Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    It hurt me to know I’d have to trust one of the Thursday girls to vacuum the Aubusson—and the idear of Shawna Wyndham doin it gave me what my grampa used to call the shiverin hits. You know how gormy she is, Andy—all the Wyndhams are gormy, accourse, but she’s got the rest of em beat seven ways to downtown. It’s like she grows bumps right out of her body to knock things over with when she goes by em. It ain’t her fault, it’s somethin in the blood, but I couldn’t bear thinkin of Shawna chargin around in the parlor, with all of Vera’s carnival glass and Tiffany just beggin to be knocked over.
    Still, I had to do somethin —fool me twice, shame on me—and luckily there was Susy to fall back on. She wa’ant no ballerina, but it was her vacuumed the Aubusson for the next year, and she never broke a thing. She’s a good girl, Frank, and I can’t tell you how glad I was to get that weddin announcement from her, even if the fella was from away. How are they doin? What do you hear?
    Well, that’s fine. Fine. I’m glad for her. I don’t s’pose she’s got a bun in the oven yet, does she? These days it seems like folks wait until they’re almost ready for the old folks’ home before they—
    Yes, Andy, I will! I just wish you’d remember it’s my life I’m talkin about here—my goddam life! So why don’t you just flop back in that big old chair of yours and put your feet up and relax? If you keep pushin that way, you’re gonna give y’self a rupture.
    Anyway, Frank, you give her my best, and tell her she just about saved Dolores Claiborne’s life in the summer of ’91. You c’n give her the inside story about the Thursday shitstorms n how I stopped em. I never told em exactly what was goin on; all they knew for sure was that I was buttin heads with Her Royal Majesty. I see now I was ashamed to tell em what was goin on. I guess I don’t like gettin beat