Page 62 of The Unraveling

“I’m her mother!” She shouted this. The house seemed to ring with the sudden ferocity of her tone. “I am her mother. Not you. Thank god for that. Jocelyn!”

I waited the right amount of time and then made it sound like I was running down all the steps and hadn’t been lurking like an unnoticed owl.

She stormed out with me in tow, leaving the freshly baked cookies and my beloved Mimi behind.

We got home, which was dark and uninviting with its busted porch light.

I felt sick and tried very hard not to admit that it was because I’d eaten a bunch of raw cookie dough. Eventually it got too bad, and my mom got immediately furious with me.

“Let’s go,” she said, trotting me to the bathroom. It was there that she told me to stick my fingers down my throat until I threw up.

She left me alone at first and I tried, but it made me feel like I was going to die. When she returned, this time with a glass of liquor, she leaned on the bathroom counter.

“It’s for your own good, Jocelyn. You shouldn’t have eaten all that crap. It’s no wonder you feel like shit. Crap food will make you look like crap and feel like crap. Honey, you’re not even trying.”

I took a deep breath and then stuck my spit-covered fingers back down my throat, this time gagging.

“There you go,” she said.

And then it happened. It was hot and made my stomach cramp and ache and made my ribs feel like they were splintering. The pizza, Sprite, and cookie dough all felt like what the ocean churns up in the middle of a deadly storm.

Afterward I felt raw and red and empty and filthy. My mom washed my hands and then took a warm washcloth and wiped my face, kneeling in front of me.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it? You didn’t want all that nasty stuff in you, did you? All that icky grease and cheese and sugar?”

It made me feel nauseous all over again, but I thought if I threw up again I might flip inside out like a pair of peeled stockings.

I shook my head.

“If Mimi ever makes you eat that stuff again, I want you to go straight to the bathroom and get rid of it.”

“Do you do that?”

She smiled and then laughed, and I could smell the liquor on her tongue. “Only if I make a mistake and eat something bad. But that’s why we eat right, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

She led me out to the kitchen, where she poured me a glass of water. My head was pounding.

“I have an idea,” she said. “We’ll do it together.”

“Do what?”

“Fix our diets! We’ll eat really well and we won’t eat any more crap. We eat too much as it is. You’re a ballerina.” She shrugged. “The truth is, ballerinas don’t eat much. Like princesses. How often do you see Ariel or Jasmine eating?”

I shrugged. “Not really ever.”

“And they stay little. Like you’re going to. You’re going to stay delicate and little just like you are now. We’ll count our calories. It’ll be fun, like a little game.”

—

Then the next day, for my birthday breakfast, I was given two egg whites and a sliver of salmon. For a drink, she gave me a glass of lukewarm water, also filled with lemon juice.

The salmon made me gag, but I ate it, as it seemed that she had gone through the pantry and thrown out everything. I mean everything. No boxes of pasta or bags of rice left. Just some boring things like lentils, salt, and pepper.

Then we went to the aquatic center for my party.

I was allowed to invite everyone from my ballet class, and no one from school. My mom said it was just better that way. It didn’t really matter to me, but the only friend I really had was Sadie.

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