Sundays I go home. To the Dark House. And on Sundays, Daddy bribes me before he drops me off.

    It’s not hard to bribe a child: it could be a toy. Or a doll. Or comic books. He takes me to the candy store, hurries me as I grab twenty or thirty, and pays for them without comment. I walk out with my arms full of Archie, Richie Rich or Millie the Model, with a clear understanding of what he wants of me.

   I am not to cry. I am not to throw myself. We have been through this before. I know the rules.

   We arrive at The Dark House, where the witch sleeps, windows shut against the daylight.

   He waits until I unlock the front door before he drives off. Under my left arm I cradle the comic books; with my right hand I carefully balance a metal baking tin full of brownies. You can see it’s homemade, the way it’s loosely covered with Reynolds Wrap—we made it together, me and Daddy. I grip my treasures real tight. I can hear his engine running; he’s still there, waiting for me to go inside.

   But this morning, I go back on the deal. I know I can’t hold up my end. I gently put my stuff down, then turn around to face him. Then I make sure he sees how I drop down to my knees, make sure he sees my squinched face, make sure he hears me sob, scream. I start to move toward his car. He yells at me, orders me to go inside. I see him put his face in his hands.

   I move again to the front door, open it, hiccuping and moaning. I turn around just in time to see him drive away, swerving a little. I know what I just did to him, and I do not care. I don’t care about anything but being with him. Forever. Even though he has explained many times why he has to leave me, I still don’t understand.

   I enter the Dark House.
   Sundays I go home. To my mother.
   I am seven.

   Inside, all is dim. The burlap curtains, thick and dark, are all pulled down. The bravest of sunlight slivers try to stab their way into the gloom, but they illuminate little. I tiptoe in, trying to blend with the quiet. I shusssh Pepper, my poodle, who runs around my feet excitedly. His panting is so loud it sounds like wind in the silence. Even my mother’s television set is off. I do not hear her sounds of sleep. If she is up, I don’t want hear to hear me, even though she probably does.

   She hears everything.

   I go to my room, Pepper following, and I put the comic books and brownies on the bed. I proceed to read every single comic book, and finish every single brownie. During the time that I am doing this, I am calm. Very calm. With every bite, I taste my father.

   I am an adult now, and I still hate Sundays. Pepper is long gone---hit by a car—and I don’t have to go home any more, I don’t have to shudder as I pass my mother’s closed bedroom door. These days I don’t need Pepper to comfort me as we hide under the covers, pretending to be invisible. Ah….but the brownies. I still need them. I reach for them when some man doesn’t call. When I lose that account, the one I spent eight months pursuing. When I just can’t cover my face from the blows any more. When I reach for my father, and realize he isn’t ever coming back…because he lies in quiet, in green grassy knolls, forever beyond my reach and cries. I reach for them when other things I reach for shrivel at my touch.

   A shadow moves through the door, stops at the edge of my bed. Pepper and I were sleeping, but quickly we are awake, sensing danger. The shadow throws my lights on, and I wipe my eyes groggily, with little fists. The shadow is no longer a shadow, it is a crone with bright red lipstick and raven black hair piled on top of its head. It is wearing a cocktail dress and high heels that clack-clack-clack as it paces across the hardwood floor, hissing and spitting like an angry cat.

   Some of the words I understand, most I don’t…but I do comprehend the angry tone, even though I sense it is not directed at me. I hold Pepper in my lap, who is shaking. I pull the covers as far as they will go, as if they will protect me from the angry spew.
   "Yourfatherpieceofshitrotinhelldanceonhisgravedothistomepimpbastardwhore…"   Clack-clack-clack-clack.
HewillrotinhellthatsonofabitchdropdeadIwilllaughathisfuneralIwill…."
   Clack-clack-clack…
   I close my eyes. I hear a crash. My dresser is facedown on the floor.
   "Hecan’tdothistomeIwillspitinhiscoffinIwill…."
   Another crash.
   My bookshelf joins the dresser; Winnie the Pooh, Harold and the Purple Crayon, all my favorite books crash and skid.
   Another crash, this time it sounds like something breaking.
   My porcelain piggy bank, which I loved. Daddy was trying to teach me to save. It is now in shiny shards, scattered on top of the books.

   I watch as she smashes every piece of furniture in my room. Soon she leaves, slamming my door. It is quiet for a moment. Then Clack-clack-clack-clack she returns, recharged. With a new batch of spew. This goes on all night. At some point I see dust particles floating lazily in stripes of dawn light streaming through the blinds. She has been gone for a half-hour, but I hadn’t noticed.

   I can still hear her in my head.

    I am standing on the scale. I am thirteen.
   I live with my father now, in a small studio apartment in Brooklyn.
   We both watch the pointer sway, then stop: 113.
   "Okay," my father says. "Here’s the deal. I will give you a dollar for every pound you lose." I agree to this, excited at the amount of money I will get.
   For dinner, he makes fried shrimp. With French fries.
   Brownies for dessert.
   I reach for a brownie. Then another.
   He smiles and says, "Oh well…. you’ll start tomorrow. How was the shrimp…was it good?"

