Gerald's Game - Stephen King [36]
We don't talk about that, I said!
She lay on the coverlet, her muscles tense beneath her cold skin, both her captivity and her husband's death forgotten — at least for the time being — in the face of this new threat. She could feel Ruth, or some cut-off part of her for which Ruth spoke, debating whether or not to pursue the matter. When it decided not to (not directly, at least), both Jessie and Goodwife Burlingame breathed a sigh of relief.
All right — let's talk about Nora instead, Ruth said. Nora, your therapist? Nora, your counsellor? The one you started to go see around the time you stopped painting because some of the paintings were scaring you? Which was also the time, coincidentally or not, when Gerald's sexual interest in you seemed to evaporate and you started sniffing the collars of his shirts for perfume? You remember Nora, don't you?
Nora Callighan was a prying bitch! the Goodwife snarled.
'No,' Jessie muttered. 'She was well-intentioned, I don't doubt that a bit, she just always wanted to go one step too far. Ask one question too many.'
You said you liked her a lot. Didn't I hear you say that?
'I want to stop thinking,' Jessie said. Her voice was wavery and uncertain. 'I especially want to stop hearing voices, and talking back to them, too. It's nuts.'
Well, you better listen just the same, Ruth said grimly, because you can't run away from this the way you ran away from Nora the way you ran away from me, for that matter.
I never ran away from you, Ruth! Shocked denial, and not very convincing. She had done just that, of course. Had simply packed her bags and moved out of the cheesy but cheerful dorm suite she and Ruth shared. She hadn't done it because Ruth had started asking her too many of the wrong questions — questions about Jessie's childhood, questions about Dark Score Lake, questions about what might have happened there during the summer just after Jessie started to menstruate. No, only a bad friend would have moved out for such reasons. Jessie hadn't moved out because Ruth started asking questions; she moved out because Ruth wouldn't stop asking them when Jessie asked her to do so. That, in Jessie s opinion, made Ruth a bad friend. Ruth had seen the lines Jessie had drawn in the dust . . . and had then deliberately stepped over them anyway. As Nora Callighan had done, years later.
Besides, the idea of running away under these conditions was pretty ludicrous, wasn't it? She was, after all, handcuffed to the bed.
Don't insult my intelligence, cutie-Pie, Ruth said. Your mind isn't handcuffed to the bed, and we both know it. You can still ran if you want to, but my advice — my strong advice — is don't you do it, because I'm the only chance you've got. If you just lie there pretending this is a bad dream you got from sleeping on your left side, you're going to die in handcuffs. Is that what you want? Is that your prize for living your whole life in handcuffs, ever since —
'I will not think about that!' Jessie screamed at the empty room.
For a moment Ruth was silent, but before Jessie could do more than begin to hope that she'd gone away, Ruth was back . . . and back at her, worrying her like a terrier worrying a rag.
Come on, Jess — you'd probably like to believe you're crazy rather than dig around in that old grave, but you're really not, you know. I'm you, the Goodwife's you . . . we're all you, as a matter of fact. I have a pretty good idea of what happened that day at Dark Score when the rest of the family was gone, and the thing I'm really curious about doesn't have a lot to do with the events per se. What I'm really curious about is this: is there apart of you — one I don't know about — that wants to he sharing space with Gerald in that dog's guts come this time tomorrow? I only ask because that doesn't sound like loyalty to me; it sounds like lunacy.
Tears were trickling down her cheeks again, but she didn't know if she was crying