Chapter 3The Thirty Thousand Dollar Daughter

Watching my parents bow and scrape, offering Earl cigarettes and negotiating the price of my life like I was a used car, a flood of memories suddenly broke through the dam in my mind.

During my first year at the factory, the other girls on the line asked me about my family. I told them my parents loved me, that they were holding onto my savings to build me a nest egg for my future.

It was the biggest lie I had ever told.

I didn't even own a blanket that was just mine.

Growing up, I slept under Chester's hand-me-downs—stiff, matted comforters that had lost their stuffing. In the dead of winter, I would shiver so violently I spent the whole night curled into a tight, aching ball.

My mother always said girls were naturally tougher against the cold. Chester was "delicate." He needed the new down comforter.

Chester was built like a linebacker. He had never done a day of manual labor in his life.

When my parents bought fruit, Chester always picked first. He’d take a single bite out of the best apple, decide he didn't want it, and leave it on the counter. I was only allowed to eat the bruised, soft ones at the bottom of the bag.

Once, my aunt came to visit and bought a premium box of Honeycrisp apples, specifically handing them to me. The second her car pulled out of the driveway, my mother picked up the box and carried it straight into Chester's bedroom.

When I went to get one, Chester shoved me out of his door. "Mom said these are mine."

I went to my mother. She didn't even look up from the TV. "Your aunt was just being polite. Chester needs the brain food for his exams. You’re not testing for anything, what do you need them for?"

The winter I turned fourteen, our washing machine broke. I spent three hours outside washing the family’s laundry in a plastic tub of freezing water. My hands swelled up like balloons.

That night, the skin across my knuckles split open. Blood seeped out, staining the cuffs of my sweater.

My mother took one look, went to the shed, and brought back a handful of axle grease. "Rub this in. It'll stop the bleeding."

Meanwhile, Chester was in the living room playing Xbox, his hands soft, unblemished, and perfectly warm.

When I got my first period, I was terrified. I woke up to blood soaked through my pajama pants.

I didn't have pads, and I was too scared to ask for them. I tore up an old undershirt and stuffed it in my underwear. It didn't hold. By noon at school, it had bled completely through my jeans.

We were out on the playground. One of Chester’s friends pointed at the red stain on my pants and started yelling.

Chester was standing right there in the crowd. He didn't take off his jacket to tie it around my waist. He didn't defend me. He pointed at me, threw his head back, and laughed louder than anyone else.

"My sister is so freaking gross!" he shouted.

That night, I snuck out to the pharmacy and spent my only five dollars—money I had saved for two months—on a box of tampons.

When my mother found out, she screamed at me for wasting money. Her punishment was making me stand on the back porch for an hour.

It was December. I was wearing a thin t-shirt.

Chester popped the screen out of his bedroom window and leaned out. "Hazel, are you stupid? Just apologize to her and come inside."

I didn't apologize. My legs were shaking so hard I couldn't stand straight, my teeth clattering together in my skull, but I didn't say the words. Because I didn't know what I was apologizing for.

Later, I scored high enough to get a full-ride academic scholarship to a pre-med program. I thought it was my ticket out. I thought it would finally change things.

I brought the acceptance letter home and laid it on the kitchen table.

My father looked at it, took a drag of his cigarette, and told me they couldn't afford the room and board, and they wouldn't cosign any student loans. "A boy needs to be the one to carry the family," he had said.

Chester hadn't even met the minimum requirements for the local community college. But my father went to the bank, took out a second mortgage, and handed a private academy twenty thousand dollars in "donations" to secure Chester a spot.

Twenty thousand dollars. More than I could save in three years on the assembly line.

"Your brother struggles. He needs the extra support," my father had reasoned. "You’re smart. You’ll survive anywhere."

My mother had walked into the room and handed me a folded blue uniform from the auto-parts factory.

That was the day the illusion shattered. My intelligence wasn't a gift to be nurtured; it was a resource to be exploited. Because I was strong enough to survive the cold, I was expected to freeze.

I sat on the sagging sofa. Earl Jenkins lifted his heavy, grease-stained hand and rested it heavily on my bare thigh.