Dolores Claiborne

    We had supper just like usual, and watched the TV just like usual afterward, me and the big kids on the sofa and Little Pete on his father's lap in the big easy-chair. Pete dozed off there, same as he almost always did, around seven-thirty, and Joe carried him to bed. I sent Joe Junior an hour later, and Selena went at nine. I usually turned in around ten and Joe'd sit up until maybe midnight, dozin in and out, watchin a little TV, readin parts of the paper he'd missed the first time, and pickin his nose. So you see, Frank, you're not so bad; some people never lose the habit, even when they grow up.

    That night I didn't go to bed when I usually did. I sat up with Joe instead. My back felt a little better. Good enough to do what I had to do, anyway. Maybe I was nervous about it, but if I was, I don't recall. I was mostly waitin for him to doze off, and finally he did.

    I got up, went into the kitchen, and got the little cream-pitcher off the table. I didn't go out lookin for that special; it was only there because it was Joe Junior's night to clean off the table and he'd forgotten to put it in the refrigerator. Joe Junior always forgot something-to put away the cream-pitcher, to put the glass top on the butter dish, to fold the bread-wrapper under so the first slice wouldn't get all hard overnight-and now when I see him on the TV news, makin a speech or givin an interview, that's what I'm most apt to think about… and I wonder what the Democrats would think if they knew the Majority Leader of the Maine State Senate couldn't never manage to get the kitchen table completely cleared off when he was eleven. I'm proud of him, though, and don't you ever, ever think any different. I'm proud of him even if he is a goddam Democrat.

    Anyway, he sure managed to forget the right thing that night; it was little but it was heavy, and it felt just right in my hand. I went over to the wood-box and got the short-handled hatchet we kep on the shelf just above it. Then I walked back into the livin room where he was dozin. I had the pitcher cupped in my right hand, and I just brought it down and around and smacked it against the side of his face. It broke into about a thousand pieces.

    He sat up pretty pert when I done that, Andy. And you shoulda heard him. Loud? Father God and Sonny Jesus! Sounded like a bull with his pizzle caught in the garden gate. His eyes come wide open and he clapped his hand to his ear, which was already bleedin. There was little dots of clotted cream on his cheek and in that scraggle down the side of his face he called a sideburn.

    “Guess what, Joe?” I says. “I ain't feelin tired anymore.

    I heard Selena jump outta bed, but I didn't dare look around. I could have been in hot water if I'd done that-when he wanted to, he could be sneakyfast. I'd been holdin the hatchet in my left hand, down to my side with my apron almost coverin it. And when Joe started to get up outta his chair, I brought it out and showed it to him. “If you don't want this in your head, Joe, you better sit down again,” I said.

    For a second I thought he was gonna get up anyway. If he had, that would have been the end of him right then, because I wasn't kiddin. He seen it, too, and froze with his butt about five inches off the seat.

    “Mommy?” Selena called from the doorway of her room.

    “You go on back to bed, honey,” I says, not takin my eyes off Joe for a single second. “Your father n I're havin a little discussion here.”

    “Is everything all right?”

    “Ayuh,” I says. “Isn't it, Joe?”

    “Uh-huh,” he says. “Right as rain.

    I heard her take a few steps back, but I didn't hear the door of her room close for a little while-ten, maybe fifteen seconds-and I knew she was standin there and lookin at us. Joe stayed just like he was, with one hand on the arm of his chair and his butt hiked up offa the seat. Then we heard her door close, and that seemed to make Joe realize how foolish he must look, half in his seat and half out of it, with his other hand clapped over his ear and little clots of cream dribblin down the side of his face.

    He sat all the way down and took his hand away. Both it and his ear were full of blood, but his hand wasn't swellin up and his ear was. “Oh bitch, ain't you gonna get a payback,” he says.

    “Am I?” I told him. “Well then, you better remember this, Joe St George: what you pay out to me, you are gonna get back double.”

    He was grinnin at me like he couldn't believe what he was hearin. “Why, I guess I'll just have to kill you, then, won't I?”

    I handed over the hatchet to him almost before the words were out of his mouth. It hadn't been in my mind to do it, but as soon as I seen him holdin it, I knew it was the only thing I coulda done.

    “Go on,” I says. “Just make the first one count so's I don't have to suffer.”

    He looked from me to the hatchet and then back to me again. The look of surprise on his face would have been comical if the business hadn't been so serious.