Dolores Claiborne

    “I'm sorry, Dolores,” she says. She started to blubber, but I saw that mean little light dancing way down in her eyes. I saw it the way you can sometimes see fish in clear water when you get up on your knees in a boat and look over the side. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make a mess, I was just trying to help. “ That's what she always said when she shit the bed and then squooshed around in it a little, although that day was the first time she ever decided to fingerpaint with it as well. I was just tryin to help, Dolores-Jesus wept.

    “Sit there and shut up,” I said. “If you really don't want a fast ride over to that window and an even faster one down to the rock garden, you best mind what I say. “ And those girls down there at the foot of the stairs, I have no doubt at all, listenin to every word we was sayin. But right then I was too goddam mad to think about anythin like that.

    She had enough sense to shut up like I told her, but she looked satisfied, and why not? She'd done what she set out to do-this time it was her who'd won the battle, and made it clear as windowglass that the war wasn't over, not by a long chalk. I went to work, cleaning and settin the place to rights again. It took the best part of two hours, and by the time I was done, my back was singin “Ave Maria”.

    I told you about the sheets, how that was, and I could see by your faces that you understood some of that. It's harder to understand about her messes. I mean, shit don't cross my eyes. I been wipin it up all my life and the sight of it never crossed my eyes. It don't smell like a flower-garden, accourse, and you have to be careful of it because it carries disease just like snot and spit and spilled blood, but it warshes off, you know. Anyone who's ever had a baby knows that shit warshes off. So that wasn't what made it so bad.

    I think it was that she was so mean about it. So made the worst mess she could, and she did it just as fast as she could, because she knew I wouldn't give her long. She did that nasty thing on purpose, do you see what I'm gettin at? As far as her fogged-in brain would let her, she planned it out, and that weighed on my heart and darkened my outlook while I was cleanin up after her. While I was strippin the bed; while I was takin the shitty mattress pad and the shitty sheets and the shitty pillowslips down to the laundry chute; while I was scrubbin the floor, and the walls, and the windowpanes; while I was takin down the curtains and put-tin up fresh ones, while I was makin her bed again; while I was grittin my teeth n tryin to keep my back locked in place while I cleaned her up n got a fresh nightgown on her n then hossed her outta the chair and back into bed again (and her not helpin a bit but just bum there in my arms, dead weight, although I know damn well that was one of the days when she could have helped, if she'd wanted to); while I was warshin the floor; while I was warshin off her god-dam wheelchair, and really havin t'scrub by then because the stuff was dried on-while I was doin all that, my heart was low and my outlook was darkened. She knew it, too.

    She knew it and it made her happy.

    When I went home that night I took some Anacin-3 for my aching back and then I went to bed and I curled up in a little ball even though that hurt my back, too, and I cried and cried and cried. It seemed like I couldn't stop. Never-at least since the old business with Joe-have I felt so downhearted and hopeless. Or so friggin old.

    That was the second way she had of bein a bitch-by bein mean.

    What say, Frank? Did she do it again?

    You're damned tooting. She did it again the next week, and the week after that. It wasn't as bad as that first adventure either time, partly because she wasn't able to save up such a dividend, but mostly because I was prepared for it. I went to bed crying again after the second time it happened, though, and as I lay there in bed feeling that misery way down low in my back, I made up my mind to quit. I didn't know what'd happen to her or who would take care of her, but right then I didn't care a fiddlyfuck. As far as I was concerned, she could starve to death layin in her own shitty bed.

    I was still crying when I fell off to sleep, because the idear of quittin-of her gettin the best of me-made me feel worse'n ever, but when I woke up, I felt good. I guess it's true how a person's mind doesn't go to sleep even if a person thinks it does; it just goes on thinkin,-and sometimes it does an even better job when the person in charge isn't there to frig it up with the usual run of chatter that goes on in a body's head-chores to do, what to have for lunch, what to watch on TV, things like that. It must be true, because the reason I felt so good was that I woke up knowin how she was foolin me. The only reason I hadn't seen it before was because I was apt to underestimate her-ayuh, even me, and I knew how sly she could be from time to time. And once I understood the trick, I knew what to do about it.