Chapter 1 - The burnt steak
My name is Rachel Mercer.
I was thirty-four years old when a piece of burnt steak ended twenty years of pretending my family’s cruelty was humor.
The barbecue took place at my parents’ house outside Dayton, Ohio.
Frank and Diane Mercer had lived there since I was twelve.
White siding.
Wide backyard.
Charcoal grill at the edge of the patio.
Picnic table beneath an old maple tree.
Children running through the sprinkler.
A blue plastic cooler full of soda.
Cheap paper plates.
Nothing about the setting looked dramatic.
That was part of why I remember it so clearly.
Cruelty does not always arrive in an impressive room.
Sometimes it smells like charcoal and sunscreen.
My daughter Lily was six.
Blonde hair.
Light blue summer dress.
Thin shoulders.
Quiet child.
Not weak.
Not timid in every setting.
At school she volunteered to read aloud.
At home she argued about bedtime like an attorney billing by the hour.
Around my parents, though, she became smaller.
That had been happening for almost a year.
I had noticed.
I had explained it away.
That was my mistake.
My nephew Ethan was seven.
My sister Melissa’s son.
Funny.
Loud.
Confident.
He and Lily actually liked each other.
That mattered.
The problem was never Ethan.
The adults built the comparison.
Grandma’s boy.
Grandpa’s champion.
Ethan can handle it.
Ethan isn’t sensitive.
Look how well Ethan eats.
Look how Ethan doesn’t cry.
Look how Ethan knows how to take a joke.
Every compliment to him became a small accusation against Lily.
Melissa sometimes looked uncomfortable.
Sometimes she laughed too.
I had spent years trying not to turn our children into the next generation of my sister and me.
My parents apparently had other plans.
That Saturday was supposed to be a simple family cookout.
My father stood at the charcoal grill in a polo shirt and khaki shorts, holding metal tongs like he was hosting a cooking show.
“Medium for the men,” he announced.
Aunt Karen called:
“I’m a woman.”
“You get medium too if you behave.”
Laughter.
Normal Frank Mercer.
Everything was a joke.
If you objected, you were humorless.
If you laughed, he went farther.
I sat beside Lily.
She had eaten corn, watermelon, and half a dinner roll.
She was waiting for steak because my father had made a show of telling the children:
“Grandpa bought the good stuff.”
Ethan’s plate came first.
A thick strip steak.
Brown crust.
Pink center.
Juices pooling beside his corn.
“Look at that,” Dad said proudly. “That’s how you treat a growing boy.”
Ethan grinned.
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
Then Dad lifted another piece from the far edge of the grill.
I saw it immediately.
Black.
Not deeply seared.
Burned.
The outside had gone nearly charcoal.
One edge curled.
He carried it toward Lily.
For a second, I assumed he was going to make some joke and replace it.
Instead he dropped it directly onto her plate.
Lily stared.
My mother Diane sat across from us in a floral summer top.
She smiled.
“You only deserve leftovers!”
Lily looked at her.
Her eyes filled.
Not crying yet.
Trying not to.
That was worse.
My father laughed loudly.
“Even a dog wouldn't touch that piece!”
My uncle Tom laughed.
A cousin laughed.
Melissa made a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been discomfort.
Ethan kept chewing.
He looked at Lily’s plate.
Then at his own.
His smile disappeared.
I watched my daughter clench both hands beneath the table.
I knew that gesture.
She was trying not to cry because she had learned my parents considered crying proof that the joke worked.
My own smile vanished.
I pushed back my chair.
Dad saw me stand.
“Uh-oh.”
More laughter.
I picked up Lily’s steak.
Diane said:
“Rachel.”
I threw it.
Not at the grill.
Not onto the lawn.
At my father.
The meat struck above his right eyebrow, then fell onto the patio.
One hard black edge scratched his skin.
A thin red line appeared.
Silence.
“My child isn't a joke for you people!”
Dad stared at me.
“What the hell?”
Lily slid off the bench.
She moved behind me.
My mother barely looked at her.
“Don't make such a big deal out of it.”
I turned.
Lily’s face was streaked with tears now.
Her hands were trembling.
Not dramatic trembling.
Small.
Fast.
I looked at my mother.
My father.
Melissa.
Uncle Tom.
The relatives who had laughed.
The children who had heard.
Something inside me that had spent years trying to be reasonable finally stopped negotiating.
“I’m going to show everyone the true face of this rotten family!”
Several expressions changed.
Dad’s anger became uncertainty.
Mom’s eyes narrowed.
Melissa looked down.
May you like
My uncle stopped smiling.
And I knew, before anyone said another word, that they understood exactly what I meant.
