Dolores Claiborne(49)

'That's my Joe,' I says. 'Always cheery, always charitable.'

He looked around at me, still holdin that bottle of Scotch curled against his chest like a bear with a chunk of honeycomb. 'What in the name of Christ are you runnin on about, woman?'

'Nothin,' I says. 'I'm going inside to fix the food - a sandwich for you and some hors d'oeuvres for me. Then we'll sit n have a couple of drinks n watch the eclipse - Vera sent down a viewer and a reflector-box thingamajig for each of us - and when it's over, I'll tell you what's got me feeling so happy. It's a surprise.'

'I don't like f**king surprises,' he says.

'I know you don't,' I told him. 'But you'll get a kick out of this one, Joe. You'd never guess it in a thousand years.' Then I went into the kitchen so he could really get started on that bottle I'd bought him at the greenfront. I wanted him to enjoy it - I really did. After all, it was the last liquor he was ever gonna drink. He wouldn't need AA to keep him off the sauce, either. Not where he was goin.

That was the longest afternoon of my life, and the strangest, too. There he was, sittin on the porch in his rocker, holdin the paper in one hand and a drink in the other, bitchin in the open kitchen window at me about somethin the Democrats were tryin to do down in Augusta. He'd forgot all about tryin to find out what I was happy about, and all about the eclipse, as well. I was in the kitchen, makin him a sandwich, hummin a tune, and thinkin, 'Make it good, Dolores - put on some of that red onion he likes and just enough mustard to make it tangy. Make it good, cause it's the last thing he's ever gonna eat.'

From where I was standin, I could look out along the line of the woodshed and see the white rock and the edge of the blackberry tangle. The handkerchief I'd tied to the top of one of the bushes was still there; I could see that, too. It went noddin back n forth in the breeze. Every time it did, I thought of that spongy wellcap right under it.

I remember how the birds sang that afternoon, and how I could hear some of the people out on the reach yellin back and forth to each other, their voices all tiny and far - they sounded like voices on the radio. I can even remember what I was hummin:

'Amazin Grace, how sweet the sound.' I went on hummin it while I made my crackers n cheese (I didn't want em any more'n a hen wants a flag, but I didn't want Joe wonderin why I wasn't eatin, either).

It must have been quarter past two or so when I went back out on the porch with the tray of food balanced on one hand like a waitress and the bag Vera'd give me in the other. The sky was still overcast, but you could see it really had gotten quite a bit lighter.

That was a good little feed, as things turned out. Joe wasn't much for compliments, but I could see from the way he put down his paper n looked at his sandwich while he was eatin that he liked it. I thought of somethin I'd read in some book or saw in some movie: 'The condemned man ate a hearty meal.' Once I'd got that in my head, I couldn't get rid of the damned thing.

It didn't stop me from diggin into my own kip, though; once I got started, I kept goin until every one of those cheese-n-cracker things were gone, and I drank a whole bottle of Pepsi as well. Once or twice I found myself wonderin if most executioners have good appetites on the days when they have to do their job. It's funny what a person's mind will get up to when that person's nervin herself up to do somethin, isn't it?

The sun broke through the clouds just as we were finishin up. I thought of what Vera'd told me that mornin, looked down at my watch, and smiled. It was three o'clock, right on the button. About that same time, Dave Pelletier - he delivered mail on the island back in those days - drove back toward town, hell bent for election and pullin a long rooster-tail of dust behind him. I didn't see another car on East Lane until long after dark.

I put the plates and my empty soda bottle on the tray, scoochin down to do it, n before I could stand up, Joe done somethin he hadn't done in years: put one of his hands on the back of my neck n give me a kiss. I've had better; his breath was all booze n onion n salami and he hadn't shaved, but it was a kiss just the same, and nothing mean or half-assed or peckish about it. It was just a nice kiss, n I couldn't remember the last time he'd give me one. I closed my eyes n let him do it. I remember that - closin my eyes and feelin his lips on mine and the sun on my forehead. One was as warm n nice as the other.

'That wa'ant half-bad, Dolores,' he said - high praise, comm from him.

I had a second there when I kinda wavered - I ain't gonna sit here and say different. It was a second when it wasn't Joe puttin his hands all over Selena that I saw, but the way his forehead looked in study-hall back in 1945 - how I saw that and wanted him to kiss me just the way he was kissin me now; how I thought, 'If he kissed me I'd reach up and touch the skin there on his brow while he did it . . . see if it's as smooth as it looks.'

I reached out my hand n touched it then, just like I'd dreamed of doin all those years before, when I'd been nothin but a green girl, and the minute I did, that inside eye opened wider' n ever. What it saw was how he'd go on if I let him go on - not just getfin what he wanted from Selena, or spendin the money he'd robbed out of his kids' bank accounts, but workin on em; belittlin Joe Junior for his good grades n his love of history; clappin Little Pete on the back whenever Pete called somebody a sheeny or said one of his classmates was lazy as a nigger; workin on em; always workin on em. He'd go on until they were broke or spoiled, if I let him, and in the end he'd die n leave us with nothin but bills and a hole to bury him in.