Gerald's Game - Stephen King [87]
It's a lot more than a case of might this morning, Jessie thought. I think now it's a case of probably. The house — our nice quiet lakeside house — may very well be on the news Friday or Saturday night. It'll he Doug Rowe wearing that white trenchcoat of his I hate so much and talking into his microphone and calling it 'the house where prominent Portland lawyer Gerald Burlingame and his wife Jessie died.' Then he'll send it back to the studio and Bill Green will do the sports, and that isn't being morbid, Jessie, that isn't the Goodwife moaning or Ruth ranting. It's —
But Jessie knew. It was the truth. It was just a silly little accident, the kind of thing you shook your head over when you saw it reported in the paper at breakfast; you said, 'Listen to this, honey,' and read the item to your husband while he ate his grapefruit. just a silly little accident, only this time it was happening to her. Her mind's constant insistence that it was a mistake was understandable but irrelevant. There was no Complaint Department where she could explain that the handcuffs had been Gerald's idea and so it was only fair that she should be let off. If the mistake was going to be rectified, she would have to be the one to do it.
Jessie cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and spoke to the ceiling. 'God? Listen a minute, would You? I need some help here, I really do. I'm in a mess and I'm terrified. Please help me get out of this, okay? I . . . um . . . I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.' She struggled to amplify this prayer and could only come up with something Nora Callighan had taught her, a prayer which now seemed to be on the lips of every self-help huckster and dipshit guru in the world: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.'
Nothing changed. She felt no serenity, no courage, most certainly no wisdom. She was still only a woman with dead arms and a dead husband, cuffed to the posts of this bed like a cur dog chained to a ringbolt and left to die unremarked and unlamented in a dusty back yard while his tosspot master serves thirty days in the country clink for driving without a license and under the influence.
'Oh please don't let it hurt,' she said in a low, trembling voice. 'if I'm going to die, God, please don't let it hurt. I'm such a baby about pain.'
Thinking about dying at this point is probably a really had idea, toots. Ruth's voice paused, then added: On second thought, strike the probably.
Okay, no argument — thinking about dying was a bad idea. So what did that leave?
Living. Ruth and Goodwife Burlingame said it at the same time.
All right, living. Which brought her around full circle to her arms again.
They're asleep because I've been hanging on them all night. I'm still hanging on them. Getting the weight off is step one.
She tried to push herself backward and upward with her feet again, and felt a sudden weight of black panic when they at first also refused to move. She lost herself for a few moments then, and when she came back she was pistoning her legs rapidly up and down, pushing the coverlet, the sheets, and the mattress pad down to the foot of the bed. She was gasping for breath like a bicycleracer topping the last steep hill in a marathon race. Her butt, which had also gone to sleep, sang and zipped with wake-up needles.
Fear had gotten her fully awake, but it took the half-assed aerobics which accompanied her panic to kick her heart all the way up into passing gear. At last she began to feel tingles of sensation — bone-deep and as ominous as distant thunder — in her arms.
If nothing else works, toots, keep your mind on those last two or three sips of water. Keep re-minding yourself that you're never going to get hold of that glass again unless your hands and arm are in good working order, let alone drink from it.
Jessie continued to push with her feet