Dolores Claiborne

“Joe?” she says. “Your Joe?”

“Ayuh.”

“No—I’ve never seen him up here. Why do you ask?”

“He didn’t come home last night.”

“Oh, Dolores!” she says, soundin horrified n int’rested at the same time. “Drinkin?”

“Coss,” I says. “Not that I’m really worried—this ain’t the first time he’s stayed out all night howlin at the moon. He’ll turn up; bad pennies always do.”

Then I hung up, feelin I’d done a pretty fair job plantin the first seed.

I made myself a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch, then couldn’t eat it. The smell of the cheese n fried bread made my stomach feel all hot n sweaty. I took two asp‘rins instead n laid down. I didn’t think I’d fall asleep, but I did. When I woke up it was almost four o’clock n time to plant a few more seeds. I called Joe’s friends—those few that had phones, that is—and asked each one if they’d seen him. He hadn’t come home last night, I said, he still wa‘ant home, and I was startin to get worried. They all told me no, accourse, and every one of em wanted to hear all the gory details, but the only one I said anything to was Tommy Anderson— prob’ly because I knew Joe’d bragged to Tommy before about how he kep his woman in line, and poor simple Tommy’d swallowed it. Even there I was careful not to overdo it; I just said me n Joe’d had an argument and Joe’d most likely gone off mad. I made a few more calls that evenin, includin a few to people I’d already called, and was happy to find that stories were already startin to spread.

I didn’t sleep very well that night; I had terrible dreams. One was about Joe. He was standin at the bottom of the well, lookin up at me with his white face and those dark circles above his nose that made him look like he’d pushed lumps of coal into his eyes. He said he was lonely, and kep beggin me to jump down into the well with him n keep him company.

The other one was worse, because it was about Selena. She was about four years old, n wearin the pink dress her Gramma Trisha bought her just before she died. Selena come up to me in the dooryard, I saw she had my sewin scissors in her hand.

I put out my hand for em, but she just shook her head. “It’s my fault and I’m the one who has to pay,” she said. Then she raised the scissors to her face and cut off her own nose with em—snip. It fell into the dirt between her little black patent-leather shoes n I woke up screamin. It was only four o’clock, but I was all done sleepin that night, and not too stupid to know it.

At seven I called Vera’s again. This time Kenopensky answered. I told him I knew Vera was expectin me that mornin, but I couldn’t come in, at least not til I found out where my husband was. I said he’d gone missin two nights, and one night out drunk had always been his limit before.

Near the end of our talk, Vera herself picked up on the extension and ast me what was goin on. “I seem to’ve misplaced my husband,” I said.

She didn’t say nothing for a few seconds, and I would’ve given a pie to know what she was thinkin of. Then she spoke up n said that if she’d been in my place, misplacin Joe St. George wouldn’t have bothered her at all.

“Well,” I says, “we’ve got three kids, and I’ve kind of got used to him. I’ll be in later on, if he turns up.”

“That’s fine,” she says, and then, “Are you still there, Ted?”

“Yes, Vera,” says he.

“Well, go do something manly,” she says. “Pound something in or push something over. I don’t care which.”

“Yes, Vera,” he repeats, and there was a little click on the line as he hung up.

Vera was quiet for a couple more seconds just the same. Then she says, “Maybe he’s had an accident, Dolores.”

“Yes,” I says, “it wouldn’t surprise me none. He’s been drinkin heavy the last few weeks, and when I tried to talk to him about the kids’ money on the day of the eclipse, he damned near choked the life outta me.”

“Oh—really?” she says. Another couple of seconds went by, and then she said, “Good luck, Dolores. ”

“Thanks,” I says. “I may need it.”

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

“That’s very kind,” I told her.

“Not at all,” she says back. “I’d simply hate to lose you. It’s hard to find help these days who don’t sweep the dirt under the carpets.”

