She went crazy n I believe she wanted to stay crazy-maybe so she could have em back, maybe to punish herself, maybe both at the same time-but in the end, there was too much bedrock sanity in her n she couldn't do it. In the last week or ten days before the eclipse, it all started to break down. I remember that time, when us who worked for her was gettin ready for that Christless eclipse expedition n the party to follow, like it was yesterday. She'd been in a good mood all through June and early July, but around the time I sent my kids off, everythin just went to hell. That was when Vera started actin like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, yellin at people if they s'much as looked at her crosseyed, n firin house-help left n right. I think that was when her last try at wishin em back to life fell apart. She knew they were dead then and ever after, but she went ahead with the party she'd planned, just the same. Can you imagine the courage that took? The flat-out coarse-grained down-in-your-belly guts?
I remembered somethin she said, too-this was after I'd stood up to her about firin the Jolander girl. When Vera come up to me later, I thought sure she was gonna fire me. Instead she give me a bagful of eclipse-watchin stuff n made what was-to Vera Donovan, at least-an apology. She said that sometimes a woman had to be a high-ridin bitch. “Some-times,” she told me, “being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”
Ayuh, I thought. When there's nothin else left, there's that. There's always that.
“Miz Claiborne?” a voice said in my ear, and that's when I remembered he was still on the line; I'd gone away from him completely. “Miz Claiborne, are you still there?”
“Still here,” I sez. He'd ast me what she told me about em, n that was all it took to set me off thinkin about those sad old times… but I didn't see how I could tell him all that, not some man from New York who didn't know nothin about how we live up here on Little Tall. How she lived up on Little Tall. Puttin it another way, he knew an almighty lot about Upjohn and Mississippi Valley Light n Power, but not bugger-all about the wires in the corners.
Or the dust bunnies.
He starts off, “I asked what she told you-'She told me to keep their beds made up n plenty of Quaker Rolled Oats in the pantry,” I says. “She said she wanted to be ready because they might decide to come back anytime. “ And that was close enough to the truth of how it was, Andy-close enough for Greenbush, anyway.
“Why, that's amazing!” he said, and it was like listenin to some fancy doctor say, “Why, that's a brain tumor!”
We talked some more after that, but I don't have much idear what things we said. I think I told him again that I didn't want it, not so much as one red penny, and I know from the way he talked to me-kind n pleasant n sorta jollyin me along-that when he talked to you, Andy, you must not've passed along any of the news flashes Sammy Marchant prob'ly gave you n anyone else on Little Tall that'd listen. I s'pose you figured it wa'ant none of his business, at least not yet.
I remember tellin him to give it all to the Little Wanderers, and him sayin he couldn't do that. He said I could, once the will had cleared through probate (although the biggest ijit in the world coulda told he didn't think I'd do any such thing once I finally understood what'd happened), but he couldn't do doodly-squat with it.
Finally I promised I'd call him back when I felt “a little clearer in my mind,” as he put it, n then hung up. I just stood there for a long time-must've been fifteen minutes or more. I felt… creepy. I felt like that money was all over me, stuck to me like bugs used to stick to the flypaper my Dad hung in our outhouse every summer back when I was little. I felt afraid it'd just stick to me tighter n tighter once I started movin around, that it'd wrap me up until I didn't have no chance in hell of ever gettin it off again.
By the time I did start movin, I'd forgot all about comin down to the police station to see you, Andy. To tell the truth, I almost forgot to get dressed. In the end I pulled on an old pair of jeans n a sweater, although the dress I'd meant to wear was laid out neat on the bed (and still is, unless somebody's broke in and took out on the dress what they would've liked to've taken out on the person who b'longed inside of it). I added my old galoshes n called it good.
I skirted around the big white rock between the shed n the blackberry tangle, stoppin for a little bit to look into it n listen to the wind rattlin in all those thorny branches. I could just see the white of the concrete wellcap. Lookin at it made me feel shivery, like a person does when they're comm down with a bad cold or the flu. I took the short-cut across Russian Meadow and then walked down to where the Lane ends at East Head. I stood there a little while, lettin the ocean wind push back my hair n warsh me clean, like it always does, and then I went down the stairs.
