Dolores Claiborne(14)

One time she fell right out of bed and just lay there with one leg twisted under her. Scared the bejesus out of me, it did. I ran in and there she was on the floor, beatin her fists on the boards like a kid doin a tantrum and screamin fit to raise the roof. That was the only time in all the years I did for her that I called Dr Freneau in the middle of the night. He came over from Jonesport in Collie Violette's speedboat. I called him because I thought her leg was broken, had to be, the way it was bent under her, and she'd almost surely die of the shock. But it wasn't - I don't know how it wasn't, but Freneau said it was just sprained - and the next day she slipped into one of her bright periods again and didn't remember a thing of it. I asked her about the dust bunnies a couple of times when she had the world more or less in focus, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Didn't have the slightest idear what I was talkin about.

After it happened a few times, I knew what to do. As soon as I heard her shriekin that way, I was up from bed and out my door - my bedroom's only two doors down from hers, you know, with the linen closet in between. I kep a broom propped in the hall with the dustpan poked onto the end of the handle ever since she had her first hissy over the dust bunnies. I'd go peltin into her room, wavin the broom like I was tryin to flag down a goddam mail-train, screamin myself (it was the only way I could make myself heard).

'I'll get em, Vera!' I'd shout. 'I'll get em! Just hold the friggin phone!'

And I'd sweep at whatever corner she was starin into, and then I'd do the other one for good measure. Sometimes she'd calm down after that, but more often she'd start hollerin that there were more under the bed. So I'd get down on my hands n knees and make like I was sweepin under there, too. Once the stupid, scared, pitiful old dub almost fell right outta bed on top of me, tryin to lean over and look for herself. She prob'ly woulda squashed me like a fly. What a comedy that woulda been!

Once I'd swept everyplace that had her scared, I'd show her my empty dustpan and say, 'There, dear - see? I got every one of those prickish things.'

She'd look into the dustpan first, and then she'd look up at me, tremblin all over, her eyes so drowned in her own tears that they swam like rocks when you look down and see em in a stream, and she'd whisper, 'Oh, Dolores, they're so gray! So nasty! Take them away. Please take them away!'

I'd put the broom and the empty dustpan back outside my door, handy for action next time, and then I'd go back in to soothe her as best I could. To soothe myself, as well. And if you think I didn't need a little soothin, you try wakin up all alone in a big old museum like that in the middle of the night, with the wind screamin outside and an old crazy woman screamin inside. My heart'd be goin like a locomotive and I couldn't hardly get my breath. but I couldn't let her see how I was, or she'd have started to doubt me, and wherever would we have gone from there?

What I'd do most times after those set-to's was brush her hair - it was the thing that seemed to calm her down the quickest. She'd moan n cry at first, and sometimes she'd reach out her arms and hug me, pushin her face against my belly. I remember how hot her cheeks and forehead always were after she threw one of her dust bunny wingdings, and how sometimes she'd wet my nightie right through with her tears. Poor old woman! I don't guess any of us here know what it is to be that old, and to have devils after you you can't explain, even to yourself.

Sometimes not even half an hour with the hair-brush would do the trick. She'd keep lookin past me into the corner, and every so often she'd catch her breath n whimper. Or she'd flap her hand at the dark under the bed and then kinda snatch it back, like she expected somethin under there to try n bite it. Once or twice even I thought I saw some-thin movin under there, and I had to clamp my mouth shut to keep from screamin myself. All I saw was just the movin shadow of her own hand, accourse, I know that, but it shows what a state she got me in, don't it? Ayuh, even me, and I'm usually just as hardheaded as I am loudmouthed.

On those times when nothin else'd do, I'd get into bed with her. Her arms would creep around me and hold onto my sides and she'd lay the side of her head down on what's left of my bosom, and I'd put my arms around her and just hold her until she drifted off. Then I'd creep out of bed, real slow and easy, so as not to wake her up, and go back to my own room. There was a few times I didn't even do that. Those times - they always came when she woke me up in the middle of the night with her yowlin - I fell asleep with her.

It was on one of those nights that I dreamed about the dust bunnies. Only in the dream I wasn't me. I was her, stuck in that hospital bed, so fat I couldn't even hardly turn over without help, and my cooze burnin way down deep from the urinary infection that wouldn't never really go away on account of how she was always damp down there, and had no real resistance to anything. The welcome mat was out for any bug or germ that came along, you might say, and it was always turned around the right way.

I looked over in the corner, and what I saw was this thing that looked like a head made out of dust. Its eyes were all rolled up and its mouth was open and full of long snaggly dust-teeth. It started comm toward the bed, but slow, and when it rolled around to the face side again the eyes were lookin right at me and I saw it was Michael Donovan, Vera's husband. The second time the face came around, though, it was my husband. It was Joe St George, with a mean grin on his face and a lot of long dust-teeth all snappin. The third time it rolled around it wasn't nobody I knew, but it was alive, it was hungry, and it meant to roll all the way over to where I was so it could eat me.