nothing to do with fear of fallin. She was thinkin about what was behind her, not what was ahead.
I snatched at the air and didn't get nothing but the littlest fold of her nightie between the second n third fingers of my left hand. It slipped through em like a whisper.
'Duh-lorrrrr -' she screamed, and then there was a solid, meaty thud. It turns my blood cold to remember that sound; it was just like the one Joe made when he hit the bottom of the well. I seen her do a cartwheel n then heard somethin snap. The sound was as clear n harsh as a stick of kindlin when you break it over your knee. I saw blood squirt out of the side of her head n that was all I wanted to see. I turned away so fast my feet tangled in each other and I went to my knees. I was starin back down the hallway toward her room, and what I saw made me scream. It was Joe. For a few seconds I saw him as clear as I see you now, Andy; I saw his dusty, grinnin face peekin out at me from under her wheelchair, lookin through the wire spokes of the wheel that had got caught in the door.
Then it was gone, and I heard her moanin and cryin.
I couldn't believe she'd lived through that fall; can't believe it still. Joe hadn't been killed outright either, accourse, but he'd been a man in the prime of life, and she was a flabby old woman who'd had half a dozen small strokes n at least three big ones. Also, there wasn't no mud n squelch to cushion her landin like there had been to cushion his.
I didn't want to go down to her, didn't want to see where she was broken and bleedin, but there wa'ant no question, accourse; I was the only one there, and that meant I was elected. When I got up (I had to haul on the newel post at the top of the bannister to do it, my knees were so watery-feelin), I stepped one foot on the hem of my own slip. The other strap popped, n I raised up my dress a little so I could pull it off. . . and that was just like before, too. I remember lookin down at my legs to see if they were scratched and bleedin from the thorns in the blackberry tangle, but accourse there wasn't nothing like that.
I felt feverish. If you've ever been really sick n your temperature's gone way, way up, you know what I mean; you don't feel out of the world, exactly, but you sure as hell don't feel in it, either. It's like everythin was turned to glass, and there isn't anything you can get a solid grip on anymore; everythin's slippery. That's how I felt as I stood there on the landin, holdin the top of the bannister in a death-grip and lookin at where she'd finished up.
She was layin a little over halfway down the staircase with both legs twisted so far under her you couldn't hardly see em. Blood was runnin down one side of her poor old face. When I stumbled down to where she lay, still clingin onto the bannister for dear life as I went, one of her eyes rolled up in its socket to mark me. It was the look of an animal caught in a trap.
'Dolores,' she whispered. 'That son of a bitch has been after me all these years.'
'Shh,' I said. 'Don't try to talk.'
'Yes he has,' she said, as if I'd contradicted her. 'Oh, the bastard. The randy bastard.'
'I'm going downstairs,' I says. 'I got to call the doctor.'
'No,' she says back. She reached up with one hand and took hold of my wrist. 'No doctor. No hospital. The dust bunnies . . . even there. Everywhere.'
'You'll be all right, Vera,' I says, pullin my hand free. 'As long as you lie still n don't move, you'll be fine.'
'Dolores Claiborne says I'm going to be fine!' she says, and it was that dry, fierce voice she used to use before she had her strokes n got all muddled in her head. 'What a relief it is to have a professional opinion!'
Hearin that voice after all the years it had been gone was like bein slapped. It shocked me right out of my panic, and I really looked into her face for the