Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

her food, and sit in front of the television set with her mother, who no longer had the energy to knit or mend or even fold the laundry. After dinner, Sarah would sit, nodding off halfway through Leave It to Beaver or The Andy Griffith Show . Her mouth would fall open, and she’d snore. In the glare of the television set, she looked old, and frail, and powerless. After her mother had gone to bed, Bethie would slip into the kitchen, padding on her bare feet, plucking a mixing spoon out of the drawer, opening the refrigerator andshoving whatever she could find down her throat, anything that was soft and yielding. Cookie dough was best, but she’d eat ice cream and sherbet or cottage cheese, bread or cold rice or mashed potatoes, raspberry jam or chicken gravy that had solidified to jelly. Anything that was soft, anything that could be scooped up and gulped down without her even tasting it. Anything to fill the hole that had opened up inside of her, anything to fill the void, until there was no room left for bad memories or anger or guilt or shame.
    By August, she’d put on ten pounds. Her skin was broken out, with angry red pimples spattering her forehead and cheeks, and her breasts had grown two cup sizes so that all her bras squeezed. Sarah didn’t say anything about the vanishing supply of food, which she surely must have noticed. All she did was snip a copy of a seven-day grapefruit-and-hardboiled-egg diet out of Ladies’ Home Journal and leave it at Bethie’s spot on the kitchen table after she’d left for work, murmuring, “When you’re short, with a small frame, every pound shows.”
    Bethie avoided her friends, who were spending their summer days sunning themselves by the public pool or who, if they were old enough, had part-time jobs babysitting or scooping ice cream or waiting tables. She wasn’t old enough to work, and she couldn’t stand the thought of putting on her swimsuit, which no longer fit, and lying on a towel on the concrete around the pool, with so much of her body exposed. She said she was busy when Barbara Simoneaux asked her to double-date, and missed Laura Ochs’s Sweet Sixteen. Under the weather , she’d say, which was code for menstrual cramps, or she’d say, My mom needs me at home , and who could argue with that?
    Finally, one Wednesday night in August, Uncle Mel pulled down Alhambra Street and, oh thank God, the lights were on in the house, shining through the window. “Uncle Mel, I have to go,” Bethie blurted, and had her feet on the ground almost before the car had stopped. She ran across the lawn, fumbling for her key on its ribbon, hurrying through the door, and Jo was there, Jo had finally come home. She was standing in the kitchen, her legstanned underneath her white camp shorts, her shoulders broad and strong beneath her green-and-white Camp Tanuga T-shirt. The light above the stove was on, giving the shabby room a warm glow, and the radio was tuned to the Tigers game. Jo was cracking eggs into a bowl, the scuffed pale green plastic one they always used. Bethie saw a startled expression on her sister’s face as Jo took her in, before her sister asked, “How about breakfast for dinner?” Bethie was so relieved, so glad to see her sister, so glad not to be alone, that she started to cry. Jo put her arm around Bethie’s shoulders, pulling her close.
    “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Bethie couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak. “Is it Dad?” Jo asked, her voice warm and sympathetic. Bethie leaned against her, the scent and the solidity of her sister’s body reassuring and familiar. “I know. I miss him, too.”
    “It’s not that,” Bethie managed to say through her tears. “It’s something else.”
    Jo looked down at her. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
    “It’s Uncle Mel,” Bethie whispered. She inhaled, squeezed her eyes shut, and said, all in a rush, “He’s touching me.”
    After Bethie told Jo everything, Jo’s lips turned white