... masz przeżywać życie, a nie je opisywać.

I remember lookin at it and thinkin how pink n clean it was. The lines had mostly faded from it, and it looked like a baby's hand. I knew I ought to get up and telephone someone, tell em what happened, but I was weary - so weary. It seemed easier to just sit there n hold her hand. Then the doorbell rang. If it hadn't, I would have set there quite awhile longer, I think. But you know how it is with bells - you feel you have to answer em, no matter what. I got up and went down the stairs one at a time, like a woman ten years older'n I am (the truth is, I felt ten years older), clingin to the bannister the whole way. I remember thinkin the world still felt as if it was made of glass, and I had to be damned careful not to slip on it n cut myself when I had to let go of the bannister n cross the entry to the door. It was Sammy Marchant, with his mailman's hat cocked back on his head in that silly way he does -he prob'ly thinks wearin his hat that way makes him look like a rock star. He had the regular mail in one hand and one of those padded envelopes that come registered mail just about every week from New York - news of what was happenin with her financial affairs, accourse - in the other; It was a fella named Greenbush took care of her money, did I tell you that? I did? All right - thanks. There's been so much globber I can hardly remember what I've told you and what I haven't. Sometimes there were papers in those registered mail envelopes that had to be signed, and most times Vera could do that if I helped hold her arm steady, but there were a few times, when she was fogged out, that I signed her name on em myself. There wasn't nothing to it, and never a single question later about any of the ones I did. In the last three or four years, her signature wa'ant nothin but a scrawl, anyway. So that's somethin else you c'n get me for, if you really want to: forgery. Sammy'd started holdin out the padded envelope as soon as the door opened - wantin me to sign for it, like I always did with the registered - but when he got a good look at me, his eyes widened n he took a step backward on the stoop. It was actually more of a jerk than a step - and considerin it was Sammy Marchant doin it, that seems like just the right word. 'Dolores!' he says. 'Are you all right? There's blood on you!' 'It's not mine,' I says, and my voice was as calm as it woulda been if he'd ast me what I was watchin on TV and I told him. 'It's Vera's. She fell down the stairs. She's dead.' 'Holy Christ,' he says, then ran past me into the house with his mailbag floppin against one hip. It never crossed my mind to try n keep him out, and ask y'self this: what good would it have done if I had? I followed him slow. That glassy feelin was goin away, but it seemed like my shoes had grown themselves lead soles. When I got to the foot of the stairs Sammy was halfway up em, kneelin beside Vera. He'd taken off his mailbag before he knelt, and it'd fallen most of the way back down the stairs, spillin letters n Bangor Hydro bills n L. L. Bean catalogues from hell to breakfast. I climbed up to him, draggin my feet from one stair to the next. I ain't ever felt s'tired. Not even after I killed Joe did I feel as tired as I felt yest'y mornin. 'She's dead, all right,' he says, lookin around. 'Ayuh,' I says back. 'Told you she was.' 'I thought she couldn't walk,' he says. 'You always told me she couldn't walk, Dolores.' 'Well,' I says, 'I guess I was wrong.' I felt stupid sayin a thing like that with her layin there like she was, but what the hell else was there to say? In some ways it was easier talkin to John McAuliffe than to poor dumb Sammy Marchant, because I'd done pretty much what McAuliffe suspected I'd done. The trouble with bein innocent is you're more or less stuck with the truth. 'What's this?' he asks then, n pointed at the rollin pin. I'd left it sittin on the stair when the doorbell rang. 'What do you think it is?' I ast him right back. 'A birdcage?' 'Looks like a rollin pin,' he says. 'That's pretty good,' I says. It seemed like I was hearin my own voice comm from far away, as if it was in one place n the rest of me was someplace else. 'You may surprise em all n turn out to be college material after all, Sammy