Dolores Claiborne

    The first thing I noticed was that she wasn't comin home on the early ferry like she had at the end of most school-days the year before, although that had worked out real well for her-she was able to get her homework finished in her room before the boys showed up, then do a little cleanin or start supper. Instead of the two o'clock, she was takin the one that leaves the mainland at four-forty-five.

    When I asked her about it, she said she'd just decided she liked doin her homework in the study-hall after school, that was all, and gave me a funny little sidelong look that said she didn't want to talk about it anymore. I thought I saw shame in that look, and maybe a lie, as well. Those things worried me, but I made up my mind I wasn't going to push on with it no further unless I found out for sure something was wrong. Talking to her was hard, you see. I'd felt the distance that had come between us, and I had a pretty good idear what it all traced back to: Joe half outta his chair, bleedin, and me standin over him with the hatchet. And for the first time I realized that he'd prob'ly been talkin to her about that, and other things. Puttin his own spin on em, so to speak.

    I thought if I chaffed Selena too hard on why she was stayin late at school, my trouble with her might worse. Every way I thought of askin her more questions came out soundin like What have you been to, Selena, and if it sounded that way to me, a thirty-five-year-old woman, how was it gonna sound to a girl not quite fifteen? It's so hard to talk to kids when they're that age; you have to walk around em on tiptoe, the way you would a jar of nitroglycerine sittin on the floor.

    Well, they have a thing called Parents Night not long after school lets in, and I took special pains to get to it. I didn't do as much pussyfootin around with Selena's home-room teacher as I had with Selena herself; I just stepped right up n asked her if she knew any particular reason why Selena was stayin for the late ferry this year. The home-room teacher said she didn't know, but she guessed it was just so Selena could get her homework done. Well, I thought but didn't say, she was gettin her homework done just fine at the little desk in her room last year, so what's changed? I might have said it if I thought that teacher had any answers for me, but it was pretty clear she didn't. Hell, she was. probably scat-gone herself the minute the last bell of the day rung.

    None of the other teachers were any help, either. I listened to them praise Selena to the skies, which wa'ant hard work for me to do at all, and then I went back home again, feelin no further ahead than I'd been on my way over from the island.

    I got a window-seat inside the cabin of the ferry, and watched a boy n girl not much older'n Selena standin outside by the rail, holdin hands and watchin the moon rise over the ocean. He turned to her and said somethin that made her laugh up at him. You're a fool if you miss a chance like that, sonny-boy, I thought, but he didn't miss it-just leaned toward her, took her other hand, and kissed her as nice as you please. Gorry, ain't you foolish, I said to myself as I watched em. Either that or too old to remember what it's like to be fifteen, with every nerve in your body blastin off like a Roman candle all of the day and most of the night. Selena's met a boy, that's all. She's met a boy and they are probably doin their studies together in that room after school. Studyin each other more'n their books, most likely. I was some relieved, I can tell you.

    I thought about it over the next few days-one thing about warshin sheets and ironin shirts and vacuumin rugs, you always have lots of time to think-and the more I thought, the less relieved I was. She hadn't been talkin about any boy, for one thing, and it wasn't ever Selena's way to be quiet about what was goin on in her life. She wasn't as open and friendly with me as she'd been before, no, but it wasn't like there was a wall of silence between us, either. Besides, I'd always thought that if Selena fell in love, she'd probably take out an ad in the paper.

    The big thing-the scary thing-was the way her eyes looked to me. I've always noticed that when a girl's crazy about some boy, her eyes are apt to get so bright it's like someone turned on a flashlight behind there. When I looked for that light in Selena's eyes, it wasn't there… but that wasn't the bad part. The light that'd been there before had gone out of em, too-that was the bad part. Lookin into her eyes was like lookin at the windows of a house where the people have left without rememberin to pull down the shades.

    Seem that was what finally opened my eyes, and I began to notice all sorts of things I should have seen earlier-would have seen earlier, I think, if I hadn't been workin so hard, and if I hadn't been so convinced Selena was mad at me for hurtin her Dad that time.