
“I guess she took her slip off before she fell,” he said, lookin back at me again. “Or jumped. Or whatever the hell it was she did. Do you think so, Dolores?”
“No,” I says, “that’s mine.” “If you were makin bread in the kitchen,” he says, talkin real slow, like a kid who ain’t too bright tryin to work out a math problem at the blackboard, “then what’s your underwear doin up on the landin?”
I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Sammy took one step back down the stairs n then another, movin as slow’s he talked, holdin the bannister, never takin his eyes off me, and all at once I understood what he was doin: makin space between us. Doin it because he was afraid I might take it into my head to push
him
like he thought I’d pushed her. It was right then that I knew I’d be sittin here where I’m sittin before too much time passed, and tellin what I’m tellin. His eyes might as well have been speakin right out loud, sayin, “You got away with it once, Dolores Claiborne, and considerin the kind of man my Dad says Joe St. George was, maybe that was all right. But what did this woman ever do to you besides feed you n keep a roof over your head n pay you a decent livin wage?” And what his eyes said more’n anything else was that a woman who pushes once and gets away with it might push twice; that given the right situation, she
will
push twice. And if the push ain’t enough to do what she set out to do, she won’t have to think very hard before decidin to finish the job some other way. With a marble rollin pin, for instance.
“This is none of your affair, Sam Marchant,” I says. “You better just go about your business. I have to call the island ambulance. Just make sure you pick up your mail before you go, or there’s gonna be a lot of credit card companies chewin on your ass.
“Mrs. Donovan don’t need an ambulance,” he says, goin down another two steps n keepin his eyes on me the whole time, “and I’m not goin anywhere just yet. I think instead of the ambulance, you better make your first call to Andy Bissette.”
Which, as you know, I did. Sammy Marchant stood right there n watched me do it. After I’d hung up the phone, he picked up the mail he’d spilled (takin a quick look over his shoulder every now n then, prob‘ly to make sure I wasn’t creepin up behind him with that rollin pin in my hand) and then just stood at the foot of the stairs, like a guard dog that’s cornered a burglar. He didn’t talk, and I didn’t, neither. It crossed my mind that I could go through the dinin room and the kitchen to the back stairs n get my slip. But what good would that have done? He’d seen it, hadn’t he? And the rollin pin was still settin there on the stairs, wa’ant it?
Pretty soon you came, Andy, along with Frank, and a little later I went down to our nice new police station n made a statement. That was just yest’y forenoon, so I guess there’s no need to reheat that hash, is there? You know I didn’t say anything about the slip, n when you ast me about the rollin pin, I said I wasn’t really sure
how
it’d gotten there. It was all I could think to say, at least until someone come along n took the OUT OF ORDER sign offa my brains.
After I signed the statement I got in my car n drove home. It was all so quick n quiet—givin the statement and all, I mean—that I almost persuaded myself I didn’t have nothing to worry about. After all, I
hadn’t
killed her; she really
did
fall. I kept tellin myself that, n by the time I turned into my own driveway, I’d come a long way to bein convinced that everything was gonna be all right.
That feelin only lasted as long’s it took me to get from the car to my back door. There was a note thumbtacked to it. Just a plain sheet of notebook paper. It had a smear of grease on it, like it’d been torn from a book some man’d been carryin around in his hip pocket. YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH IT AGAIN, the note said. That was all. Hell, it was enough, wouldn’t you say?
I went inside n cracked open the kitchen windows to let out the musty smell. I hate that smell, n the house always seems to have it these days, no matter if I air it out or not. It’s not just because I mostly live at Vera’s now—or did, at least—although accourse that’s part of it; mostly it’s because the house is dead... as dead as Joe n Little Pete.
Houses do have their own life that they take from the people who live in em; I really believe that. Our little one-storey place lived past Joe’s dyin and the two older kids goin away to school, Selena to Vassar on a full scholarship (her share of that college money I was so concerned about went to buy clothes n textbooks), and Joe Junior just up the road to the University of Maine in Orono. It even survived the news that Little Pete had been killed in a barracks explosion in Saigon. It happened just after he got there, and less’n two months before the whole shebang was over. I watched the last of the helicopters pull away from the embassy roof on the TV in Vera’s livin room and just cried n cried. I could let myself do that without fear of what she might say, because she’d gone down to Boston on a shoppin binge.
It was after Little Pete’s funeral that the life went out of the house; after the last of the company had left and the three of us—me, Selena, Joe Junior—was left there with each other. Joe Junior’ d been talkin about politics. He’d just gotten the City Manager job in Machias, not bad for a kid with the ink still wet on his college degree, and was thinkin about runnin for the State Legislature in a year or two.