Home

Bio

FAQs

Books

 

 

Guestbook

Books

Sweet, Sweet Jessie

 

 

 

Prologue
 
Thirty-one years ago, . . .
Daddy!
The cry for help stayed locked inside because her throat was so hard and tight she couldn't even make a whimper.
She didn't know how long she'd been so scared she could hardly breathe, cuz she was just learnin' to tell time. Besides, it was too dark to even see a clock. But it seemed like the door had closed with that weird click noise and all the light went away forever ago.
And still her daddy hadn't come for her.
She breathed through her mouth, like she had to every time Daddy took her to the locker room after a football game. Those big boys smelled just awful after a game! This dark and very cold place smelled just awful, too.
She was so cold she shivered and her teeth clicked and clacked. Sometimes, she thought she heard her friends laughing. Mostly, she couldn't hear nothin' but her loud mouth breathin' and her teeth clacking.
She didn't know what she'd done wrong. She'd been playing checkers with her friend, Tank, and had to go to the bathroom. She'd washed her hands, made sure the paper towel she used to dry them stayed in the trashcan. She shut off the light. She'd followed all the rules. She was very good at following the rules. Everyone said she was a good little girl. But, on the way back to Tank, and checkers, the man who never talked and only stared at the kids grabbed her up. His big hand smashed her mouth shut as he ran up the creaky old stairs.
Someone called for him. He growled, then made her face look at his. "Don't 'cha make one sound, missy," he hissed. "Not one." He shoved her through a doorway, into blackness and shut the door.
She huddled against a wall and waited for her punishment to be over. For whatever she'd done wrong, she was real sorry.
Finally, she heard a clunk-clunk. Then, another clunk-clunk. Then another.
Footsteps! Someone was comin' up those dark stairs where none of the kids were ever 'posed to go.
It had to be Daddy! She blinked her stingy, wet eyes and stared real hard at the place where she thought the door would be. Her daddy would come for her. He would! He'd open that scary door and scoop her up in his strong arms. She knew for sure that her Daddy had the strongest arms of all Daddy's. She knew it and felt real proud cuz of it. He'd spin her round and round 'tiI she was dizzy and squealing with giggles. He'd laugh his giant laugh and give her a fuzzy wuzzy bear hug. He'd kiss the top of her head and tell her she smelled sooo good, and that he'd missed her every minute of the day. She'd bug him about having cheese pizza for dinner. Or chocolate milk shakes. He'd laugh some more and talk about green beans and pork chops or yucky brussels sprouts and ham. Everything would be okay. It would. It had to be okay cuz she'd been praying for it to be okay as hard and fast as she could pray.
The doorknob made that click sound it made after the bad man shoved her in the dark, dark, dark room forever ago.
Daddy! She almost giggled out loud because she was so excited to see him. To feel safe. To go home to her warm, pink and white bedroom and snuggle under the special quilt mommy made for her before she'd got sick enough she had to go to heaven. She'd say her prayers and thank God so much for bringing her daddy to her. Then, she'd go to sleep while her daddy read her a pretty story where everything was always, always okay.
The door opened squeak by squeak.
She wanted to get up and run to her daddy. Really, she wanted to. Really, really. But none of her parts would work. She sat there, in a tiny knot on the cold floor and waited for her daddy to pick her up and carry her back to the light, back to where the other kids, her friends, were playing and laughing and having fun.
"Hello Missy."
The rough voice and the skinny shadow it came from did not belong to her daddy!
Oh God! Please help me! I need my daddy!
She 'membered Daddy said it was okay to bite or kick or scratch someone if they were hurting her. Or even scaring her real bad. And she was real bad scared right now.
All sudden like, she moved. She didn't know what she was gonna do 'til the top of her head hit the skinny man's private part.
He grabbed a big hunk of her curly hair in his hard hand and yanked on it. He growled bad words at her that people shouldn't ought to say—'specially in front of kids.
She screamed as loud as she could, cuz that was a rule she knew. You had to scream so people'd know when you were so scared you could hardly breathe. Then, she bit his leg even harder than she'd bit that mean old dentist the first time he'd stuck his fingers in her mouth.
The bad man howled like dogs do sometimes.
Lightening hit right in front of her eyes.
Everything went real dark and got real quiet and she didn't know about anything else for a real long time.