one day of lucidity
where she faintly clung to her family members, smiling, speechless, and then she was
gone. The view from the hospital room was of a parking lot, and it had snowed the
night her mother had her stroke. Edie had watched an old man shovel snow the next
morning, making small mountains around the edges of the lot. By the time her mother
died, the snow piles were covered in filth.
Now her father was entrenched in a bed at Northwestern Memorial; strings had been
pulled to get him closer to his daughter, who attended the law school a few blocks
away, one Russian calling another, a private room arranged for a good man. So in addition
to her everyday back-and-forth between law school and library, there was also travel
between her dorm and the hospital, up the elevators, down the hallways, through the
doors. Edie just spent all day (when she was not sitting in class or studying in the
library) walking, sometimes running. She could barely remember to eat, let alone that
she should try and find a husband at some point, something her next-door neighbor,
Carly, thought was extremely important. (Weren’t they supposed to be feminists? Edie
did not even have the energy to argue with her.)
She wasn’t living any kind of life at all, but she was still more alive than her father,
whose skin in the last few weeks had simply turned gray, his nose and ears becoming
more pronounced against his shrinking head, even though none of his doctors knew exactly
what was wrong with him. And this guy, her date, so leisurely, so cavalier, he had
all the time in the world to try out new restaurants, didn’t he?
“Can you just meet me at my dorm at six and let’s not argue about it?” she said. “I’ll
be in front of the building.”
“How will I recognize you?” he said.
“I’ll be the one who doesn’t care where we eat dinner,” she said.
She did care. She missed eating. (Men, she didn’t miss. You can’t miss something you
never had in the first place.) Food had been something that had made her happy, and
now she was so sad and tired all the time that she could not even remember the connection
between the two, between food and joy, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw
drawn skin on her face, and unfamiliar bones across the top of her chest, delicately
poking against her skin like shells beneath sand. Now food was merely something she
used to power her body so that she could walk: dorm, class, dorm, hospital, dorm.
Thirty years later she will lose track of distinct emotions, everything will be blurred
together, and there will only just be feeling and eating. But for now food, along
with joy, had slipped away from her.
And here was a man she didn’t know—a fix-up; Carly had met him at shul, this Richard
Middlestein, and he had boldly asked her out, not noticing the glittering engagement
ring on her finger, and when she had waved it at him, he had ducked his head, covered
with thick, curly hair, awkwardly but charmingly, and he was tall and wearing a suit
(no hippie, this one, thank God; hippies were over), and he was going to be a pharmacist
in a year, and did he want to meet another smart Jewish girl? Of course he did!—taking
the time to ask her what she wanted to eat. Maybe, Edie, you could slow down for a
minute and answer the man?
“We could go to Gino’s,” she said.
“I love Gino’s,” he said. “I think Chicago pizza is better than New York pizza, and
I say that as a lifelong New Yorker. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Who would I tell?” she said.
Three hours later she leaned against the limestone walls of Abbott Hall, in a cool
green summer dress that hung around her waist. A year ago it had fit her snugly across
her gut and around her hips. She had been six feet tall for a few years, and had had
a lovely plush body, and now she felt like a scarecrow. Where had her breasts gone?
Those were mostly
where she faintly clung to her family members, smiling, speechless, and then she was
gone. The view from the hospital room was of a parking lot, and it had snowed the
night her mother had her stroke. Edie had watched an old man shovel snow the next
morning, making small mountains around the edges of the lot. By the time her mother
died, the snow piles were covered in filth.
Now her father was entrenched in a bed at Northwestern Memorial; strings had been
pulled to get him closer to his daughter, who attended the law school a few blocks
away, one Russian calling another, a private room arranged for a good man. So in addition
to her everyday back-and-forth between law school and library, there was also travel
between her dorm and the hospital, up the elevators, down the hallways, through the
doors. Edie just spent all day (when she was not sitting in class or studying in the
library) walking, sometimes running. She could barely remember to eat, let alone that
she should try and find a husband at some point, something her next-door neighbor,
Carly, thought was extremely important. (Weren’t they supposed to be feminists? Edie
did not even have the energy to argue with her.)
She wasn’t living any kind of life at all, but she was still more alive than her father,
whose skin in the last few weeks had simply turned gray, his nose and ears becoming
more pronounced against his shrinking head, even though none of his doctors knew exactly
what was wrong with him. And this guy, her date, so leisurely, so cavalier, he had
all the time in the world to try out new restaurants, didn’t he?
“Can you just meet me at my dorm at six and let’s not argue about it?” she said. “I’ll
be in front of the building.”
“How will I recognize you?” he said.
“I’ll be the one who doesn’t care where we eat dinner,” she said.
She did care. She missed eating. (Men, she didn’t miss. You can’t miss something you
never had in the first place.) Food had been something that had made her happy, and
now she was so sad and tired all the time that she could not even remember the connection
between the two, between food and joy, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw
drawn skin on her face, and unfamiliar bones across the top of her chest, delicately
poking against her skin like shells beneath sand. Now food was merely something she
used to power her body so that she could walk: dorm, class, dorm, hospital, dorm.
Thirty years later she will lose track of distinct emotions, everything will be blurred
together, and there will only just be feeling and eating. But for now food, along
with joy, had slipped away from her.
And here was a man she didn’t know—a fix-up; Carly had met him at shul, this Richard
Middlestein, and he had boldly asked her out, not noticing the glittering engagement
ring on her finger, and when she had waved it at him, he had ducked his head, covered
with thick, curly hair, awkwardly but charmingly, and he was tall and wearing a suit
(no hippie, this one, thank God; hippies were over), and he was going to be a pharmacist
in a year, and did he want to meet another smart Jewish girl? Of course he did!—taking
the time to ask her what she wanted to eat. Maybe, Edie, you could slow down for a
minute and answer the man?
“We could go to Gino’s,” she said.
“I love Gino’s,” he said. “I think Chicago pizza is better than New York pizza, and
I say that as a lifelong New Yorker. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Who would I tell?” she said.
Three hours later she leaned against the limestone walls of Abbott Hall, in a cool
green summer dress that hung around her waist. A year ago it had fit her snugly across
her gut and around her hips. She had been six feet tall for a few years, and had had
a lovely plush body, and now she felt like a scarecrow. Where had her breasts gone?
Those were mostly
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