***

   My Daddy is in love with her. I know it. I can see it…. I am not blind. It amazes, infuriates, frustrates me that her husband and children are so blind. How can they be so stupid? I try to talk about it with her children, who I spend much time with when my father is on the road. They look at me as if I was babbling, so I stop…I am alone in this.

   On Fridays, my father goes away. On Fridays, she goes away. He does not leave me a number where I can reach him. She does not leave a number where her family can reach her. It is absurd, it is so obvious. Yet nobody speaks of it. Like the townspeople in The Emperor’s New Clothes, they all remain silent. I walk around, wanting to hit everyone. Especially her, the woman who takes my Daddy away. I usually get sick on Fridays, holding the thermometer to the heater, shaking it down to a low-grade fever. It took a while before he caught on. It didn’t take her long at all.

   I hate her. I love her. I hate loving her. I love hating her.

   He is getting dressed. The good suit, the navy pinstripe, is hanging outside of the closet. He stinks of Aramis. It’s Friday, so I know he will be home very late. I need him today. He is in a good mood, kidding around with me, smiling. Dinner, freshly made, is still steaming on top of the stove, covered in tin foil.

   I watch him dress, scowling. He pretends he doesn’t see it. I wonder how to make him stay home with me, since he won’t believe I am ill.

   I hide a tube of red watercolor in my hand, and go to the bathroom. I squirt some color into the water, trying to create the proper shade. Then I scream.
   He yells, "What’s the matter?" as he opens the door.
   I point to the red water in the toilet. "What’s that?" I shriek at him.
   "Oh, shit, " he says, and closes the door.
   He calls her.

   She comes over. She has a shopping bag full of sanitary napkins with her. She explains menstruation to me---it’s natural, wonderful, part of becoming a woman---I stare at her wide-eyed, part of me wanting her to know what I have done. But then they leave anyway. I had only bought myself a few hours.

   I sit for a while, stare into space. I fantasize about calling her husband, disguising my voice: "do you know what your wife is doing?" I cry a little. Then I remember: there is a chocolate cake in the fridge.

   I don’t bother to take it out of the box.

   I am halfway through it when I hear his key. He had forgotten something. He sees the cake, goes crazy. He takes the box and throws it against the wall. I watch the gobs of chocolate plop down to the floor in slow motion. It looks like excrement.

   After he leaves, I eat whatever I can salvage, sobbing and chewing at the same time.

   I am thirty.
   I am waiting for Clint to come over.
   I am in love with Clint, and have been waiting for this night for a very long time. I can hardly sit still with the excitement of it.
   He is involved with somebody else, but I know I can change that. He is afraid of me; I know I can change that, too.
   He wants me, even though he doesn’t like fat women. All his girlfriends are waifish, flat-chested, impish. None of them is his intellectual equal.
   There is champagne chilling.
   The apartment is pristine.
   I am waiting for him, freshly scrubbed and perfumed, shaking. I have changed outfits thirteen times. I sit in front of the mirror, staring at myself with endless fascination, wondering what he will see.
   I sing a little.
   I pace a little.
   Then I go back to the kitchen table with my mirror, staring at my face, obsessing about my imperfections. I try to see what I look like with my eyes closed, but I can't seem to catch a glimpse of the lids when they are shut.
   When the phone rings, I almost ignore it. It is he, and he cannot come.

   I sit and stare into space for a long time. I feel myself starting to shut down; even my hair has started to wilt and my face has gone slack.  Then I begin to move, as in a dream. I preheat the oven, get out a mixing bowl. I have a box of brownie mix, and I end up eating them all. I call out for my father, but nobody answers.
   Nobody at all.

   I am thirty-five.
   Presently, I am waiting for my husband to go to work.
   We just had a fight, and we are not talking.
   I am trying to lose weight, and I accuse him of not supporting me. He loves my extra weight, and I hate it. He loves to touch my quivering belly, and my skin crawls from it. He has brought goodies into the house, and I am furious. I do not understand his attraction to me. I regard it as of an aberration. I love him, but he confounds me. I do not know what he sees in me physically. He rejoices in what repulses me.
   I am in the bedroom, door slammed shut.
   I want to feel better. I want to feel numb.
   I hear the front door shut, hear him lock it from outside. I leap out of bed and head for the kitchen. I grab the Entenmann’s brownies from the shelf and bring it back to bed with me. I use my hands; there is chocolate everywhere. I am eating it like a child. I am humming in the back of my throat; my eyes are closed as I chew. I don’t hear the key in the door.
   I sense someone is in the room. I open my eyes.
   He tells me he loves me, that he’s sorry. He promises to support me in anything and everything I want to do.
I try to hide what I have been doing, but there is evidence all over the bed, all over me.
   He gets into bed. We finish the brownies together.
   "Use me to soothe your pain," he whispers. "Eat these only because you enjoy them."
   "I want to stop hating myself," I tell him.
   "I love you enough for the both of us," he replies.
   For perhaps the very first time, I start to feel full.