Dolores Claiborne(69)

Not that I expected to; I'm sixty-five, and I've known for at least fifty of those years that most of what bein human's about is makin choices and payin the bills when they come due. Some of the choices are pretty goddam nasty, but that don't give a person leave to just walk away from em - especially not if that person's got others dependin on her to do for em what they can't do for themselves. In a case like that, you just have to make the best choice you can n then pay the price. For me, the price was a lot of nights when I woke up in a cold sweat from bad dreams n even more when I never got to sleep at all; that and the sound the rock made when it hit him in the face, bustin his skull and his dentures -that sound like a china plate on a brick hearth. I've heard it for thirty years. Sometimes it's what wakes me up, and sometimes it's what keeps me outta sleep and sometimes it surprises me in broad daylight. I might be sweepin the porch at home or polishin the silver at Vera's or sittin down to my lunch with the TV turned to the Oprah show and all at once I'll hear it. That sound. Or the thud when he hit bottom. Or his voice, comm up outta the well:

'Duh-lorrrr-issss .

I don't s'pose those sounds I sometimes hear are so different from whatever it was that Vera really saw when she screamed about the wires in the corners or the dust bunnies under the bed. There were times, especially after she really began to fail, when I'd crawl in bed with her n hold her n think of the sound the rock made, n then close my eyes n see a china plate strikin a brick hearth and shatterin all to bits. When I saw that I'd hug her like she was my sister, or like she was myself. We'd lie in that bed, each with her own fright, and finally we'd drowse off together - her with me to keep the dust bunnies away, and me with her to keep away the sound of the china plate - and sometimes before I went to sleep I'd think, 'This is how. This is how you pay off bein a bitch. And it ain't no use saym if you hadn't been a bitch you wouldn't've had to pay, because sometimes the world makes you be a bitch. When it's all doom n dark outside and only you inside to first make a light n then tend it, you have to be a bitch. But oh, the price. The terrible price.'

Andy, do you s'pose I could have one more tiny little nip from that bottle of yours? I'll never tell a soul.

Thank you. And thank you, Nancy Bannister, for puttin up with such a long-winded old broad as me. How your fingers holdin out?

Are they? Good. Don't lose your courage now; I've gone at it widdershins, I know, but I guess I've finally gotten around to the part you really want to hear about, just the same. That's good, because it's late and I'm tired. I've been workin my whole life, but I can't remember ever bein as tired as I am right now.

I was out hangin laundry yest'y mornin - it seems like six years ago, but it was only yest'y - and Vera was havin one of her bright days. That's why it was all so unexpected, and partly why I got so flustered. When she had her bright days she sometimes got bitchy, but that was the first n last time she got crazy.

So I was down below in the side yard and she was up above in her wheelchair, supervisin the operation the way she liked to do. Every now n then she'd holler down, 'Six pins, Dolores! Six pins on every last one of those sheets! Don't you try to get away with just four, because I'm watching!'

'Yeah,' I says, 'I know, and I bet you only wish it was forty degrees colder and a twenty-knot gale blowin.'

'What?' she caws down at me. 'What did you say, Dolores Claiborne?'

'I said someone must be spreadin manure in their garden,' I says, 'because I smell a lot more bullshit around here than usual.'

'Are you being smart, Dolores?' she calls back in her cracked, wavery voice.

She sounded about like she did on any day when a few more sunbeams than usual was findin their way into her attic. I knew she might get up to mischief later on, but I didn't much care - right then I was just glad to hear her makin as much sense as she was. To tell you the truth, it seemed like old times. She'd been number'n a pounded thumb for the last three or four months, and it was sorta nice to have her back. . . or as much of the old Vera as was ever gonna come back, if you see what I mean.

'No, Vera,' I called up to her. 'If I'd been smart, I'd've gotten done workin for you a long time ago.'

I expected her to yell somethin else down at me then, but she never. So I went on hangin up her sheets n her diapers n her warshcloths n all the rest. Then, with half the basket still to do, I stopped. I had a bad feeling. I can't say why, or even where it started. All at once it was just there. And for just a moment the strangest thought came to me: 'That girl's in trouble. . . the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She's all grown up now, almost Selena's age, but she's in terrible trouble.'

I turned around n looked up, almost expectin to see the grownup version of that little girl in her bright striped dress n pink lipstick, but I didn't see nobody, and that was wrong. It was wrong because Vera should have been there, just about hangin out onto the roof to make sure I used the right number of clothespins. But she was gone, and I didn't understand how that could be, because I'd put her in her chair myself, and then set the brake once I had it by the window the way she liked.

Then I heard her scream.

'Duh-lorrrrr-isss!'

Such a chill ran up my back when I heard that, Andy! It was like Joe had come back. For a moment I was just frozen to the spot. Then she screamed again, and that second time I recognized it was her.