Dolores Claiborne-Autobiography

                                                      by Lisa Frye

 

 

                  Violent waves slammed  the craggy shoreline as lightning crackled in a gunmetal gray sky.  The woman screamed.   Inside her, the unborn child,  twisted and trapped in its breach position, struggled to be free.  With each contraction, rivulets of sweat trickled down the woman’s ravaged face. Finally, in a sudden surge of strength, her wracked and rigid body lifted off the bed, and as the lips peeled back away from her gnashing teeth, an anguished screech arose from the depths of  the woman’s  soul.   “Bmeeeeeeeeee!”   With the shriek of pain came a surge of power, and the child, Dolores, was bulleted from the womb, a slippery missile, fired upon the world. 

                  The year was 1897, the month November, when Dolores Claiborne was born of simple country folk in a tiny Maine seacoast town called Little Tall Island. Her kin, poor and uneducated, sometimes had to scramble like crabs to survive against the bitter cold of winter and the sweltering heat and blood-thirsty mosquitoes of summer.  But the Claiborne’s  were built of hardy stock.  They were proud people who made do with what they had, and kept a stiff upper lip under desperate circumstances.  Of course, their children were taught to do the same. 

                  Dolores was the third born of Quentin and Virginia.  Henry was the oldest, and just fifteen when Dolores joined the family.  He moved out of his parent’s house after an argument with Father, when Dolores was two.  She was but a baby, but she had treasured his gap toothed grin, and the way he could make her laugh.   The middle child was Mae, a dark haired beauty who died at thirteen, when in a bad automobile accident with her boyfriend George.  Dolores was in grade school, but remembered and missed the lively sister who went away.  From the time she was 11, it was as if Dolores was an only child.  She learned to adjust to the solitude with her parents, who were quiet and reclusive people, and Dolores’ work became the focus. The island and home became her only friends.

                  The clapboard cabin she called home, was modest and the roof was corrugated tin.  Heated by wood and coal, the house was visited frequently by the wind that blew through where the mudding chipped away from the cracks.  If the room grew cold, and the goose pimples rose against the back of her neck, Dolores would throw another log on the fire, and pull the blankets a little tighter around her shivering body.   A handmade quilt decorated her cot, her pillow was filled with feathers from the geese she raised, and her mattress also.  Elsie, a felt bean bag doll with button eyes, was the solace that she clutched to her at nite.    She did live simply, yet  Dolores grew up with what she needed, self reliance and dignity were among her valued traits.  A strong solitary sense of self sustained her through difficulty, and with it, a belief that the future would bring a better life. 

                   Dolores was taught to pump water from the well near the back door in the kitchen, and to help Mother with the vegetable patch in the backyard.  Her tomatoes became legendary, and the cucumbers she tended became the finest pickles in the county.  Although Dolores never went to school past the sixth grade, she knew how to put food on the table, she swung a mean axe, and she continued to grow wise with a  knowledge of life as it was lived.  She learned how to be a survivor.   Dolores  worked with needle and thread.  She  prepared and chopped, fried, baked, and boiled.  She cleaned the house and  scrubbed the clothes, working tirelessly from morning until night.  She accepted her lot in life, and  endured the bitter cold winters of Maine, and the isolation of life on the island. Her most valuable commodity, however, was that she learned how to keep her mouth shut.   Dolores’ stiff backed and soundless presence in Little Tall was a model of the rigid, remote, and resilient New Englander.  

                  Dolores met her future husband, Joe St. George, at the Trinity Church bean supper.  He was seated beside her mom, and clumsily spilled steaming coffee in Dolores’ lap.  As he  mopped at the hot liquid with his handkerchief, Joe’s arm brushed against her full breast and vague mindlessness turned to interest.  Joe asked to walk her home.  They strolled in the chill of an icy November moon, and Joe grabbed Dolores to him for a wet and passionate kiss.  As he hamhandedly mauled at the buttons of her sweater, he moaned out his desire to see her again.  “Dolores,” he gasped, and slobbered at her throat.  Just because no one else was banging down her door begging for a date, Dolores agreed, and chastely pushed him off.  She may have had limited options, but she was no fool.  If he wanted to sample the milk, he’d have to buy the whole cow.  Within a month of grabbing at and pushing off,  Joe could wait no longer, and told Dolores they’d be married that week.  After a small ceremony where Father grudgingly  gave her away,  Mother  wept into her gingham apron, and the preacher proclaimed the pair “husband and wife”,  the deal was sealed with a kiss.  The couple raced  off to the Barrons to consummate the bargain. 

                  Joe was an unskilled and selfish lover, but Dolores didn’t know any better.  After half a dozen frantic pokes at Dolores, he collapsed in a sweaty heap upon her, then commenced to snoring.  Dolores mopped at herself with the edge of his shirt, and rolled him off her.  She became pregnant that nite, and settled in to the life of a woman with a brick in the oven. 

                  Dolores loved every minute of her pregnancy.  As she happily looked forward to the day when the child was born, Dolores would serenely knit little sweater sets, sew diapers and stitch the blankets she would cuddle her newborn in.  Joe built a cradle of pine, worked faithfully at the boatyard every day, and wondered how life would be with Help me, Joe!!!!