How to Cook Your Daughter

by Jessica Hendra

  My mother said I should go ahead and let Rudy send my letter out. She even discussed it with her husband, who agreed. If I got sued, he told my mother, the two of them would stand by me one hundred percent.

  Kurt never equivocated. “If you think now is the time to finally stand up for yourself with respect to your father, then I say go ahead,” he told me. “Do what helps you sleep at night.”

  He came with me to see my therapist, and the three of us sat in her office discussing the pros and cons of keeping silent or speaking out. After all, publicly denouncing your parent is, to put it mildly, an earthquake of a move. I might feel terribly guilty for doing such a thing, regret it deeply if I had not first tried every possible alternative. Just as the government practices diplomacy before declaring war. I didn’t want to ambush my dad. I wanted to be straightforward with him. I wanted him to know where I stood.

  When we got home, a package rested by the door. Inside was a copy of Father Joe sent to me by Random House at the request of my father. The card inside read “Compliments of the Author,” and Dad had written an inscription on the title page “Show Julia and Charlotte the dedication. I bet this is the first time they have had a book dedicated to them, though it won’t be the last.”

  Waiting for me were a few e-mails from my stepmother encouraging me to read the reviews of the book. I felt surrounded. But like every time before, I held out hope. I even fantasized that maybe, just knowing how I felt, Dad would consent to tell his readers what he had left out of his “confession.” Maybe the book was a first step, not a last. Maybe a push from me was all he needed.

  That night I wrote him a message. And, to my surprise, I sent it:

  Daddy,

  I got the copy of the book. In fact I had already bought and read the book when the copy from you arrived. I have not been in contact since reading it because I have been through such agonies trying to figure out how to tell you exactly how much this book hurt me and how angry it made me. You certainly have the right to write any book you want to, but in my opinion, you have no place writing a “confessional.” The description of Father Joe was true and heartfelt, and the details of your childhood were funny and compelling, but your sins were confessed and dealt with in such sweeping generalities that it was very hard for me to take.

  Either you confessed to Father Joe the sin you committed against me and understandably left that conversation out of your book, or you never confessed it to him and still remain with a dark stain on your “saved soul.” If you did talk to him about it, you should have told me about it privately and given me the benefit of the solace he granted you. It is very hard for me not to feel outrage when I hear this book lauded as truthful. You know that it tells such a small portion of what really happened.

  I could go on with this letter and tell you each and every emotion I had while reading Father Joe, but I don’t see the point. I don’t think you have ever wanted to acknowledge how much damage you did, and that was certainly clear in your ability to write this book and gloss over so much. I understand that you might feel that admitting you were “a terrible father” should be enough for me but it’s not. You owe me more than that. What you did affected me so deeply that it has been my life’s work trying to overcome it.

  I had hoped that the relationship we have had over the last few years might continue. I have (we all have) appreciated both your and Carla’s extensive hospitality and touching interest in the girls.”

  This all feels so useless, I thought as I reread the e-mail again. I’ve gone to him before, during that awful Christmas at Aunt Celia’s when I was in college. I know he remembers that. And what good did it do?

  I have tried twice already with confrontations (at Celia’s) and letters (exchanged more than seven years ago) to make you accept that what you did was devastating. I have nothing left to say. Clearly not one thing I have said has penetrated your heart, or you would not have written the book you did and be able to accept the praise of having written a true and honest confessional.

  I wish all of this could have turned out differently.

  Jessie.

  My father’s response was typically confusing. I read it the same way I read Father Joe: at first glance, emotional and felt, at second, an artful dodge—much like the letter he had written to Michael O’Donoghue all those years ago.

  “Jessie,” it began…

  I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. I too thought that we had groped our way to some kind of modus vivendi and that you felt a measure of—an inadequate and clichéd word I know—closure. And of course I hoped and literally prayed that the subject of this book might help us further along that road. It is first and last about the love and forgiveness without which life is a relentless, mutually destructive, round of hatred and payback. That you have this reaction is beyond grief to me; tears keep welling up and have since I first read your message.

  I’m so paralyzed with misery, it’s as if Joe had died again.

