Small Pleasures: Mya's Story

"I am my father's daughter," is Mya's mantra as she prepares to abort another fetus, one she had contemplated carrying to full term after a botched abortion. Afterall the abortionist's message had been terrifying and clear: "It might have no head, no arms." Mya Sheppard, the most beautiful of Donovan Sheppard's daughters, cultivates careless and restless behavior traits. Killing is simply one of them. She and her beguiling sisters emerge from a home where love is dictated by a Father who lost his dreams to Vietnam. Love to them is a shadowy figure trapped and twisted among sweet and wicked, fairytales and religion, mother and father, God and Satan. Depending on the sister, truth is destorted by the grieving memories of unfinished childhoods. The family secrets (rape and domestic abuse) assign each girl a fate of love, fear, hurt, and destruction.