days that followed. I remember odd bits and pieces of the time, little snippets of phone calls, my brother’s face, the hunch of my mother’s heaving back as she lay in bed facing the window the next morning. That time is like a scratched CD, the song coming in and out of lyrics and harmonies. Fragments of melody at best. The whole month of November 1997 is jagged and disjointed and holey.
But I clearly remember the food. I remember the J.J. Nissen blueberry muffins that my Nana brought that Monday morning. The way the moist muffin top sort of gelled to my fingertips. How I finished two and smashed the empty wrappers between two cupped palms on my way to the trash can. I remember the creaminess of 2% milk and the tart zing of ice-cold Newman’s Own Lemonade. I can’t remember the exact conversations, the dress I wore to his funeral, what my brother said in his eighteen-year-old’s eulogy, what I told my seventh-grade friends when they called and asked if I could do a part of some project for class on Wednesday. I can’t remember crying more than twice.
All I can think of is the gummy crumbs of a store-bought blueberry muffin. The oversize rings of oil that bled through the white parchment-paper muffin liner. Thanking my Nana and Aunt Margie for bringing us a haul of groceries.
The way I swallowed then, when I needed anything but to feel, was precarious. Desperation and regret. A sharp gulp. A jagged clump of blueberry muffin in that space between my tonsils, working its way down to rest in my belly. It’s hard to tell if it’s a knot of tears welling in my throat, or a hunk of food that has barely been chewed before being swallowed. The knot sinking lower and lower, like a tennis ball being pushed through panty hose.
I’d eat this way, hard and purposeful, all the days following his death. I found momentary relief in discomfort of another sort. In feeling as if my stomach could sate that hole where a dad, alcoholic or not, used to be. The muffins, those bloated Apple Jacks—I pushed them forcefully into my mouth with the hope that they would distract me.
But they did not.
They could not.
I ate as ragefully as I felt. I swallowed uncomfortably. I kept my head bent and hanging, to my bowl, shamefully. I filled myself desperately.
Food numbed me.
I wish I remembered his face as precisely as I remember eating the muffins, one after another, the morning after Mom told me he’d died. I wish I hadn’t found out that the reason we didn’t know where Dad was for five months, two weeks, five days, and nine hours—since I’d told him not to come home—was because he was homeless and without any form of identification on him. I wish he’d had more than two pennies in his left pocket. I wish he hadn’t been sleeping in a boxcar in the scorching desert heat, after drinking himself into oblivion. I wish they hadn’t had to identify him by his teeth, and that they hadn’t just put him in a simple pinebox and misplaced his file, forgetting to call his next of kin until November.
I wish I had a better photograph in mind when I think of him now than the one the coroner sent us to verify that the body they found, homeless and alone, was, indeed, Robert F. Mitchell. I wish his eyes had been closed in that picture, or even cloudy and sweet with booze again. Anything but scared and cold and gone.
When I wanted to forget that picture of my broken father, I ate. I hung sweet and savory pictures over the ones that haunted me. I framed the food instead.
I LEARNED TWO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS in the wake of Dad’s death. One was that losing him meant I could also temporarily remove the name tag I’d worn for years that read “the fat girl” and replace it with something more compassionate: “the girl whose dad died.” Kids passing me in the hall would offer a look that said
I’m sorry, and not just because I laughed when they called you a wide load on the bus last week
. I’d return a silent thank-you and realize that
But I clearly remember the food. I remember the J.J. Nissen blueberry muffins that my Nana brought that Monday morning. The way the moist muffin top sort of gelled to my fingertips. How I finished two and smashed the empty wrappers between two cupped palms on my way to the trash can. I remember the creaminess of 2% milk and the tart zing of ice-cold Newman’s Own Lemonade. I can’t remember the exact conversations, the dress I wore to his funeral, what my brother said in his eighteen-year-old’s eulogy, what I told my seventh-grade friends when they called and asked if I could do a part of some project for class on Wednesday. I can’t remember crying more than twice.
All I can think of is the gummy crumbs of a store-bought blueberry muffin. The oversize rings of oil that bled through the white parchment-paper muffin liner. Thanking my Nana and Aunt Margie for bringing us a haul of groceries.
The way I swallowed then, when I needed anything but to feel, was precarious. Desperation and regret. A sharp gulp. A jagged clump of blueberry muffin in that space between my tonsils, working its way down to rest in my belly. It’s hard to tell if it’s a knot of tears welling in my throat, or a hunk of food that has barely been chewed before being swallowed. The knot sinking lower and lower, like a tennis ball being pushed through panty hose.
I’d eat this way, hard and purposeful, all the days following his death. I found momentary relief in discomfort of another sort. In feeling as if my stomach could sate that hole where a dad, alcoholic or not, used to be. The muffins, those bloated Apple Jacks—I pushed them forcefully into my mouth with the hope that they would distract me.
But they did not.
They could not.
I ate as ragefully as I felt. I swallowed uncomfortably. I kept my head bent and hanging, to my bowl, shamefully. I filled myself desperately.
Food numbed me.
I wish I remembered his face as precisely as I remember eating the muffins, one after another, the morning after Mom told me he’d died. I wish I hadn’t found out that the reason we didn’t know where Dad was for five months, two weeks, five days, and nine hours—since I’d told him not to come home—was because he was homeless and without any form of identification on him. I wish he’d had more than two pennies in his left pocket. I wish he hadn’t been sleeping in a boxcar in the scorching desert heat, after drinking himself into oblivion. I wish they hadn’t had to identify him by his teeth, and that they hadn’t just put him in a simple pinebox and misplaced his file, forgetting to call his next of kin until November.
I wish I had a better photograph in mind when I think of him now than the one the coroner sent us to verify that the body they found, homeless and alone, was, indeed, Robert F. Mitchell. I wish his eyes had been closed in that picture, or even cloudy and sweet with booze again. Anything but scared and cold and gone.
When I wanted to forget that picture of my broken father, I ate. I hung sweet and savory pictures over the ones that haunted me. I framed the food instead.
I LEARNED TWO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS in the wake of Dad’s death. One was that losing him meant I could also temporarily remove the name tag I’d worn for years that read “the fat girl” and replace it with something more compassionate: “the girl whose dad died.” Kids passing me in the hall would offer a look that said
I’m sorry, and not just because I laughed when they called you a wide load on the bus last week
. I’d return a silent thank-you and realize that
Similar Books
