Chapter 3: Family Life

By the time Cookie was in her fourth year of grade-school, she had become the sole homemaker, in the Mullin's house, doing all of the cleaning and laundry and cooking for her father and brother. She loved the role of taking care of her family and took up sewing to keep her rag-a-muffin clothes in as good a repair as possible.

Cookie didn't just make food, she had to teach herself to become a near-gourmet cook because her father would settle for nothing but the most savory foods on his table. By the age of ten she had become an expert at sauces, gravies, sautéing, baking and all forms of culinary art. If anything was deemed wrong, with a simple breakfast or a fancy dinner, Cookie would pay for it with a severe slapping or a knock to the floor. If the coffee didn't taste just perfect, or it wasn't hot enough for her father's liking, it was more than liable to be poured over her hand and double the punishment if she even flinched from the pain of it.

Cookie never ate with the family but took a small portion alone in the kitchen, her father telling her that seeing her eat made him nauseous (even though she ate very properly with her knife and fork as she was taught to do by her elderly Aunt in England). It was as if she were relegated to being just a cook and a servant in her own home.

On occasion, she was denied meals or water as a punishment and Corey would sneak her food only to have her be caught, by her father, with a piece of bread and pulled around by the hair while being kicked and slapped for being a thief.

All the welts and marks and bruises and burns, on her young, thin body, were intentionally put on places where nobody would generally see them or be any the wiser. By the age of eleven she'd had three fractured fingers, a broken forearm, a twice-broken wrist, two broken ribs and a fractured femur from being thrown down the basement stairs or knocked over furniture or shoved into walls.

The family doctor and the local emergency room were satisfied with the admission, by Cookie, that she was clumsy and accident prone and no reports were ever filed with the authorities.

Cookie was, in spite of her situation, very family oriented. Despite his severity with her, she loved her father and showed him the respect that she felt he deserved as the head of the household. She believed that a girl's duty was to obey her father in all things and Cookie did just that. She never gave up the dream that she could in some way turn him around into loving her as much as she did him. Cookie also cared deeply for her brother and she tried very hard to please both the males in her home though, in her father's case, it was impossible.

At Christmas, Cookie would make gifts for her father and Corey. She had no money but she could knit and work with paper and cardboard and make pretty arts and lovely craft items.

Every Christmas was the same however. Cookie would set up and decorate the tree that her father brought home and make the house festive for everyone.

Christmas morning she would awake and come downstairs in her pajamas and robe and make rolls and coffee and wait excitedly for Corey and her father to come down.

When they did, her father and brother would accept her gifts and Corey would have something for his dad and her father would have bought a few expensive presents for Corey but, year after year, there was nothing there for Cookie. Her father gave her nothing and forbid her brother to do so. She honestly didn't mind and never once complained. Christmas was for giving, she'd tell herself, and so she gave her meager gifts without want.