Dolores Claiborne(76)

Well, it broke the worst of my mood. I wa'ant scared anymore and I sure as shit didn't feel weepy anymore. I was good n pissed off, but not s'mad I couldn't think, or understand why folks were doin the things they were doin. When my anger tried to take me past that place, I stopped it happenin by thinkin of Sammy Marchant, how his eyes had looked as he knelt there on the stairs lookin first at that rollin pin and then up at me - as dark as the ocean just ahead of a squall-line, they were, like Selena's had been that day in the garden.

I already knew I was gonna have to come back down here, Andy, but it was only after those men left that I quit kiddin myself that I could still pick n choose what I was gonna tell or hold back. I saw I was gonna have to make a clean breast of everything. I went back to bed n slept peaceful until quarter of nine in the morning. It's the latest I've slept since before I was married. I guess I was gettin rested up so I could talk the whole friggin night.

Once I was up, I meant to do it just as soon's I could - bitter medicine is best taken right away - but somethin put me off my track before I could get out of the house, or I would've ended up tellin you all this a lot sooner.

I took a bath, and before I got dressed I put the telephone plug back in the wall. It wasn't night anymore, and I wasn't half in n half out of some dream anymore. I figured if someone wanted to phone up and call me names, I'd dish out a few names of my own startin with 'yellowbelly' n 'dirty no-name sneak.' Sure enough, I hadn't done more'n roll on my stockins before it did ring. I picked it up, ready to give whoever was on the other end a good dose of what-for, when this woman's voice said, 'Hello? May I speak to Miz Dolores Claiborne?'

I knew right away it was long distance, n not just because of the little echo we get out here when the call's from away. I knew because nobody on the island calls women Miz. You might be a Miss n you might be a Missus, but Miz still ain't made it across the reach, except once a month on the magazine rack down to the drugstore.

'Speakin,' I says.

'This is Alan Greenbush callin,' she says.

'Funny,' I says, pert's you please, 'you don't sound like an Alan Greenbush.'

'It's his office calling,' she says, like I was about the dumbest thing she ever heard of. 'Will you hold for Mr Greenbush?'

She caught me so by surprise the name didn't sink in at first - I knew I'd heard it before, but I didn't know where.

'What's it concernin?' I ast.

There was a pause, like she wasn't really s'posed to let that sort of information out, and then she said,

'I believe it concerns Mrs Vera Donovan. Will you hold, Miz Claiborne?'

Then it clicked in - Greenbush, who sent her all the padded envelopes registered mail.

'Ayuh,' I says.

'Pardon me?' she says.

'I'll hold,' I says.

'Thank you,' she says back. There was a click n I was left for a little while standin there in my underwear, waitin. It wasn't long but it seemed long. Just before he came on the line, it occurred to me that it must be about the times I'd signed Vera's name -they'd caught me. It seemed likely enough; ain't you ever noticed how when one thing goes wrong, everythin else seems to go wrong right behind it?

Then he come on the line. 'Miz Claiborne?' he says.

'Yes, this is Dolores Claiborne,' I told him.

'The local law enforcement official on Little Tall Island called me yesterday afternoon and informed me that Vera Donovan had passed away,' he said. 'It was quite late when I received the call, and so I decided to wait until this morning to telephone you.'

I thought of tellin him there was folks on the island not so particular about what time they called me, but accourse I didn't.

He cleared his throat, then said, 'I had a letter from Mrs Donovan five years ago, specifically instructing me to give you certain information concerning her estate within twenty-four hours of her passing.' He cleared his throat again n said, 'Although I have spoken to her on the phone frequently since then, that was the last actual letter I received from her.' He had a dry, fussy kind of voice. The kind of voice that when it tells you some-thin, you can't not hear it.

'What are you talkin about, man?' I ast. 'Quit all this backin and fillin and tell me!'

He says, 'I'm pleased to inform you that, aside from a small bequest to The New England Home for Little Wanderers, you are the sole beneficiary of Mrs Donovan's will.'

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and all I could think of was how she'd caught onto the vacuum cleaner trick after awhile.

'You'll receive a confirming telegram later today,' he says, 'but I'm very glad to have spoken to you well before its arrival - Mrs Donovan was very emphatic about her desires in this matter.'

'Ayuh,' I says, 'she could be emphatic, all right.'

'I'm sure you're grieved at Mrs Donovan's passing - we all are - but I want you to know that you are going to be a very wealthy woman, and if I can do anything at all to assist you in your new circumstances, I would be as happy to do so as I was to assist Mrs Donovan. Of course I'll be calling to give you updates on the progress of the will through probate, but I really don't expect any problems or delays. In fact -'Whoa on, chummy,' I says, n it came out in a kind of croak. Sounded quite a bit like a frog in a dry pond. 'How much money are you talkin about?'