Page "Gerald's Game" Paragraph 3

The only things that show up are a hungry stray dog named Prince that starts feeding on Gerald's body and a terrifying, deformed apparition that may or may not be real, whom Jessie first mistakes for the ghost of her long dead father but dismisses it later.

Jessie begins to think of this bizarre visitor as " The Space Cowboy " ( after a line from a Steve Miller song, " The Joker ").

A combination of panic and thirst eventually causes Jessie to hallucinate.

She hears voices in her head, each one ostensibly the voice of a person in her life, primarily " The Goodwife " or " Goody Burlingame " ( a somewhat Puritanical version of Jessie ), Ruth Neary ( an old college friend ), and Nora Callighan ( her ex-psychiatrist ), both of whom Jessie hasn't spoken to in decades.

These voices represent different parts of her personality which help her extract a painful childhood memory she has kept suppressed for many years.

She was sexually abused by her father at age ten during a solar eclipse that occurred in her Maine hometown.

She also begins to realize how unhappy her marriage was, and that she sacrificed the life she wanted for the security of Gerald's paycheck by being a trophy wife without children.