Read Online How to Cook Your Daughter by Jessica Hendra - Free Book Online

see the sky. The hole smells musty and damp, and it’s so small I can’t lie down. My knees are pressed to my chin; my arms are pinned to my sides. My hair covers my face, and I gasp for air. Then I hear voices. My mother! My sister, Kathy! They’re looking for me, and I hear them walking around the hole calling, “Jessie! Jessie, where are you?” I try to call out to them: “I’m here! Look down! I’m right here in this hole! Help me! Please help me get out!” But when I open my mouth, no sound comes. I strain and strain, but I can only hear myself whisper. I know then that they will never hear me, that I’ll be stuck in the hole forever.
    I began sleepwalking. Some mornings, I woke to find objects tucked into the corner of my bed: a rolling pin from the kitchen, a barof soap, a wooden duck figurine that had been on one of the shelves in the living room, the china eggs that went with it. I never understood why I had taken them. I was like a six-and-a-half-year-old Lady Macbeth.
    Of course, I told no one. How could I? What would I tell them? That Daddy had made me do things I didn’t understand? “That’s what people do when they love each other,” he had said. In my heart, I so desperately wanted to believe him. But my head seemed unwilling to let me. And that conflict, that irreconcilable conflict, began to take its toll.
    I never liked Lebanon Township Jail, but now I felt terrified to go to school. And to the ballet class I had always loved. And of being outside at all. My ballet teacher tried everything to get me to come back to the dance studio, but I went into near hysterics at the idea. I clung to my mother and had to be carried sobbing back to the car. I didn’t even understand why.
    I grew attached to my mom, even though I never considered confiding in her. How would I explain something I didn’t understand? I had always adored my father, and even if I had thought that what he’d done was wrong, I had no illusions about my mother standing up to him. So instead, I simply hid. When she took Kathy to school in the mornings, my shame kept me in the Scout. All of us had conjunctivitis that spring, and I had gotten a very bad case. I knew what pinkeye looked like, so I used it as a way to stay home. I’d wake up in the early morning darkness and sneak down the ladder of the bunk beds I shared with Kathy. Then I’d tiptoe into the bathroom off the landing, shut the door, and switch on the light. I was still too short to see my reflection in the mirror, so I’d position a stool to stand on. I’d lean toward the mirror and go to work on my eye. I chose the right eye because I could barely see out of it anyway. (Kathy and I had bothinherited my father’s astigmatism). First, I would tuck all my hair behind my ears. Then I’d use my index finger to rub all over the eye—on the lid and on the soft skin underneath. The rubbing burned, but I needed to look convincing. When it almost glowed red, when the white looked completely bloodshot and the skin around it raw, I would stop to inspect. Then I would spit on my hand and rub the saliva over the entire area. I hoped it would look like pus. Sometimes, if I had some of the little specks of sleep on my eyelashes, I would carefully collect them in the palm of my hand and press them into the corner of my eye to make it look crusty.
    When I was satisfied, I would climb off the stool and head back to my bunk. Then I’d lie down very carefully, positioning my head just so on the pillow. It was critical that none of the crust I’d created fell off my eye. If it did, I might be sent to school.
    When I heard my mom getting up in the next room, I would give my eye one final, careful rubbing just in case the redness had started to fade. She usually woke up alone; Daddy had begun spending entire weeks in the city.
    â€œMommy, my eye still hurts!” I’d tell her.
    She would peer at