Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King [102]
Holy Christ, he says, then ran past me into the house with his mailbag floppin against one hip. It never crossed my mind to try n keep him out, and ask y'self this: what good would it have done if I had?
I followed him slow. That glassy feelin was goin away, but it seemed like my shoes had grown themselves lead soles. When I got to the foot of the stairs Sammy was halfway up em, kneelin beside Vera. He'd taken off his mailbag before he knelt, and it'd fallen most of the way back down the stairs, spillin letters n Bangor Hydro bills n L. L. Bean catalogues from hell to breakfast.
I climbed up to him, draggin my feet from one stair to the next. I ain't ever felt s'tired. Not even after I killed Joe did I feel as tired as I felt yest'y mornin.
She's dead, all right, he says, lookin around.
Ayuh, I says back. Told you she was.
I thought she couldn't walk, he says. You always told me she couldn't walk, Dolores.
Well, I says, I guess I was wrong. I felt stupid sayin a thing like that with her layin there like she was, but what the hell else was there to say? In some ways it was easier talkin to John McAuliffe than to poor dumb Sammy Marchant, because I'd done pretty much what McAuliffe suspected I'd done. The trouble with bein innocent is you're more or less stuck with the truth.
What's this? he asks then, n pointed at the rollin pin. I'd left it sittin on the stair when the doorbell rang.
What do you think it is? I ast him right back. A birdcage?
Looks like a rollin pin, he says.
That's pretty good, I says. It seemed like I was hearin my own voice comm from far away, as if it was in one place n the rest of me was someplace else. You may surprise em all n turn out to be college material after all, Sammy.
Yeah, but what's a rollin pin doin on the stairs? he asked, and all at once I saw the way he was lookin at me. Sammy ain't a day over twenty-five, but his Dad was in the search-party that found Joe, and I all at once realized that Duke Marchant'd probably raised Sammy and all the rest of his not-too-brights on the notion that Dolores Claiborne St George had done away with her old man. You remember me sayin that when you're innocent you're more or less stuck with the truth? Well, when I seen the way Sammy was lookin at me, I all at once decided this might be a time when less'd be quite a bit safer'n more.
I was in the kitchen gettin ready to make bread when she fell, I said. Another thing about bein innocent any lies you do decide to tell are mostly unplanned lies; innocent folks don't spend hours workin out their stories, like I worked out mine about how I went up to Russian Meadow to watch the eclipse and never seen my husband again until I saw him in the Mercier Funeral Home. The minute that lie about makin bread was out of my mouth I knew it was apt to kick back on me, but if you'd seen the look in his eyes, Andy-dark n suspicious n scared, all at once-you might've lied, too.
He got to his feet, started to turn around, then stopped right where he was, lookin up. I followed his gaze. What I seen was my slip, crumpled up in a ball on the landin.
I guess she took her slip off before she fell, he said, lookin back at me again. Or jumped. Or whatever the hell it was she did. Do you think so, Dolores?
No, I says, that's mine.
If you were makin bread in the kitchen, he says, talkin real slow, then what's your underwear doin up on the landin?
I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Sammy took one step back down the stairs n then another, movin as slow's he talked, holdin the bannister, never takin his eyes off me, and all at once I understood what he was doin: makin space between us. Doin it because he was afraid I might take it into my head to push him like he thought I'd pushed her. It was right then that I knew I'd be sittin here where I'm sittin before too much time passed, and tellin what I'm tellin. His eyes might as well have been speakin right out loud, sayin, You got away with it once, Dolores Claiborne, and considerin the kind of man my Dad says Joe St George was,