Selena talked a little bit about the courses she was teachin at Albany Junior College—this was before she moved down to New York City and started writin full time—and then she went quiet. She n I were riddin up the dishes, and all at once I felt somethin. I turned around quick n saw her lookin at me with those dark eyes of hers. I could tell you I read her mind—parents can do that with their kids sometimes, you know—but the fact is I didn’t need to; I knew what she was thinkin about, I knew that it never entirely left her mind. I saw the same questions in her eyes then as had been there twelve years before, when she came up to me in the garden, amongst the beans n the cukes: “Did you do anything to him?” and “Is it my fault?” and “How long do I have to pay?”
I went to her, Andy, n hugged her. She hugged me back, but her body was stiff against mine—stiff’s a poker—and that’s when I felt the life go out of the house. It went like the last breath of a dyin man. I think Selena felt it, too. Not Joe Junior; he puts the pitcher of the house on the front of some of his campaign fliers—it makes him look like home-folks and the voters like that, I’ve noticed—but he never felt it when it died because he never really loved it in the first place. Why would he, for Christ’s sake? To Joe Junior, that house was just the place where he came after school, the place where his father ragged him n called him a book-readin sissy. Cumberland Hall, the dorm he lived in up to the University, was more home to Joe Junior than the house on East Lane ever was.
It was home to me, though, and it was home to Selena. I think my good girl went on livin here long after she’d shaken the dust of Little Tall Island off her feet; I think she lived here in her memories ... in her heart... in her dreams. Her nightmares.
That musty smell—you c’n never get rid of it once it really settles in.
I sat by one of the open windows to get a noseful of the fresh sea-breeze for awhile, then I got feelin funny and decided I ought to lock the doors. The front door was easy, but the thumb-bolt on the back one was so balky I couldn’t budge it until I put a charge of Three in One in there. Finally it turned, and when it did I realized why it was so stubborn: simple rust. I sometimes spent five n six days at a stretch up to Vera’s, but I still couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered to lock up the house.
Thinkin about that just seemed to take all the guts outta me. I went into the bedroom n laid down n put my pillow over my head like I used to do when I was a little girl n got sent to bed early for bein bad. I cried n cried n cried. I would never have believed I had so many tears in me. I cried for Vera and Selena and Little Pete; I guess I even cried for Joe. But mostly I cried for myself. I cried until my nose was plugged up and I had cramps in my belly. Finally I fell asleep.
When I woke up it was dark and the telephone was ringin. I got up n felt my way into the living room to answer it. As soon as I said hello, someone—some woman—said, “You can’t murder her. I hope you know that. If the law doesn’t get you, we will. You aren’t as smart as you think you are. We don’t have to live with murderers here, Dolores Claiborne; not as long as there’s still some decent Christians left on the island to keep it from happenin. ”
My head was so muzzy that at first I thought I was havin a dream. By the time I figured out I was really awake, she’d hung up. I started for the kitchen, meanin to put on the coffee-pot or maybe grab a beer out of the fridge, when the phone rang again. It was a woman that time, too, but not the same one. Filth started to stream out of her mouth n I hung up quick. The urge to cry come over me again, but I was damned if I’d do it. I pulled the telephone plug outta the wall instead. I went into the kitchen n got a beer, but it didn’t taste good to me n I ended up pourin most of it down the sink. I think what I really wanted was a little Scotch, but I haven’t had a drop of hard liquor in the house since Joe died.
I drew a glass of water n found I couldn’t abide the smell of it—it smelled like pennies that’ve been carried around all day in some kid’s sweaty fist. It made me remember that night in the blackberry tangles—how that same smell came to me on a little puff of breeze—n
that
made me think of the girl in the pink lipstick n the striped dress. I thought of how it’d crossed my mind that the woman she’d grown into was in trouble. I wondered how she was n where she was, but I never once wondered
if
she was, if you see what I mean; I
knew
she was. Is. I have never doubted it.
