the handcuff chains jingled mutedly as she twisted violently from side to side. She almost made it; for a moment she was almost out. And she could have made it, would have made it, if she hadn't thought better of it at the last moment. What stopped her was an inarticulate but overwhelming terror of a shape-some waiting shape that might make what had happened that day on the deck seem insignificant by comparison... if she had to face it, that was.
But maybe I don't have to. Not yet.
And perhaps the urge to hide in sleep wasn't all-there might have been something else, as well. Some part of her that intended to have this out in the open once and for all, no matter what the cost.
She sank back down on the pillow, eyes closed, arms held up and sacrificially spread, her face pale and tight with strain.
"Especially you girls," she whispered into the darkness. "Especially all you girls."
She sank back on the pillow, and the day of the eclipse claimed her again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
What Jessie saw through her sunglasses and her home-made filter was so strange and so awesome that at first her mind refused to grasp it. There seemed to be a vast round beauty mark, like the one below the corner of Anne Francis's mouth, hanging there in the afternoon sky.
"If I talk in my sleep... "cause I haven't seen my baby all week..."
It was at this point that she first felt her father's hand on the nub of her right breast. It squeezed gently for a moment, drifted across to the left one, then returned to the right again, as if he were making a size comparison. He was breathing very fast now, the respiration in her ear was like a steam engine, and she was again aware of that hard thing pressing against her bottom.
"Can I get a witness?" Marvin Gaye, that auctioneer of soul, was shouting. "Witness, witness?"
Daddy? Are you all right?
She felt a delicate tingle in her breasts again-pleasure and pain, roast turkey with a Nehi glaze and chocolate gravy-but this time she also felt alarm and a kind of startled confusion.
Yes, he said, but his voice sounded almost like the voice of a stranger. Yes, fine, but don't look around. He shifted. The hand which had been on her breasts went somewhere else; the one on her thigh moved up farther, pushing the hem of the sundress ahead of it.
Daddy, what are you doing?
Her question was not exactly fearful; mostly it was curious. Still, there was an undertone of fear there, something like a length of fine red thread. Above her, a furnace of strange light glowed fiercely around the dark circle hanging in the indigo sky.
Do you love me, Punkin?
Yes, sure-
Then don't worry about anything. I'd never hurt you. I want to hesweet to you. Just watch the eclipse and let me he sweet to you.
I'm not sure I want to, Daddy, That sense of confusion was growing deeper, the red thread was fattening. I'm afraid of burning
MY eye. Burning my watchamacallums.
"But I believe," Marvin sang, "a woman's a man's best friend...and I'm gonna stick by her...to the very end."
Don't worry. He was panting now. You have another twenty seconds.At least that. So don't worry. And don't look around.
She heard the snap of elastic, but it was his, not hers; her underpants were where they were supposed to be, although she realized that if she looked down she would be able to see them that was how far up he had pushed her dress.
Do you love me? he asked again, and although she was gripped by a terrible premonition that the right answer to this question had become the wrong one, she was ten years old and it was still the only answer she had to give. She told him that she did.
"Witness, witness," Marvin pleaded, fading out now.
Her father shifted, pressing the hard thing more firmly against her bottom. Jessie suddenly realized what it was-not the handle of a screwdriver or the tackhammer from the toolbox in the pantry, that was for sure-and the alarm she felt was matched by a momentary spiteful pleasure which had more to do with her mother than with her father.
This is what you get for not sticking up for me, she thought, looking at the dark circle in the sky through the layers of smoked glass, and then: I guess this is what we both get. Her-vision suddenly blurred, and the pleasure was gone. Only