  This book isn’t about us. It’s not even ultimately about me. I’m a character in it and the reporter of it, but in the end it’s about this extraordinary man I was lucky enough to know. I set out to write it—as I say in the prologue—to try to make him live again, because his loss was so numbingly painful to me, but also to try and bring his persona and wisdom to others. I owe Joe much more than that, but it’s something. In a long and far from admirable life, I wanted to write one worthwhile thing before I died that might help people or inspire them or give them some relief from the horrors our supposed leaders and mentors inflict on them. It seems to be doing that. But it isn’t me that’s touching people. It’s Joe. This is his book. Apropos Joe: I must correct you about [one] thing. I told you long ago that I had spoken to Father Joe, and you dismissed it as irrelevant; I even suggested that we go and see him together. You rejected that too.

  You imply (with your mentions of “praise”) that the book is about fame—and perhaps money. It’s not. I’ve always been very uncomfortable with the first—what little I’ve experienced down the years—and never cared that much about the second. If the book makes money, it will mostly go to Quarr and to our local (quite poor) parish.

  Of course you can bring all this crashing down if you wish, along with Joe’s memory and much else. Does the finality of your last sentence mean that is your intention or is there some way to meet or talk and find a path once and for all out of this terrible place?

  Dad

  The message seemed full of high emotion and pathos. More than that, he neither denied what he had done nor accepted how I felt about it. As usual, I had simply misunderstood him and his work…just as he had told me in the past that I had misunderstood his “jokes.” Just as he had said that I misunderstood what happened between us when I wasn’t yet seven. The book, like that act, was really nothing to get so upset about. His message was clear: His book was about forgiveness—something that I, evidently, was incapable of. And so he had dodged me again.

  I asked Kurt what he thought of the message. “I think he is a really good manipulator, Jess. That’s what I think.”

  But I wasn’t going to let go easily this time. I wrote back.

  Dad,

  I don’t remember saying I would not see Joe. Or that your discussion with Joe was irrelevant. But be that as it may, what did he say? And how did you feel about writing a book about your relationship with him and the subject of forgiveness that did not include that discussion, that confession? Did the necessity of omitting that scene (for reasons that are obvious) give you any moment of questioning whether to write the book at all? Or did it not seem that important?

  I received no answers. Only this.

  i just got your e-mail. can i call you? now? or today? or this weekend? give me a good time. i have a proposition for you.

  dad

  Through e-mails, we set a time to talk, and I asked Kurt to take the girls out, so I could have some privacy. I dreaded the moment it would be time to call New York. Whenever I confronted my fath
er, I started out full of resolve and lost my nerve when I heard his voice. The call began as all of them did: “Hi Jessie,” my father said. His “proposition” was for us to meet in New York, to talk “privately.”

  “Dad, I don’t want to talk privately with you about this anymore. I want someone else to be there. A shrink, a priest, anyone. I don’t want anymore secrets. We have talked privately. And you still wrote this book the way you did.”

  “Just think about it, Jessie,” he said calmly. “Think about it and call me back.”

  Over the next few days, I looked into my heart and saw what was there—and what was missing. What I really wanted from my father was for him to understand me. To say he regretted what he had done and that he should have come clean about it years ago. To acknowledge that he needed to do this, not only for me but in order to live with himself. He did not, then or ever, really search for what it was in him that allowed him to do such a thing.

  I was a parent now. I knew the responsibility I had to my children. I had sat up evenings regretting when I had lost my temper with them.

  Worrying that something I said or did might have hurt them. Thinking that maybe it would be something they would never forget. Did my father ever feel that way, this man who seemed so insightful about so many things?

  I e-mailed him the next day.

  Dad,

  I have thought long and hard about our talk the other day. I feel that meeting and talking is just more of what we have already done and honestly I can’t see that those discussions made much of an impression on you. I don’t want any more secrets. For me “closure” will only be gotten by getting this out in the open once and for all.

  Jessica

  I thought forever about that last line: Out in the open? Once and for all? Was I really going through with it?

  I still wasn’t sure what I planned to do.

