Gerald's Game - Stephen King [92]
He kissed her brow. 'But Jessie . . . I have to. We have to.'
'Why? Why, Daddy?'
'Because — '
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O
Jessie shifted a little. The chains jingled; the cuffs themselves rattled on the bedposts. The light was now streaming in through the east windows.
"'Because you couldn't keep it a secret,"' she said dully. "'Because if it's going to come out, Jessie, it's better for both of us that it should come out now, rather than a week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now. Even ten years from now."'
How well he had manipulated her — first the apology, then the tears, and finally the hat-trick: turning his problem into her problem. Br'er Fox, Br'er Fox, whatever else Y'all do, don't th'ow me in dat briar patch! Until, finally, she had been swearing to him that she would keep the secret forever, that torturers couldn't drag it out of her with tongs and hot coals.
She could in fact remember promising him something just like that through a rain of hot, frightened tears. Finally he had stopped shaking his head and had only looked across the room with his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed tightly together — this she saw in the mirror, as he almost surely knew she would.
'You could never tell anyone,' he'd said at last, and Jessie remembered the swooning relief she'd felt at those words. What he was saying was less important than the tone in which he was saying it. Jessie had heard that tone a good many times before, and knew it drove her mother crazy that she, Jessie, could cause him to speak that way more often than Sally herself. I'm changing my mind, it said. I'm doing it against my better judgment, but I am changing it; I'm swinging around to your side.
I No,' she had agreed. Her voice was wavery, and she had to keep gulping back tears. 'I wouldn't tell, Daddy — not ever.' 'Not just your mother,' he said, 'but anyone. Ever. That's a big responsibility for a little girl, Punkin. You might be tempted. For instance, if you were studying with Caroline Cline or Tammy Hough after school, and one of them told you a secret of hers, you might want to tell — '
'Them? Never-Never-Never!'
And he must have seen the truth of it on her face: the thought of either Caroline or Tammy finding out that her father had touched her had filled Jessie with horror. Satisfied on that score, he had pushed on to what she now guessed must have been his chief concern.
'Or your sister.' He pushed her back from him and looked sternly down into her face for a long moment. 'There could come a time, you see, when you wanted to tell her — '
'Daddy, no, I'd never
He gave her a gentle shake. 'Keep quiet and let me nish, Punkin. You two are close, I know that, and I know that girls sometimes feel an urge to share things they ordinarily wouldn't tell. If you felt that way with Maddy, could you still manage to keep quiet?'
'Yes!' In her desperate need to convince him, she had begun to cry once more. Of course it was more likely that she would tell Maddy — if there was anyone in the world to whom she might one day confide such a desperate secret, it would be her big sister . . . except for one thing. Maddy and Sally shared the same sort of closeness Jessie and Tom had shared, and if Jessie ever told her sister about what had happened on the deck, the chances that their mother would know before the day was out were very good. Given that insight, Jessie thought she could quite easily withstand the temptation to tell Maddy.
'Are you really sure?' he had asked doubtfully.
'Yes! Really!'
He'd begun to shake his head again in a regretful way that terrified her all over again. 'I just think, Punkin, that it might be better to get it out in the open right away. Take our medicine. I mean, she can't kill us — '
Jessie, however, had heard her anger when Daddy had asked that she be excused from the trip to Mount Washington . . . and anger wasn't all. She didn't like to think of it, but at this point she could not