Chapter 21 twenty one

When she looked up and saw her dad standing in the bedroom doorway, her first instinctive gesture was to wrap her arms around her chest.Then, seeing the sad, guilty look on his face, she lowered her arms again.Although she felt the heat on her cheeks, she knew her face was turning an unflattering, uneven red, her way of saying virginal shame.She wasn't showing much there (well, almost nothing), but she still felt more exposed than naked.She was so embarrassed she could almost feel her skin sizzling.She thought: What if the others came back early?if.Just walk in and see me like this, no shirt on?

Embarrassment turned to shame, and shame turned to fear.She raised her arms and shrugged her coat on, and as she began to button it, she felt something else beneath those feelings, and that was anger.Years later, when she realized that Gerald knew what she meant but was pretending not to, she was deeply angered.Her anger was no different now than it was later.She was angry because it was not her right to be ashamed and terrified.He was an adult, after all, and he left that ridiculous-smelling filth on her shorts.He should be ashamed.Things shouldn't happen that way, things shouldn't happen that way at all.

By the time she's buttoned up her coat and tucked her top into her shorts, her anger has died down, or—it's no different—drives it back into the emotional cave.The recurring scene in her mind was that her mother came home early, even if she was fully dressed again, it didn't help.The fact that something bad happened is written on their faces, it's just there, and it's really, really ugly.She could see it in his face and feel it in her own. "Are you all right, Jesse?" he asked softly. "You don't feel dizzy, or something?" "No." She tried to smile, but this time she couldn't force a smile, and she felt a tear roll down one cheek, and she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand guiltily.

"I'm sorry." His voice trembled, and she was horrified to see tears welling in his eyes—oh, it was getting worse, worse. "I'm so sorry." He turned sharply, rushed into the bathroom, grabbed a towel from the towel rack, and wiped his face with it.As he did so, Jesse was thinking fast. "dad?" He watched her from the towel.There were no tears in his eyes.If she had been clearer, she could have sworn there hadn't been any tears there in the first place. The question was almost stuck in her throat, but it had to be asked, had to be asked. "Should we...do we have to tell Mom about this?"

He trembled and let out a long sigh.She waited nervously.Her heart sank to the bottom of her feet when he said, "I guess I've got to tell, you see?" She came across the room to him, a little unsteadily on her feet—she seemed to have lost all feeling in her legs.She put her arms around him and said, "Please, Dad, don't tell. Please don't tell her. Please don't tell, please don't..." Her voice was muffled into a whimper, and she pressed her face on his bare chest. After a while, his arms slid around her.This time he did it in the same fatherly way as before.

"I don't want to tell her," he said, "because there's been a lot of tension between the two of us lately, darling, and I'd be surprised if you didn't know. A thing like that would make a big deal out of it." For the worse. She's been very...well, very tender lately. That's the main source of things today. A man has...certain needs, and you'll understand that, wait...' "But if she finds out the truth, she'll say it's my fault!" "Oh, no--I don't think so," said Tom, but his tone was startled and thoughtful... It seemed to Jesse as terrible as the death penalty. "No, no—I'm sure—well, pretty sure—she'll—"

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and red eyes. "Please don't tell her, Pa! Please don't tell! Please don't tell!" He kissed her brow. "But Jessie...I have to tell. We have to." "Why? Why, Dad?" "because--"