Chapter 1: Coming Home

Cookie unfortunately was born on the day that her mother died struggling to give birth to her. Her mother was dearly loved by her husband and family and, because of the doctor's explanation that the position of the baby in the birth canal caused the fatal, uncontrollable hemorrhaging, Lynn Mullins death was blamed (by her father) totally on the innocent, newborn, baby girl.

So enraged was her father that he didn't even want to see the infant, wrapped in a pink blanket and on display in the hospital nursery.

Michael Mullins was beyond any consolation that day but kept his grief hidden behind his boiling rage over what had taken his wife away from him. Told that he was required by law to fill out a name on his newborn daughter's birth certificate, he looked about the room, saw a discarded shard of a partially eaten, chocolate-chip cookie, abandoned on a tray, and simply scrawled Cookie on the form's blank line. The last name was filled in by a nurse and a middle name of Lynn was added, by some other family member, before the birth certificate was filed. The family (afraid that he would just let her die) sent Cookie away to live with an aging aunt, in a place called Swadlincote, in England, but when her Aunt died, five years later, she was sent back to live with her father and her six year old brother Corey.

Cookie, on arrival at Metro Airport, was blonde, thin and frail with very fair skin, large, azure-blue eyes and delicately pretty facial features. She arrived wearing a white blouse, a blue, pleated skirt, a red blazer and matching beret and white knee-sox with black, patient leather shoes. Cookie talked and talked, chattering like the excited little girl she was, during the drive home from the airport. As soon as they arrived at her new residence, her father yanked the girl from the car, pulled up the back of her skirt and beat her panty-clad rear end to black and blue, with his open hand, to silence her.

Cookie was to learn her two paramount rules that first day with her father: she was never to cry and never ever to scream or so much as whimper when she was "disciplined" with whatever implement her father had at hand.

In the beginning years she spoke with an English accent that further irritated her all-American father. "There is no loo in this house," he screamed frighteningly at the little girl, "this is America and we piss in the fucking toilet here!"

Her brother Corey loved her on sight. His first time seeing her was that day at the airport and he was thrilled to learn that he had a little sister to love but he instinctively knew that he had to hide his feelings from their father to protect her. He always secretly championed her at school, beating up the boys who taunted her for her odd clothing which her father made her wear ... things from the trash or Salvation Army store ... too short or too long dresses ... undergarments that were threadbare and had to be pinned to stay in place.

Cookie soon learned her place in the family and the fact that her father could slap her, kick her, burn her with a lit cigarette or whip her with a belt and she was taught to just stand before him and silently take the punishment so as not to enrage him any further. No tear would drip down from her blue eyes and no grunt, whimper, moan or painful scream would ever be emitted from her tightly clamped little lips.