Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King [52]
In 1961 things started out just as they had all those other years, even though her husband had died in that car-crash the year before-she n the kids showed up on Memorial Day and Vera went to work knittin n doin jigsaw puzzles, collectin shells, smokin cigarettes, and havin her special Vera Donovan brand of cocktail hour, which started at five and finished around nine-thirty. But it wasn't the same, even I could see that, n I was only the hired help.
The kids were drawn-in and quiet, still mournin their Dad, I guess, and not long after the Fourth of July, the three of em had a real wowser of an argument while they were eatin at The Harborside. I remember Jimmy DeWitt, who waited table there back then, sayin he thought it had somethin to do with the car.
Whatever it was, the kids left the next day. The hunky took em across to the mainland in the big motorboat they had, and I imagine some other hired hand grabbed onto em there. I ain't seen neither one of em since. Vera stayed. You could see she wasn't happy, but she stayed. That was a bad summer to be around her. She must have fired half a dozen temporary girls before Labor Day finally came, and when I seen the Princess leavin the dock with her on it, I thought, I bet we don't see her next summer, or not for as long. She'll mend her fences with her kids-she'll have to, they're all she's got now-and if they're sick of Little Tall, she'll bend to them and go somewheres else. After all, it's comm to be their time now, and she'll have to recognize that.
Which only shows you how little I knew Vera Donovan back then. As far as that kitty was concerned, she didn't have to recognize Jack Shit on a hill of beans if she didn't want to. She showed up on the ferry Memorial Day afternoon in 1962-by herself-and stayed right through until Labor Day. She came by herself, she hadn't a good word for me or anybody else, she was drinkin more'n ever and looked like death's Gramma most days, but she came n she stayed n she did her jigsaw puzzles n she went down-all by herself now-n collected her shells on the beach, just like she always had. Once she told me that she believed Donald and Helga would be spending August at Pinewood (which was what they always called the house; you prob'ly know that, Andy, but I doubt if Nancy does), but they never showed up.
It was durin 1962 that she started comm up regular right after Labor Day. She called in mid-October and asked me to open the house, which I did. She stayed three days-the hunky come with her, and stayed in the apartment over the garage-then left again. Before she did, she called me on the phone and told me to have Dougie Tappert check the furnace, and to leave the dust-sheets off the furniture. You'll be seeing a lot more of me now that my husband's affairs are finally settled, she says. P'raps more of me than you like, Dolores. And I hope you'll be seeing the children, too. But I heard somethin in her voice that makes me, think she knew that part was wishful thinkin, even back then.
She come the next time near the end of November, about a week after Thanksgivin, and she called right away, wantin me to vacuum and make up the beds. The kids weren't with her, accourse-this was durin the school week-but she said they might decide at the last minute to spend the weekend with her instead of in the boardin schools where they were. She prob'ly knew better, but Vera was a Girl Scout at heart-believed in bein prepared, she did.
I was able to come right away, that bein a slack time on the island for folks in my line of work. I trudged up there in a cold rain with my head down and my mind fumin away like it always did in the days after I found out what had happened to the kids money. My trip to the bank had been almost a whole month before, and it had been eatin away at me ever since, the way bat'try acid will eat a hole in your clothes or your skin if you get some on you.
I couldn't