You lied to me, I tell my guru.
She doesn’t answer, but I want to be fair here. She never said any of this would taste good. All she said was that I should eat it.
It doesn’t matter if I’m not being fair, though. She’s supposed to be my best friend, and she’s nowhere around. She’s betrayed me. For all I know she’s out with Thad, introducing him to natural weight loss. She knows some exercises he might enjoy.
Rosie fusses and I nurse her, then I carry her and a load of dirty diapers to the basement. I take the blanket and pillowcase out of the dryer and shift the damp shirts in. I come to a blue striped one that I bought for Thad when I was pregnant because I knew it would show off his shoulders, and because I loved him, and because I loved having a husband to buy it for.
And also because it was on sale.
I cry.
I wipe my nose on the shirt and throw it in the dryer.
I put the diapers in the washer and carry Rosie, the blanket, and the pillowcase upstairs, then start to dial my mother but halfway through it becomes blindingly clear to me that Thad didn’t mean what he said. He’s under a lot of pressure at work. He’s still adjusting to fatherhood. He’s scared.
I hang up and shop for dinner. Since I’ve barely eaten today, I owe myself a decent supper. Thad and I will sit down to a nice meal and work everything out. How could I not have known this?
I drive home and play with Rosie, who’s on the verge of being cranky.
It takes me forever to get her to sleep but eventually I can run downstairs, remove the shirts from the dryer, and put the diapers in. Then I start supper: garnet yams; a salad; roast chicken with a stuffing made from last night’s leftover bread, a green apple, and a little sausage meat the diet fairies threw into my supermarket cart yesterday because they’re not as narrow-minded as my guru. They looked into the future and understood that I’d be trying to save my marriage.
When Thad’s late getting home, I turn the oven down. When he’s later than that, I turn the oven off. Rosie cries and I try to nurse her, but she’s more interested in fussing.
I walk Rosie and sway Rosie and dance Rosie. Then, as if Pavlov had just rung his bell, I feel hungry. I feel very, very hungry.
I will prove my guru wrong by not overeating.
Dinner: 1 slice roast chicken, skin removed; 1 tablespoon stuffing with sausage and apple; ½ garnet yam with nonfat butter buds;
Exercise: So there, I tell my guru.
I turn on the Food Channel. I turn off the Food Channel.
Thad still isn’t home.
When Rosie fusses again, I wash her and nurse her and rock her and put her to sleep in her crib. I wonder where Thad is. He could have been in an accident. He could have been mugged or kidnapped or shot. He could have been abducted by space aliens. If he doesn’t get home soon, I’ll call the police, the hospitals, the supermarket tabloids.
I check the living room clock against the kitchen clock, the kitchen clock against the bedroom clock, and the bedroom clock against my watch.
I turn on the Food Channel. Two chefs are competing to see who can make a better meal out of a chicken, some squid, an onion, a package of cream cheese, and a can of orange soda.
This is not real cooking and it depresses me.
Snack: the smaller half of the remaining chicken, with stuffing.
Exercise: It’s okay to eat this because snacking doesn’t have to make me fat.
I sit on the floor in front of the TV and pick at my food, then fall asleep leaning against the couch with the TV still on. When the front door opens, I jerk awake and plunk one hand fetchingly in the plate of chicken bones.
“I cooked you a chicken,” I say.
Thad won’t look at me.
“That’s okay,” he says to the doorway behind me. “I grabbed a bite on the way home.”
I wipe my hand on the rug and burst into tears. When he doesn’t rush to put his arms around me, I run into Rosie’s room, lift her from the crib, and carry her to bed with me.
Thad looks in through the door and asks, “Did you talk to your parents?”
“I couldn’t get through.”
“Huh.”
I press my lips to Rosie’s velvety head and wait for him to leave. When he does, I curl up against my sleeping baby and wait for the moment when I won’t care how Thad feels about the idea of marriage. I wait for money to rain from the heavens so I can tell him to move out because Rosie and I need the house.
How can I go on living if I give up this house?
I wait for sweet sleep to come whack me on the head with his sledgehammer.
I wait for a long, long time.
DAY
3
Exercise: I wake up feeling like Thad whacked me on the head with a sledgehammer. Rosie’s crying. I check my skull for dents, then haul myself out of bed, pick Rosie up, and change her while she blows raspberries.
My diet book is waiting for me. It’s been waiting all night.
Do not undermine your own weight loss efforts, it says. When you’re tempted to eat something that isn’t on your meal plan, ask yourself: “Will eating this make me happy?”
I ask myself, Will anything make me happy?
It seems wiser not to answer this question.
For breakfast I’m due a quarter cup of high-fiber cereal, one cup of nonfat skim milk, and one banana.
Nonfat skim milk is nonfatter than plain old skim milk. When I drink it, the excess weight will leap off my body and attach itself to Thad, where no one will mind it because men don’t have to be thin. In an alternate reality, an improved version of myself is pouring a glass of it right this minute.
She might even drink it.
Breakfast: coffee, black.
Exercise: The coffee doesn’t make me happy. I admit that. Strictly speaking, though, I didn’t eat it, so it doesn’t count.
Besides, it’s nonfat skim coffee, black.
I chase Rosie’s mouth with a spoonful of baby cereal. I pretend to eat the spoonful of baby cereal. I say, “This is disgusting, kid. You should sue.”
When Thad grumbles into the kitchen complaining about his back, I snatch Rosie up and run to the bedroom, where I listen while Thad opens more cupboards than I’d touch if I were cooking a ten-course dinner for the queen.
Any queen.
How can he not know where things are in his own kitchen? Especially since it’ll go on being his kitchen once it’s stopped being mine. He’ll get the coffeepot too, and the Mikasa dishes and the pots and pans, the spatulas and the blender, and they’ll sit around gathering dust. Because he doesn’t cook, and I won’t have a kitchen to put them in.
The thing is, I don’t want some other kitchen to put them in. I want this kitchen. If he gets the house, I should at least get the kitchen. I’ll disconnect the stove and refrigerator and haul them out to the curb where they’ll rust, just so Thad won’t have them.
He might not even notice they’re gone.
He leans in at the doorway.
“Maybe I should stay with a friend or something till you get