Okay, so I usually try to keep this blog pretty upbeat, because we’re all in this together and I want you to feel uplifted, not saddened—but I also feel like I need to be real with you. And the reality is that not everything in my life has been rainbows and butterflies. Some of it is hard to write about—one event in particular that I’m not ready to dredge up just yet—but in the spirit of being real, with you and myself, I think it’s time I introduce you to a few of the monsters from my past, starting with Hank.
At first glance, Hank wasn’t your stereotypical evil stepdad. In fact, quite the opposite. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he was the nicest guy around. In the early days especially he was always smiling, complimenting my report card, buying gifts for my sister and me. Sure, they weren’t always things I wanted—soccer balls and orienteering kits and weird books about healthy habits—but fortunately Hank made up for hisbad taste in presents by being exceptionally funny. He joked a lot and could be quite silly, doing a spot-on impression of our neighbor, Mrs. Dasko, who was always smoking and shouting at her Yorkshire terrier, Romeo. He called her Mrs. Fatso, which was mean, but secretly I found it hilarious.
I looked up to Hank. He was smart and successful and handsome, with a thick, macho, dark-blond mustache. He kept fit, pumping iron in the garage every morning before work. Unlike my parents, who hadn’t gone to college, he had a PhD and a fancy job helping find a cure for cancer (I meanseriously, how much more virtuous can you get than that?). He was active in the community and passionate about his dorky hobbies like gardening and coaching high school lacrosse. And most of all, he loved—seemed to love—his adopted family. He’d never had kids of his own, but even though I know he really, really wanted them, he said the three of us were all the family he needed.
But as nice as he was most of the time, Hank had high expectations—for Abby, for me, and for his “temple,” which is what he called our house. The smallest thing could set him off, for example a glass of water left sitting on the counter for more than a few minutes, or the faintest sound from the Game Boy Advance attached semipermanently to my hand.
I’d recently become obsessed withPokémonafter a friend introduced me to the show. “Gotta Catch ’Em All!” was the franchise’s famous tagline, and it was no joke—I’d been well and truly caught. Within months, I’d amassed hundreds of holographic trading cards, arranged neatly in sheets of plastic inserts that filled a three-ring binder. Pokémon posters plastered my bedroom walls, and I woke with the sun each morning to watch the new episode ofPokémon: Advanced Challengebefore school.
The franchise quickly became everything to me. While my classmates moved on to the Black Eyed Peas andCall of Duty, I carved out a life for myself in the Hoenn Region, that colorful anime world where young people had control over their own destinies and lifelong friends who would fight for them no matter the threat (CUE FORESHADOWING!!! ).
Hank seemed skeptical. “Hey, sport”—that was his favorite nickname for me—“you’ve been playing with those cards an awful long time. Why don’t you go outside and get some fresh air?” He was always trying to get me to play with the neighborhood kids, but they were older and kind of mean, calling me Jigglypuff, the name of a tubby pink fairy-type Pokémon.
Hank didn’t want me to have a Game Boy of my own—“He spends enough time in the house,” I heard him tell my mom—but my dad, maybe to piss him off, got me one for Christmas with my own copy ofPokémon Sapphire. I played for hours on end, so long that my eyes bugged out and I developed what my doctor called an ocular tic, compelling me to repeatedly roll my eyes so far back in my head that it hurt. Mom was afraid I was going to have a seizure like “those kids in Japan”—whoever they were—but it was Hank who really hated my playing the game.
Whenever he saw me at it, his voice would get low and sharp around the edges. He’d mutter little comments about me being lazy and idle, remind me that when he was a boy growing up on the island—he was born and raised on Maui—his Air Force veteran father would’ve bent him over his knee with a folded-up belt if he sat around the house like that. Although he was estranged from his family, Hank’s words dripped with disdain for my mother’s permissiveness and the limits it set on the correction of my body.
Hank didn’t like my body. I could tell by the way he looked at me behind his smile, by the conversations we had when no one else was around. “Whatcha doin’, sport?” he once said as I grabbed a string cheese out of the fridge. His home office was just a few steps off the kitchen; hearing the door open, he’d suddenly appear, like he’d been listening for it. “Didn’t you just have lunch? Are you even hungry?”