  Rudy had made some discreet inquiries into who would be the right person to see my letter. A friend had offered to put us in touch with David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page at the New York Times. I had been planning a trip to New York with the girls and my mom in mid-June. If we decided to send the story to the Times, I would be available to see them when I was in the city. But I still hesitated to give Rudy the okay to contact Shipley.

  Rudy advised me to talk to a lawyer friend of his in Washington. The lawyer was sympathetic but clear. “This could get out of hand very quickly if you go public,” he warned. “Be prepared to hear things about yourself you might not like, to have every part of your life put under a microscope if you do this.”

  And another friend said: “If you do go public, Jessica, remember that Julia and Charlotte will some day read about it on the Internet. They will know everything. Do you really want that?”

  I barely paused. “What happened to me happened. At some point I will have to tell them anyway. I would rather my children have an image of their mother as someone who spoke out. Not one who stayed silent. I would rather have to explain to them why I did do something than have to explain to them why I did not.”

  “Then Jess, you should send your story to the Times. Send it.”

  I put down the phone. Would I ever respect myself again if I didn’t? The question had become rhetorical.

  It was only a few days before we were set to leave for New York. But like Macbeth, I was “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would.’”

  I needed a run. A long one. Miles and miles. And when I got back…when I got back, I was going to talk to Rudy and tell him to get the piece to David Shipley. Or I was going to delete every word and drop the subject forever.

  I had ten miles to decide.

  I got up early the next morning, around sunrise, and outside it felt cool and fresh. The best time to run, before the traffic takes over. On the street it was only me and a guy heaving copies of the Los Angeles Times through his car window, narrowly missing knocking me out at each reader’s house.

  I’m not a good runner. I plod. I don’t bounce or glide, and there’s absolutely no spring to my step. I run because I have to, because motion calms me like rocking soothes a colicky baby. And that morning, the pounding of my feet took on the rhythm of my thoughts.

  Okay, why am I ready to give up on him forever? I picked up speed. Why? Why? I felt angry at myself for even asking. Because I have given him chance after chance, that’s why. I’ve told him how I feel. I crossed a street and jumped back onto the sidewalk. But he thinks so little of what he did, so little of me. I ran faster, but I couldn’t escape it. My dad simply never respected me. Not when I was almost seven, and never, ever after. I slowed a bit, as though deflated at the realization. That really had been it for him, I suspected. That night in my bed. In his mind, he had conquered me. And after that, I had never mattered, never really mattered.

  For a moment, I felt like stopping, like giving up and giving in. And then I thought of his book, those reviews, and ran faster. He learned nothing from Joe. Nothing! If he had, he would have been brave enough to face his actions. I was panting. It’s not that I would have never forgiven him. I would have if he had just asked me to, if he had just admitted what he had done, that it was wrong. That it wasn’t my fault.

  I pounded the pavement harder, with each word of each thought. If…he…just…stopped…insisting…that…it…didn’t…matter.

  The sweat poured down my face now, and even though the air felt cool, it couldn’t chill my anger. I asked for help. But he just…what’s the word…he just belittled me, told me worse things had happened, told me to get over it. There had never been a point of arguing with my father. It had always made me feel stupid. Worse than stupid, really. Idiotic. He had turned dismissiveness and hypocrisy into art forms. What he had done to me wasn’t a big deal. But God forbid I tell a soul about it.

  Maybe this was my only option? Somehow, that made me feel better. Maybe telling the story publicly would shock him into seeing what years with Father Joe hadn’t. Maybe, finally, he’d see the impact that his sins had had on others.

  But it was more than that, I knew. I had to stop seeing whatever I did in terms of my father. This wasn’t about helping him. Who was I kidding?

  My feet felt jammed into my running shoes. God, I hurt all over. I hadn’t been sleeping. I always felt distracted, worried. But I had only gone a few miles, and I meant to finish this run.

  I stopped to cross Olympic Boulevard. The previous Sunday, a cop had yelled at me for crossing on the red light. And when I thought about it now, I remembered back to when I was six, when the police pulled my father over, and Daddy turned to us and said, “They always take the children to jail first, you know, girls.”

