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    I clicked on the link titled Aspiring Chef Spends Summer Eating World’s Worst Food .
    “My mom is making me go to fat camp. I hate her. She read an article that said kids with one parent are fatter than kids with two parents, especially if the one parent works, and that makes no sense because how can a parent with no husband not work? Where would money come from if my mom didn’t work? And also is it my fault that I never met my father?”
    I paused to reread that sentence.
    “Is it my fault that my mom works? Is it my fault that diabetes runs in my family? No. So why do I have to go to fat camp???”
    At the bottom of the post, a link: Camp Carolina, a brand new, revolutionary weight-loss camp for children.
    I opened my eyes and looked down at my desk. I’d eaten the first three cupcakes so quickly, steam was still rising from the half-eaten fourth one. I shoved the rest of it into my mouth, then typed the Camp Carolina website into the address bar on my screen.
    A skinny child holding a red hula hoop stared back at me. As I chewed and swallowed, I grabbed a fistful of my own thigh. Step out of your “before” picture, the caption said, and into your “after.”
    Before reading that, I’d never been sure that the dead could communicate with the living. But my father had handed me his will, handed me his secret. And now here he was, speaking: If I wanted to recover, I’d have to confess to my sister. Sisters wore the same winter coats. They sat side by side in the back of the station wagon. They fought over the hairbrush. But our father thought there was still time for us. Who else could forgive me for taking his life? If she absolved me, he would, too.
    I looked down at the muffin tin, the rows of empty holes. My father stood behind me, casting his shadow. I would have known him anywhere. Of course he’d hated Mikey. Not because Mikey wasn’t Jewish, but because he was my boyfriend. He had already lost one daughter. He’d been afraid of losing me, too. He rested his hands on my shoulders, his chin on the top of my head. I felt the weight of my father, compounding the weight of me.

CHAPTER NINE
    Before the campers arrived, Lewis gave the counselors a tour of the kitchen. “Meet the kitchen ladies,” he said, holding his arm out to three women in hairnets. We waited for him to tell us their names, but he didn’t, and they didn’t seem to care. They leaned on the stainless-steel countertops, wearing white aprons and bright blue eyeliner. They each looked in need of a cigarette. One wore a gold necklace with a #1 Mom charm.
    “The kitchen ladies have a very important job,” Lewis said.
    They watched him with empty faces.
    “Making sure the kids get only what they need. One man can’t do everything.” Lewis jabbed a thumb at his fleshy chest. “We’re all working together. As a team. Fixing the problem.”
    One of the kitchen ladies picked her teeth with a long fingernail. “Some high-class problem,” she said. She was scrawny and hunched. Her voice was gravelly, her North Carolina accent so thick, her lips barely moved when she spoke.
    My stomach muscles ached from my high-class problem—my urgent gorging on lo mein and cream puffs. I longed to step into the kitchen lady’s body, to become a woman who ate food slowly just three times a day, sometimes forgetting half of her pastry, thoughtlessly holding a forkful of rice while she finished telling a story.
    “Here’s the fridge,” Lewis said, opening a metal door. He parted the plastic strips that hung like vines. A gust of cool air hit our faces. He closed the fridge and pointed to another door. “Here’s the dry storage, where we keep our canned goods.” Then he flung his arms wide. “And there’s a stove, and there are cupboards, and look: pots, pans, Pam spray, spatulas. You have access to this kitchen,” he said. “But if you’re doing my program, you must be very careful. If you’re surrendering to my program, I suggest you