But that don’t matter; my mind’s wanderin again n my mouth’s followin right along behind, like Mary’s little lamb. All I started to say was that the water from my kitchen sink didn’t use me any better than Mr. Budweiser’s finest had—even a couple of ice-cubes wouldn’t take away that coppery smell—and I ended up watchin some stupid comedy show and drinkin one of the Hawaiian Punches I keep in the back of the fridge for Joe Junior’s twin boys. I made myself a frozen dinner but didn’t have no appetite for it once it was ready n ended up scrapin it into the swill. I settled for another Hawaiian Punch instead—took it back into the livin room n just sat there in front of the TV. One comedy’d give way to another, but I didn’t see a dime’s worth of difference. I s‘pose it was because I wa’ant payin much attention.
I didn’t try to figure out what I was gonna do; there’s some figurin you’re wiser not to try at night, because that’s the time your mind’s most apt to go bad on you. Whatever you figure out after sundown, nine times outta ten you got it all to do over again in the mornin. So I just sat, and some time after the local news had ended and the
Tonight
show had come on, I fell asleep again.
I had a dream. It was about me n Vera, only Vera was the way she was when I first knew her, back when Joe was still alive and all our kids, hers as well as mine, were still around n underfoot most of the time. In my dream we were doin the dishes—her warshin n me wipin. Only we weren’t doin em in the kitchen; we were standin in front of the little Franklin stove in the livin room of my house. And that was funny, because Vera wasn’t ever in my house—not once in her whole life.
She was there in this dream, though. She had the dishes in a plastic basin on top of the stove—not my old stuff but her good Spode china. She’d warsh a plate n then hand it to me, and each one of em’d slip outta my hands and break on the bricks the Franklin stands on. Vera’d say, “You have to be more careful than that, Dolores; when accidents happen and you’re not careful, there’s always a hell of a mess. ”
I’d promise her to be careful, and I’d
try,
but the next plate’d slip through my fingers, n the next, n the next, n the next.
“This is no good at all,” Vera said at last. “Just look at the mess you’re making!”
I looked down, but instead of pieces of broken plates, the bricks were littered with little pieces of Joe’s dentures n broken stone. “Don’t you hand me no more, Vera,” I said, startin to cry. “I guess I ain’t up to doing no dishes. Maybe I’ve got too old, I dunno, but I don’t want to break the whole job lot of em, I know
that.”
She kep on handin em to me just the same, though, and I kep droppin em, and the sound they made when they hit the bricks kep gettin louder n deeper, until it was more a
boomin
sound than the brittle crash china makes when it hits somethin hard n busts. All at once I knew I was havin a dream n those booms weren’t part of it. I snapped awake s’hard I almost fell outta the chair n onto the floor. There was another of those booms, and this time I knew it for what it was—a shotgun.
I got up n went over to the window. Two pickup trucks went by on the road. There were people in the backs, one in the bed of the first n two—I think—in the bed of the second. It looked like all of em had shotguns, and every couple of seconds one of em’d trigger off a round into the sky. There’d be a bright muzzle-flash, then another loud boom. From the way the men (I
guess
they were men, although I can’t say for sure) were swayin back n forth—and from the way the trucks were
weavin
back n forth—I’d say the whole crew was pissyass drunk. I recognized one of the trucks, too.
What?
No, I
ain’t
gonna tell you—I’m in enough trouble myself. I don’t plan to drag nobody else in with me over a little drunk night-shootin. I guess maybe I didn’t recognize that truck after all.
Anyway, I threw up the window when I seen they wasn’t puttin holes in nothin but a few lowlyin clouds. I thought they’d use the wide spot at the bottom of our hill to turn around, and they did. One of em goddam near got stuck, too, and wouldn’t
that
have been a laugh.
They come back up, hootin and tootin and yellin their heads off. I cupped m‘hands around m’mouth n screamed
“Get outta here! Some folks’re tryin t‘sleep!”
just as loud’s I could. One of the trucks swerved a little wider n almost run into the ditch, so I guess I threw a startle into em, all right. The fella standin in the back of that truck (it was the one I thought I recognized until a few seconds ago) went ass-over-dashboard. I got a good set of lungs on me, if I do say so m’self, n I can holler with the best of em when I want to.