  I crossed anyway and wondered, What are people going to say if I do this? That I’m vicious? Envious? Petty? Self-involved? A new word came with each step. Will they think that I’m lying? Would anyone think that?

  The streets along my route had begun to come to life. Angelinos wandered from their houses in robes, picking up newspapers and letting their dogs out. I slowed a bit.

  If I stay quiet this time, it will do me in. I’m sure of it. I’ll end up doing what I’ve always done and turn the anger toward myself. And I’ll hate myself even more than I already do. It’s not just a book. It’s a history of our family. And if I don’t speak out, it will go down as the truth.

  He thought I would never dare say anything. That I would accept the book because I have no voice of my own. Maybe we were past the apologies and the soul-searching. Maybe there was really nothing my father could say or do any more. Hadn’t his book said it all? Hadn’t his book told the world that he was the proud father of a saved soul?

  By the time I reached mile ten, I had made my decision.

  8.

  PHEBE’S

  BY SIXTEEN, I STARTED LOOKING FORWARD TO THE times Dad was away and the loft grew quiet. My mother, Kathy, and I were able to coexist without much friction. When he was away, I felt less compelled to sneak out. But food, for Kathy and for me, remained an
issue.

  Kathy had grown thinner and thinner. Her beautiful face was drawn and sunken; her eyes seemed hollow. Her skin looked as though it were turning yellow, as if she were jaundiced.

  A doctor that she and my mother visited urged her to eat more. She tried. I watched her stirring chocolate mousse and butter cookies, sifting flour and whipping egg whites with her rail-thin arms—and not even licking the spoon. Knowing she was cooking made me anxious. How was I ever going to resist stuffing mousse into myself? What made me ever more anxious was what happened when she was finished. Eerily, Kathy loomed over anyone willing to try her concoctions, as if watching them eating was enough to sustain her. Every time I opened the refrigerator, I’d feel her eyes on me too. I was still bingeing and purging, and my sister made me edgy. And I made her nervous too, I could tell. We were both food watchers, interested in what everyone else was eating. I just had a harder time resisting than Kathy did. And just as she had once envied me for being my father’s favorite, I now envied her for being so thin. I weighed a good forty pounds more.

  But I was doing my best to catch her. I never ate meals, usually because I had either just pigged out, felt like starving myself that day, or had just thrown up after pigging out. The sibling rivalry flared whenever food was around. “Jessie, why aren’t you eating?” was followed by: “Well, Kathy why aren’t you eating?” We always had been competitive. To eat or not to eat was simply a new way of expressing ourselves. And she was winning. My dad took an interest in her unlike ever before. And even though I didn’t particularly want to be the favorite anymore, I was still aware that she had taken my place. Thunder Thighs had finally been noticed.

  Food aside, Kathy and I were getting along better, I suppose. I often invited her out with Iana (who had been her friend before mine), Krisztina, and me. Punk music had grown old faster than we were, and now, the really hip music was reggae, ska, and rap, which was making its way downtown from the Bronx. We hardly ever went to CBGB anymore but snuck out to the Reggae Lounge or clubs where the Sugar Hill Gang and other obscure rap artists played. Reggae and ska seemed dangerous politically and impossible not to dance to. The only bad thing about hanging out in reggae clubs was that I hated smoking pot. I turned down spliff after spliff from generous Rastafarians with heavy Jamaican accents. Their dreads bounced in piles high atop of their heads as they danced. I thought they were the coolest guys I’d ever seen—cooler even than the British punkers. And they were happy to have us there to flirt and dance with. Most were as laid back as their look. But some were a bit more aggressive. One night, a tall, long-limbed Rasta with a red, green, and gold hat and a lion of Judah on his shirt danced up to me. He grabbed my hand, took me in his arms and declared in a thick West Indian accent: “I and I am prince. I and I man, you woman. I and I have right!” I got the gist of what he said and tried not to be completely freaked. Krisztina finally rescued me, pulling me from the prince’s strong grip. The wives and girlfriends of the Rastas wanted us to get our little white-girl asses out of their clubs, something they never hesitated to tell us.