Page 118 of The Hitchhikers
Fall changed to winter, spring, then summer. Her mother put her on diet pills. They made her dizzy and lightheaded. She couldn’t concentrate at school. Her mother complained that Jenny looked exhausted. The dark circles under her eyes were ugly. She was then given Valium. Jenny woke on her bedroom floor, downstairs on the couch. Once, outside on her balcony. Her body covered in dew. It scared her, these late-night wanderings she had no control over.
She began to split the pills in half, unbeknownst to her mother. The lower dosage was enough that she fell asleep easier and was able to ignore the burning hunger in her stomach, and she didn’t wake in strange places anymore. She was relieved. The problem was solved.
Until it wasn’t.
She jolted awake one night. Robert was beside her bed. The dark shape of his head and shoulders loomed over her. He placed his hand across her mouth. She smelled cologne and cigars. She thrashed and fought against him, pushed at his chest.
“Shh! Jenny, stop. You were having a nightmare. I had to wake you before your mother heard. Go back to sleep.” His shape moved away, so suddenly that she was left punching air.
The door closed with a soft click. The hallway boards creaked. He was going back to his room. The one where her mother would be sleeping, with her mask, and her hair in curlers.
She gasped for breath, her hand on her racing heart. Nothing had happened. She’d scared him away. Then she felt the cool air on her legs and realized that her nightgown was lifted around her waist. The blanket had been pulled to the bottom of the bed.
How long had he been in her room?
She got up and put a chair under her door handle. That night, and every night after. Her mother kept giving her Valium, but she flushed the pills down the toilet.
When she was sixteen, her mother again went to the city. Robert had planned to go with her. They’d taken several trips together over the past year, and Jenny had savored every second of them being gone. She could pretend she had a different life. She could pretend to be happy.
At the very last moment, Robert said he had to stay home. The words were flowing. He couldn’t stop now. Her mother and Robert argued loudly. Robert slammed his office door.
Jenny watched from her balcony as her mother’s car sped out of the driveway. She never wished to spend more time with her mother, but in that moment, she wanted to run after her.
She crept through the house later to get her dinner. She would eat in her room. Robert was in his office. The steadytap, tap, tapof his typewriter was reassuring. He would be focused. Too focused to hear her steps. But then she dropped a spoon in the kitchen and watched, horrified, as it spun and clattered across the floor. She crouched to pick it up.
“Jenny? Can you bring me the sandwich your mother made me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath. It had been more than a year since that night in his office. She was smarter now. She wouldn’t sit beside him. She’d leave right away.
She got his sandwich out of the fridge—envious of the thick cheese and deli slices, the oozing mayonnaise—and poured him a glass of water.
As soon as she walked into his office, she noticed the whiskey decanter on his desk. The top was off and a glass, half full, was by his hand. It was noon, but his cheeks were already flushed, and his eyes too bright. She wondered if he’d been drinking since her mom left.
She set the dishes carefully on his desk and began to turn.
“Wait a moment, I’ve been working on one chapter all day. Do you mind reading it?”
She did mind. That was what had happened before.
“I have homework.”
“It won’t take long. I promise. I really need your help.”
He did look desperate. Maybe he meant it this time.
“Jenny, please.”
She chewed her lower lip. He smiled at her, hopefully, and gestured to the couch. The one she had avoided ever since that night. She sat on the edge, knees together, hands clasped in her lap. Like in the lady’s book of manners her mom had given her one year.
Robert handed her the papers, then paced the room. From his desk to the window and back to the fireplace. Each time he came close to her she lost focus and had to start again.
“It’s good,” she said at the end, though she could barely make sense of it. She thought he had been writing a historical romance, but this seemed darker, depressing, with too many details. Pages and pages about a man living on a remote island and his battle to save the lighthouse.
“I don’t know. Something isn’t working but I can’t put my finger on the problem.” He sat beside her. She stiffened. “This book needs to beperfect. Everything depends on it.”
“You’ll figure it out. You work so hard.”
He rolled his head to look at her. “I wish your mother had as much faith in me.”
