Spilled Milk: Based on a True Story

Brooke sees a newspaper headline announcing her father’s sentence. It fails to mention that he sexually assaulted his own daughter, and Brooke is uncertain how to feel. She saves the article as a reminder of Earl being in prison. Molly calls and alerts her to the fact that she and everyone else involved in the case received an unmarked letter with a typed-out interview that Brooke had with social services—the one in which she claimed the abuse was a dream. Brooke plans to call everyone and explain, but Jason insists that she need not prove herself to anyone anymore. Adam bursts in, angry about the article and his life continuing to be exposed. In a moment of rage, he tells Brooke that she deserved what happened to her. Brooke calls Midge, frustrated with her family and worried about the fact that they aren’t healing like she is. Midge says her family was always this way, and that Brooke was too focused on surviving to notice.

Brooke is halfway through her undergraduate degree when she decides to switch her major to psychology. During one course, her professor discusses the concept of resiliency and how some people are able to fight through trauma, even turning it into a positive. Children who are resilient are usually intelligent, have passions, and have someone in their life who guides or supports them. Brooke finds psychology interesting and doubles her course load, wanting to graduate and work. She begins an internship at a center for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Soon after, she becomes pregnant and suffers a miscarriage, and spends two months grieving the loss. Brooke decides to apply for work back home, and she and Jason make the move together.

Brooke applies for a community advocate position at the Women’s Crisis Center that changed her life. She is greeted by a friendly woman named Anne who heard about Brooke from Midge, and asks Brooke why she would be the best person to educate youth about domestic and sexual violence. Brooke explains that she has experienced it, but beyond this, she survived it. An hour later, Brooke is offered the position over the phone while having tea with Gina. Brooke also reveals that she and Jason eloped, and Gina happily congratulates her. Gina asks Brooke to take care of her dog while she goes away, and Brooke sends Paul a message to warn him that she’ll be at his mother’s house. Paul surprises Brooke by offering to catch up over dinner, and the two text back and forth, subtly flirting with each other. Paul then apologizes for abandoning Brooke when she needed him and expresses his regret in letting her go. When Brooke goes to meet up with Paul, they end up sitting in silence until Paul says he has to go. Brooke feels empathy for him but knows she has the person she needs in Jason.

One of Brooke’s college professors invites her to be a guest speaker for a group of policymakers on domestic violence. Over 40 people attend, and it is Brooke’s first time speaking about her experiences publicly. She talks about the silencing nature of abuse for children, and how teenage relationships (which are often inadvertently abusive) form the basis for what people do as adults. She argues that men are equally victimized by domestic and sexual abuse, although they speak out about it far less; the audience seems to be in disbelief. Brooke explains how children are groomed, and how all children react differently to abuse. She also discusses the issues with social services and their ways of manipulating children into confessing to abuse, and the importance of sensitivity on the part of police officers. She describes the contrast between herself and her siblings, and how counseling and testifying allowed her to heal in ways they never did; a person must want help and change. Brooke finishes by saying what she went through “was worth it” (334) because it gave her the experience and strength to save others with her story.

Brooke is pregnant with twins, and both Jason and Gina accompany her to the ultrasound. When Brooke and Jason return home, Brooke finds a letter from Thomas. He is in jail and reflects on how this stay will be his last. He knows she will be a fitting mother, and thanks her for everything she sacrificed for him and the other siblings growing up. Midge recently died of cancer, but Brooke plans to tell her future children about her. Before she died, Midge advised Brooke to never visit her father in prison, but to write him a letter and maintain control if she so chooses. Midge also left Brooke some money to take time off work and write a book about her life. The memoir ends as Brooke begins her letter to Earl: “I bet you’re wondering why I’m calling you Earl” (339).