“Get offa Little Tall Island, you goddam murderin cunt!”
one of em yelled back, n triggered a few more shots off into the air. But that was just in the way of showin me what big balls they had, I think, because they didn’t make another pass. I could hear em roarin off toward town—and that goddam bar that opened there year before last, I’ll bet a cookie—with their mufflers blattin and their tail-pipes chamberin backfires as they did all their fancy downshifts. You know how men are when they’re drunk n drivin pick-em-ups.
Well, it broke the worst of my mood. I wa‘ant scared anymore and I sure as shit didn’t feel weepy anymore. I was good n pissed off, but not s’mad I couldn’t think, or understand why folks were doin the things they were doin. When my anger tried to take me past that place, I stopped it happenin by thinkin of Sammy Marchant, how his eyes had looked as he knelt there on the stairs lookin first at that rollin pin and then up at me—as dark as the ocean just ahead of a squall-line, they were, like Selena’s had been that day in the garden.
I already knew I was gonna have to come back down here, Andy, but it was only after those men left that I quit kiddin myself that I could still pick n choose what I was gonna tell or hold back. I saw I was gonna have to make a clean breast of everything. I went back to bed n slept peaceful until quarter of nine in the morning. It’s the latest I’ve slep since before I was married. I guess I was gettin rested up so I could talk the whole friggin night.
Once I was up, I meant to do it just as soon’s I could—bitter medicine is best taken right away—but somethin put me off my track before I could get out of the house, or I would’ve ended up tellin you all this a lot sooner.
I took a bath, and before I got dressed I put the telephone plug back in the wall. It wasn’t night anymore, and I wasn’t half in n half out of some dream anymore. I figured if someone wanted to phone up and call me names, I’d dish out a few names of my own, startin with “yellowbelly” n “dirty no-name sneak. Sure enough, I hadn’t done more’n roll on my stockings before it
did
ring. I picked it up, ready to give whoever was on the other end a good dose of what-for, when this woman’s voice said, ”Hello? May I speak to Miz Dolores Claiborne?”
I knew right away it was long distance, n not just because of the little echo we get out here when the call’s from away. I knew because nobody on the island calls women Miz. You might be a Miss n you might be a Missus, but Miz still ain’t made it across the reach, except once a month on the magazine rack down to the drugstore.
“Speakin,” I says.
“This is Alan Greenbush calling,” she says.
“Funny,” I says, pert’s you please, “you don’t
sound
like an Alan Greenbush.”
“It’s his
office
calling,” she says, like I was about the dumbest thing she ever heard of. “Will you hold for Mr. Greenbush?”
She caught me so by surprise the name didn’t sink in at first—I knew I’d heard it before, but I didn’t know where.
“What’s it concernin?” I ast.
There was a pause, like she wasn’t really s’posed to let that sort of information out, and then she said, “I believe it concerns Mrs. Vera Donovan. Will you hold, Miz Claiborne?”
Then it clicked in—Greenbush, who sent her all the padded envelopes registered mail.
“Ayuh,” I says.
“Pardon me?” she says.
“I’ll hold,” I says.
“Thank you,” she says back. There was a click n I was left for a little while standin there in my underwear, waitin. It wasn’t long but it
seemed
long. Just before he came on the line, it occurred to me that it must be about the times I’d signed Vera’s name—they’d caught me. It seemed likely enough; ain’t you ever noticed how when one thing goes wrong, everythin else seems to go wrong right behind it?
Then he come on the line. “Miz Claiborne?” he says.
“Yes, this is Dolores Claiborne,” I told him.
“The local law enforcement official on Little Tall Island called me yesterday afternoon and informed me that Vera Donovan had passed away,” he said. “It was quite late when I received the call, and so I decided to wait until this morning to telephone you.”
I thought of tellin him there was folks on the island not so particular about what time they called me, but accourse I didn’t.
He cleared his throat, then said, “I had a letter from Mrs. Donovan five years ago, specifically instructing me to give you certain information concerning her estate within twenty-four hours of her passing.” He cleared his throat again n said, “Although I have spoken to her on the phone frequently since then, that was the last actual
letter
I received from her.” He had a dry, fussy kind of voice. The kind of voice that when it tells you somethin, you can’t not hear it.
“What are you talkin about, man?” I ast. “Quit all this backin and fillin and
tell
me!”