Those We Love Most by Lee Woodruff

the belt she had dug out of the closet. The grief diet, her sister had called it.
    Yet at odd times she would find herself ravenous, like an animal, and in those moments she’d eat an entire sleeve of Oreos or gobble up the remains of the kids’ Day-Glo orange mac and cheese, right out of the saucepan. Last night she polished off a pint of chocolate Häagen-Dazs, almost as if she were in a trance, savoring each spoonful for the immediate gratification it provided and then feeling disgusted, and yet still empty, when it was consumed.
    Her mother had been at her house almost every day, unloading the dishwasher, walking Rascal, folding laundry, and urging Maura to rest. In the first week after the funeral, when Ryan’s summer camp had begun, she would hand Sarah over to Margaret and crawl back under the covers, to feel the weight of grief and guilt in shifting ratios.
    Maura had been a morning exerciser, but now she could barely find the energy for a shower. Stopping for a loaf of bread or grabbing a roll of stamps had all fit seamlessly into her days before James’s death. These trivial tasks outside of the house now overwhelmed her. It all seemed insurmountable, devoid of any importance. Her light blue eyes, always her favorite feature, were lifeless. She hadn’t shaved her legs or plucked her brows since before the accident. She looked like that Muppet, which one had the unibrow? Bert? And there were new frown lines on her face, furrows between her brows that hadn’t been so pronounced before. Grief had etched them there, she thought. Grief had disfigured and disemboweled her.
    For all of her listlessness, though, Maura was rarely able to drift off during the day. She would lie in bed, willing herself to quiet her mind and sleep, rolling back and forth on the mattress as her trapped thoughts swirled like bats in a cave. She couldn’t stop thinking of James. Sometimes images of him rushed into her mind at once, like a pixilated sensory overload. And then at other times she would panic when she was suddenly unable to recall the exact features of his face.
    Maura moved toward the refrigerator door and fixed her eyes on the black-and-white photo of her son held in place by a magnet. She studied his wide, boyish smile, the splay of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and thought for the hundredth time how grateful she was that they had splurged for their first professional family photo shoot last November. The photographer had managed to capture the personalities of each child, including this one of James. How could anyone have known that some six months later, her favorite snapshot of her eldest child would be enlarged for his funeral?
    She glanced at the photo of Sarah and Pete, laughing, from that same day, her daughter’s head tossed back and giggling as her father tickled her. Pete. She sighed. Thinking about Pete was so complicated, laced with many competing emotions—guilt, anger, and anxiety. Their marriage, which had not been in a terrific place before the accident, was strained now, filled with long silences. While there was an affable varnish over the top of their parental duties, so much was left unsaid in the corridors between them. When they did talk, it seemed to be more about schedules and the children’s needs and other perfunctory subjects.
    Things had been operating on this half-speed for a while, Maura acknowledged, each of them heading down that easy slipstream in marriage where the valuable, intimate parts begin to erode in a tidal wave of banality. Maura had no doubt that she still loved her husband, but she no longer felt in love. How much was enough love? Funny how chemical attraction waned, how the things that made you fall in love with a person changed and the things required to stay in love were so different, deeper.
    And then there was Pete’s drinking. Pete had always been a drinker, but in the past, his boozy excess had mostly been contained to his weekly boys’ nights out, although