Dolores Claiborne(36)

'Well,' he says, 'that's the good part. The bad part is that the new account is in his name only.'

'Accourse it is,' I said. 'He sure didn't give me no new passbook account card to sign. That woulda tipped me off to his little game, wouldn't it?'

'Many women wouldn't know one way or the other,' he says. He cleared his throat, gave a yank on his tie, then looked around quick to see who'd come in when the bell over the door jingled. 'Many women sign anything their husbands put in front of them.'

'Well, I ain't many women,' I says.

'I've noticed,' he says back, kinda dry. 'Anyway, I've done what you asked, and now I really have to get back to the bank. I wish I had time to drink a coffee with you.'

'You know,' I says, 'I kinda doubt that.'

'Actually, so do I,' he says back. But he gave me his hand to shake, just like I was another man, and I took that as a bit of a compliment. I sat where I was until he was gone, and when the girl came back n asked me if I wanted a fresh cup of coffee, I told her no thanks, I had the acid indigestion from the first one. I had it, all right, but it wasn't the coffee that give it to me.

A person can always find somethin to be grateful for, no matter how dark things get, and goin back on the ferry, I was grateful that at least I hadn't packed nothing; this way I didn't have all that work to undo again. I was glad I hadn't told Selena, either. I'd set out to, but in the end I was afraid the secret might be too much for her and she'd tell one of her friends and word might get back to Joe that way. It had even crossed my mind that she might get stubborn and say she didn't want to go. I didn't think that was likely, not the way she flinched back from Joe whenever he came close to her, but when it's a teenage girl you're dealin with, anythin's possible -anythin at all.

So I had a few blessings to count, but no idears. I couldn't very well take the money outta the joint savings account me n Joe had; there was about forty-six dollars in it, and our checkin account was an even bigger laugh - if we weren't overdrawn, we were damned close. I wasn't gonna just grab the kids up and go off, though; no sir and no ma'am. If I did that, Joe'd spend the money just for spite. I knew that as well's I knew my own name. He'd already managed to get through three hundred dollars of it, accordin to Mr Pease . . . and of the three thousand or so left, I'd put at least twentyfive hundred away myself - I earned it scrubbin floors and warshin windows and hangin out that damned bitch Vera Donovan's sheets - six pins, not just four - all summer long. It wasn't as bad then as it turned out to be in the wintertime, but it still wasn't no day in the park, not by a long shot.

Me n the kids were still gonna go, my mind was made up on that score, but I was damned if we was gonna go broke. I meant my children to have their money. Goin back to the island, standin on the foredeck of the Princess with a fresh open-water wind cuttin itself in two on my face and blowin my hair back from my temples, I knew I was going to get that money out of him again. The only thing I didn't know was how.

Life went on. If you only looked at the top of things, it didn't look like anything had changed. Things never do seem to change much on the island if you only look at the top of things, that is. But there's lots more to a life than what a body can see on top, and for me, at least, the things underneath seemed completely different that fall. The way I saw things had changed, and I s'pose that was the biggest part of it. I'm not just talkin about that third eye now; by the time Little Pete's paper witch had been taken down and his pitchers of turkeys and Pilgrims had gone up, I was seem all I needed to with my two good natural eyes.

The greedy, piggy way Joe'd watch Selena sometimes when she was in her robe, for instance, or how he'd look at her butt if she bent over to get a dishcloth out from under the sink. The way she'd swing wide of him when he was in his chair and she was crossin the livin room to get to her room; how she'd try to make sure her hand never touched his when she passed him a dish at the supper-table. It made my heart ache for shame and pity, but it also made me so mad that I went around most days feelin sick to my stomach. He was her father, for Christ's sake, his blood was runnin in her veins, she had his black Irish hair and double-jointed little fingers but his eyes'd get all big and round if her bra-strap so much as fell down the side of her arm.

I seen the way Joe Junior also swung wide of him, and wouldn't answer what Joe asked him if he could get away without doin it, and answered in a mutter when he couldn't. I remember the day Joe Junior brought me his report on President Roosevelt when he got it back from the teacher. She'd marked it A-plus and wrote on the front that it was the only A-plus she'd given a history paper in twenty years of teachin, and she thought it might be good enough to get published in a newspaper. I asked Joe Junior if he'd like to try sendin it to the Ellsworth American or maybe the Bar Harbor Times. I said I'd be glad to pay for the postage. He just shook his head and laughed. It wasn't a laugh I liked much; it was hard n cynical, like his father's. 'And have him on my back for the next six months?' he asks. 'No thanks. Haven't you ever heard Dad call him Franklin D. Sheenyvelt?'

I can see him now, Andy, only twelve but already purt-near six feet tall, standin on the back porch with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, lookin down at me as I held his report with the A-plus on it. I remember the little tiny smile on the corners of his mouth. There was no good will in that smile, no good humor, no happiness. It was his father's smile, although I could never have told the boy that.