“Yes—”
“No, you’re not.”
I felt anxious, like I’d been caught doing something bad. Confused too. Mom never minded if I had a snack—in fact, shewas the one who was always asking if I was hungry, if I wanted something to eat. And Ididwant something to eat, so therefore I must be hungry.
“I am hungry,” I said, and something hardened behind Hank’s smile. He didn’t like to be contradicted.
“You know, sport, there’s a big difference between hungry and being a glutton. Do you know what a glutton is? That’s a person who never stops eating. Not because they’re hungry, but because they’re stupid and greedy like a pig. They just get fatter and fatter. And you—well, you’ve put on a few pounds yourself.”
A boy like me, he said, shouldn’t care about eating or even want to eat. He should play outside, do sports, get into mischief. A misbehaved boy was better than a fat one. When I was younger, my brother Chris used to tease me relentlessly. One of his favorite taunts was to call me a girl, to insist I wasn’t a boy because I had boobs. In a way, it felt like Hank was saying the same thing.
I started to feel uncomfortable eating in front of him, even at mealtimes. He’d laugh and joke with my mom and sister, but I could feel him watching me across the table, clocking how fast one bite followed another, how thoroughly I chewed my food. His eyes narrowing with disgust when I didn’t reject the second helpings Mom was already heaping onto my plate.
In a house where food was love but eating was shameful, family meals were both a relief and a curse, a volatile push-and-pull of comfort and fear. And so eventually I turned to eating in secret. I’d wait until Hank was out of the house or busy upstairs and take a seat in the open-plan family room connected to the kitchen. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I’d pad silently over to the walk-in kitchen pantry and close myself inside without making a sound. If it was night and the light would be too noticeable, I might not flip the switch at all. Feeling my way around in the dark, I’d eat whatever I could get my hands on—Doritos, Triscuits, Goldfish, slices of plain bread—always open bags and boxes. A bit from each, finishing none of them, making sure no one noticed that I’d gorged. I’d shovel them down as fast as I could, as quietly as I could. The faster I ate, the better it hurt.
The system usually kept me out of trouble, but sometimes I slipped up. One day I was curled up on a leather loveseat in the formal living room, my favorite place to doze on a Sunday afternoon, when Hank’s words from the kitchen pantry snapped me awake: “Where are my cupcakes?” My body went cold with panic and fear.
He could only be referring to the orange-flavored Hostess Cupcakes Mom and I had picked out for him at the bakery outlet. Not my favorite flavor, but when I needed to binge, anything fatty and sweet enough would do.
He barreled into the living room, sending me scrambling upright and snatching my book off the coffee table, as if I’d been reading the whole time. Hank hated when I napped.
“Hey, sport,” he seethed, a muscle spasming in his neck, “I noticed my special cupcakes are missing.”
“I didn’t eat them,” I said quickly.
“Oh yeah, sounds like you’ve got a guilty conscience there.”
“No—”
“Bull crap. I guess you think I’m stupid, that I can’t tell when you’re lying. You think you’re smart. Well, let me tell you something: You might get A’s at school, but you get F’s with me. You won’t even look me in the eye.”
My eyes, searching around in hopes my mom or sister would come and rescue me, flicked instantly to his.
“Don’t eat my food again. Or there will be consequences.” Hank turned to leave, muttering just loud enough for me to hear: “Fat pig.”
When I was able to get Mom alone that evening, I told her what Hank had called me. I didn’t mention the cupcakes, because she would probably suspect I’d eaten them and I didn’t want to give her any reason to side with Hank.
She went ballistic. Her face a twist of white, horrible rage, she stormed downstairs to his office. I followed cautiously, crouching on the stairs to listen, scared of what he’d say and how it might turn her against me. The office door flew open, Mom screaming at the top of her voice, “What the fuck is wrong with you, how DAREyou, you fucking piece of shit! Don’t you ever, DON’T YOU EVER talk to my son that way or I’ll break your fucking skull!”
