Dolores Claiborne(29)

I'd think of that - of seem the thought of suicide in my daughter's eyes - and then I'd see Joe's face even clearer with that eye inside me. I'd see how he must've looked, pesterin her and pesterin her, tryin to get a hand up under her skirt until she wore nothin but jeans in self-defense, not gettin what he wanted (or not all of what he wanted) because of simple luck, her good n his bad, and not for any lack of tryin. I thought about what might've happened if Joe Junior hadn't cut his playin with Willy Bramhall short a few times n come home early, or if I hadn't finally opened my eyes enough to get a really good look at her. Most of all I thought about how he'd driven her. He'd done it the way a bad-hearted man with a quirt or a greenwood stick might drive a horse, and never stop once, not for love and not for pity, until that animal lay dead at his feet . . . and him prob'ly standin above it with the stick in his hand, wonderin why in hell that happened. This was where wantin to touch his forehead, wantin to see if it felt as smooth as it looked, had gotten me; this was where it all came out. My eyes were all the way open, and I saw I was livin with a loveless, pitiless man who believed anything he could reach with his arm and grasp with his hand was his to take, even his own daughter.

I'd got just about that far in my thinkin when the thought of killin him crossed my mind for the first time. That wasn't when I made up my mind to do it - gorry, no - but I'd be a liar if I said the thought was only a daydream. It was a lot more than that.

Selena must've seen some of that in my eyes, because she laid her hand on my arm and says, 'Is there going to be trouble, Mommy? Please say there isn't - he'll know I told, and he'll be mad!'

I wanted to soothe her heart by tellin her what she wanted to hear, but I couldn't. There was going to be trouble - just how much and how bad would probably be up to Joe. He'd backed down the night I hit him with the creamer, but that didn't mean he would again.

'I don't know what's going to happen,' I said, 'but I'll tell you two things, Selena: none of this is your fault, and his days of pawin and pesterin you are over. Do you understand?'

Her eyes filled up with tears again, and one of em spilled over and rolled down her cheek. 'I just don't want there to be trouble,' she said. She stopped a minute, her mouth workin, and then she busts out:

'Oh, I hate this! Why did you ever hit him? Why did he ever have to start up with me? Why couldn't things stay like they were?'

I took her hand. 'Things never do, honey - sometimes they go wrong, and then they have to be fixed. You know that, don't you?'

She nodded her head. I saw pain in her face, but no doubt. 'Yes,' she said. 'I guess I do.'

Chapter Seven

We were comm into the dock then, and there was no more time for talk. I was just as glad; I didn't want her lookin at me with those tearful eyes of hers, wantin what I guess every kid wants, for everything to be made right but with no pain and nobody hurt. Wantin me to make promises I couldn't make, because they were promises I didn't know if I could keep. I wasn't sure that inside eye would let me keep em. We got off the ferry without another word passin between us, and that was just as fine as paint with me.

That evenin, after Joe got home from the Carstairs place where he was buildin a back porch, I sent all three kids down to the market. I saw Selena castin little glances back at me all the way down the drive, and her face was just as pale as a glass of milk. Every time she turned her head, Andy, I saw that double-damned hatchet in her eyes. But I saw somethin else in them, too, and I believe that other thing was relief. At least things are gonna quit just goin around n around like they have been, she musta been thinkin; scared as she was, I think part of her musta been thinkin that.

Joe was sittin by the stove readin the American, like he done every night. I stood by the woodbox, lookin at him, and that eye inside seemed to open wider'n ever. Lookit him, I thought, sittin there like the Grand High Poobah of Upper Butt-Crack. Sittin there like he didn't have to put on his pants one leg at a time like the rest of us. Sittin there as if puttin his hands all over his only daughter was the most natural thing in all the world and any man could sleep easy after doin it. I tried to think of how we'd gotten from the Junior-Senior Prom at The Samoset Inn to where we were right now, him sittin by the stove and readin the paper in his old patched blue-jeans and dirty thermal undershirt and me standin by the woodbox with murder in my heart, and I couldn't do it. It was like bein in a magic forest where you look back over your shoulder and see the path has disappeared behind you.

Meantime, that inside eye saw more n more. It saw the crisscross scars on his ear from when I hit him with the creamer; it saw the squiggly little veins in his nose; it saw the way his lower lip pooched out so he almost always looked like he was havin a fit of the sulks; it saw the dandruff in his eyebrows and the way he'd pull at the hairs growin out of his nose or give his pants a good tug at the crotch every now and then.

All the things that eye saw were bad, and it come to me that marryin him had been a lot more than the biggest mistake of my life; it was the only mistake that really mattered, because it wasn't just me that would end up payin for it. It was Selena he was occupied with then, but there were two boys comm along right behind her, and if he wouldn't stop at tryin to rape their big sister, what might he do to them?

I turned my head and that eye inside saw the hatchet, layin on the shelf over the woodbox just the same as always. I reached out for it n closed my fingers around the handle, thinkin, I ain't just going to put it in your hand this time, Joe. Then I thought of Selena turnin back to look at me as the three of em walked down the driveway, and I decided that whatever happened, the goddam hatchet wasn't going to be any part of it. I bent down and took a chunk of rock maple out of the woodbox instead.