“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 afford the luxury of denial. There had been jealousy and something very close to hatred in her mother’s voice, as well. A vision, momentary but of paralyzing clarity, had come to Jessie as she stood with her father in the bedroom doorway, trying to persuade him to hold his peace: the two of them cast out on the road like Hansel and Gretel, homeless, tramping back and forth across America…

… and sleeping together, of course. Sleeping together at night.

She had broken down utterly then, weeping hysterically, begging him not to tell, promising him she would be a good girl forever and ever if he just wouldn’t tell. He had let her cry until he must have felt the moment was exactly right, and then he had said gravely: “You know, you’ve got an awful lot of power for a little girl, Punkin.”

She had looked up at him, cheeks wet and eyes full of fresh hope.

He nodded slowly, then began to dry her tears with the towel he had used on his own face. “I’ve never been able to refuse you anything that you really wanted, and I can’t this time, either. We’ll try it your way.”

She threw herself into his arms and began covering his face with kisses. Somewhere far back in her mind she had been afraid this might

(get him going)

start trouble again, but her gratitude had completely overwhelmed such caution, and there had been no trouble.

“Thank you! Thank you, Daddy! Thank you!”

He had taken her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length again, smiling instead of grave this time. But that sadness had still been on his face, and now, almost thirty years later, Jessie didn’t think that expression had been part of the show. The sadness had been real, and that somehow made the terrible thing he had done worse instead of better.

“I guess we have a bargain,” he said. “I say nothing, you say nothing. Right?”

“Not to anyone else, not even to each other. Forever and ever, amen. When we walk out of this room, Jess, it never happened. Okay?”

She had agreed at once, but at the same time the memory of that smell had recurred to her, and she had known there was at least one question she had to ask him before it never happened.

“And there’s something I need to say once more. I need to say I’m sorry, Jess. I did a shabby, shameful thing.”

He had looked away when he said that, she remembered. All the time he had been deliberately driving her into hysterics of guilt and fear and impending doom, all the time he had been making sure she would never say anything by threatening to tell everything, he had looked right at her. When he offered that last apology, however, his gaze had shifted to the crayon designs on the sheets which divided the room. This memory filled her with something that felt simultaneously like grief and rage. He had been able to face her with his lies; it was the truth which had finally caused him to look away.

She remembered opening her mouth to tell him he didn’t have to say that, then closing it again-partly because she was afraid anything she said might cause him to change his mind back again, but mostly because, even at ten, she had realized she had a right to an apology.

“Sally’s been cold-it’s the truth, but as an excuse it’s pretty sad shit. I don’t have the slightest idea what came over me.” He had laughed a little, still not looking at her. “Maybe it was the eclipse. If it was, thank God we’ll never see another one.” Then, as if speaking to himself. “Christ, if we keep our mouths shut and she finds out anyway, later on-”

Jessie had put her head against his chest and said, “She won’t. I’ll never tell, Daddy.” She paused, then added, “What could I tell, anyway?”

“That’s right.” He smiled. “Because nothing happened.”

“And I’m not… I mean, I couldn’t be…”

She had looked up, hoping he might tell her what she needed to know without her asking, but he only looked back at her, eyebrows raised in a silent interrogative. The smile had been replaced by a wary, waiting expression.

“I couldn’t be pregnant, then?” she blurted.

He winced, and then his face had tensed as he worked to suppress some strong emotion. Horror or grief, she’d thought then; it was only all these years later that it occurred to her that what he might actually have been trying to control was a burst of wild, relieved laughter. At last he had gotten himself under control and kissed the tip of her nose.

“No, honey, of course not. The thing that makes women pregnant didn’t happen. Nothing like that happened. I was wrestling with you a little, that’s all-”

“And you goosed me.” She remembered saying that very clearly now. “You goosed me, that’s what you did.”

He had smiled. “Yep. That’s close enough. You’re just as fine as ever, Punkin. Now, what do you think? Does that close the subject?”

She had nodded.

“Nothing like this is ever going to happen again-you know that, don’t you?”

She nodded again, but her own smile had faltered. What he was saying should have relieved her, and it did, a little, but something in the gravity of his words and the sorrow on his face had almost sparked her panic again. She remembered taking his hands and squeezing them as hard as she could. “You love me, though, don’t you, Daddy? You still love me, right?”

He had nodded and told her he loved her more than ever.

“Then hug me! Hug me hard!,

And he did, but now Jessie could remember something else: his lower body had not touched hers.

Not then and never again, Jessie thought. Not that I remember, anyway. Even when I graduatedfrom college, the only other time I saw him cry over me, he gave me one of those funny old-maid hugs, the kind you do with your ass pooching out so there isn’t even a chance you can hump crotches with the person you’re hugging. Poor, poor man. I wonder if any of the people he did business with over the years ever saw him as rattled as I saw him on the day of the eclipse. All that pain, and over what? A sexual accident about as serious as a stubbed toe. Jesus, what a life it is. What a fucking life.

She began to pump her arms slowly up and down again almost without being aware of it, only wanting to keep the blood flowing into her hands, wrists and forearms. She guessed it was probably eight o'clock by now, or almost. She had been chained to this bed for eighteen hours. Incredible but true.

Ruth Neary’s voice spoke up so suddenly that it made her jump. It was filled with disgusted wonder.

You’re still making excuses for him, aren’t you? Still letting him off the hook and blaming yourself, after all these years, Even now. Amazing.

“Quit it,” she said hoarsely. “None of that has the slightest goddam thing to do with the mess I’m in now-”

What a piece of work you are, Jessie!

“-and even if it did,” she went on, raising her voice slightly, even if it did, it doesn’t have the slightest goddam thing to do with getting out of the mess I’m in now, so just give it a rest!”

You weren’t Lolita, Jessie, no matter what he might have made you think. You were about nine country miles from Lolita.

Jessie refused to reply. Ruth went one better; she refused to shut up.

If you still think your dear old Daddy was a parfit gentle knight who spent most of his time shielding you from the fire-breathing mommydragon, you better think again.