Not to mention help that c’n remember to put the welcome mats back down pointin in the right direction, I thought but didn’t say. I only thanked her n hung up. I gave it another half hour, then I rang Garrett Thibodeau. Wasn’t nothin so fancy n modern as a police chief on Little Tall in those days; Garrett was the town constable. He took over the job when Edgar Sherrick had his stroke back in 1960.

I told him Joe hadn’t been home the last two nights, and I was gettin worried. Garrett sounded pretty muzzy—I don’t think he’d been up long enough to have gotten outside his first cup of coffee yet—but he said he’d contact the State Police on the mainland n check with a few people on the island. I knew they’d be all the same people I’d already called—twice, in some cases—but I didn’t say so. Garrett finished by sayin he was sure I’d see Joe by lunchtime. That’s right, you old fart, I thought, hangin up, and pigs’ll whistle. I guess that man did have brains enough to sing “Yankee Doodle” while he took a shit, but I doubt if he coulda remembered all the words.

It was a whole damned week before they found him, and I was half outta my mind before they did. Selena came back on Wednesday. I called her late Tuesday afternoon to say her father had gone missin and it was startin to look serious. I asked her if she wanted to come home n she said she did. Melissa Caron—Tanya’s mother, you know—went n fetched her. I left the boys right where they were—just dealin with Selena was enough for a start. She caught me out in my little vegetable garden on Thursday, still two days before they finally found Joe, and she says, “Mamma, tell me somethin.”

“All right, dear,” I says. I think I sounded calm enough, but I had a pretty good idear of what was comin—oh yes indeed.

“Did you do anything to him?” she asks.

All of a sudden my dream came back to me—Selena at four in her pretty pink dress, raisin up my sewin scissors and cuttin off her own nose. And I thought—prayed—“God, please help me lie to my daughter. Please, God. I’ll never ask You for nothing again if You’ll just help me lie to my daughter so she’ll believe me n never doubt.”

“No,” I says. I was wearin my gardenin gloves, but I took em off so I could put my bare hands on her shoulders. I looked her dead in the eye. “No, Selena,” I told her. “He was drunk n ugly n he choked me hard enough to leave these bruises on my neck, but I didn’t do nothing to him. All I did was leave, n I did that because I was scairt to stay. You can understand that, can’t you? Understand and not blame me? You know what it’s like, to be scairt of him. Don’t you?”

She nodded, but her eyes never left mine. They were a darker blue than I’ve ever seen em—the color of the ocean just ahead of a squall-line. In my mind’s eye I saw the blades of the scissors flashin, and her little button of a nose fallin plop into the dust. And I’ll tell you what I think—I think God granted half my prayer that day. It’s how He usually answers em, I’ve noticed. No lie I told about Joe later was any better’n the one I told Selena that hot July afternoon amongst the beans n cukes… but did she believe me? Believe me n never doubt? As much as I’d like to think the answer to that is yes, I can’t. It was doubt that made her eyes so dark, then n ever after.

“The worst I’m guilty of,” I says, “is buyin him a bottle of booze—of tryin to bribe him to be nice—when I shoulda known better.”

She looked at me a minute longer, then bent down n took hold of the bag of cucumbers I’d picked. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take these in the house for you.”

And that was all. We never spoke of it again, not before they found him n not after. She must have heard plenty of talk about me, both on the island and at school, but we never spoke of it again. That was when the coldness started to come in, though, that afternoon in the garden. And when the first crack in the wall families put between themselves n the rest of the world showed up between us. Since then it’s only gotten wider n wider. She calls and writes me just as regular as clockwork, she’s good about that, but we’re apart just the same. We’re estranged. What I did was mostly done for Selena, not for the boys or because of the money her Dad tried to steal. It was mostly for Selena that I led him on to his death, and all it cost me to protect her from him was the deepest part of her love for me. I once heard my own Dad say God pitched a bitch on the day He made the world, and over the years I’ve come to understand what he meant. And do you know the worst of it? Sometimes it’s funny.