exploded in the spare refrigerator.
“Was it like this the whole time, or do you think she was letting things go?” I asked my father. He just shrugged. He was disposing of a ream of brown paper bags. High on a shelf I saw an unopened box of chocolates, individually wrapped and packaged in clear plastic. I took it down hopefully, then dropped it to the table with a start—it was teeming with maggots. My grandfather was watching me. I silently put it in the trash.
I was itching to organize the place, and could tell that my father felt the same, but we didn’t want to upset my grandfather further by changing too much too fast.
“Save it!” he barked when I ventured to dispose of the extensive jam jar collection. He hadn’t entered a grocery store, much less prepared his own food, in over sixty years. We didn’t know if he was capable of making himself dinner, much less whether he would need to store leftovers in a jam jar. And yet we were all going back to work in two days, leaving him to fend for himself. It didn’t seem right.
My grandmother’s house was loaded with sweets, but I never saw her touch any of it. She had a soft, grandmotherly body. She must have been a closet candy eater—keeping it openly but opening it secretly. This was true for my other grandmother too. She kept Andes mints in a little bowl on her table for years. But my parents, with second generation (at least) sugar genes, kept a candy-free house. I never learned to live with it. The result was that, with household candy stocking on both sides of the family, I was quite the opposite. Nothing lingered on my shelves. Shelves? My candy never even made it to shelves. When I bought candy, I came directly home to eat it. The idea of keeping it in the house was utterly absurd. It would never work. My purchase size was my serving size, without fail.
My father opened my grandmother’s freezer and scanned its contents. Pulling a quart of ice cream out of the freezer, he sniffed it.
“Want some?” he asked. I ate mine on the step down into the garage, figuring it was the last Swiss Chocolate I would taste.
Sugar-Free
F our months after we broke up, Luke told me he wanted to talk to me. I figured he was going to say that he missed our friendship and wanted to see me more. Instead, he informed me that he had begun dating the only person who reported to me at our company. When he told me this, I started hyperventilating. My breath loud in my ears, I stormed across the street, away from him. Then I crossed back and turned on him in a rage of pain and disgust. My voice was high and unfamiliar. Later I realized there was a word for it: I was hysterical. The idea that he couldn’t look farther than the desk across from mine for his next girlfriend was utterly outrageous. The instant he informed me, after work on a Friday, a flip book of painful realizations riffled through my mind. I suddenly knew that they had played hooky together the week before. I realized that the cute “long-distance” romance she had conducted via email over the holidays had occurred while he had been overseas. I remembered the attention he had given her at the Christmas party. He was telling me on the street outside our office, as if he were going beyond the call of duty by letting me know, and I nearly spat at him. “At least now I don’t have conflicting feelings about you,” I snarled, “since all that’s left is hatred.”
My own drama shocked me. He came up to my apartment, where he hadn’t been since we had broken up. I said, “Please, say anything to help me forgive you.” He didn’t apologize—if only for the inconvenience to me—or make any effort to defend his actions by claiming that this was true love. He just waited uselessly, so he could tell himself later that he had done the right thing. I could tell from his shirt selection that he was going to meet up with her after he had delivered his news.
“I think you should leave,” I said. The
“Was it like this the whole time, or do you think she was letting things go?” I asked my father. He just shrugged. He was disposing of a ream of brown paper bags. High on a shelf I saw an unopened box of chocolates, individually wrapped and packaged in clear plastic. I took it down hopefully, then dropped it to the table with a start—it was teeming with maggots. My grandfather was watching me. I silently put it in the trash.
I was itching to organize the place, and could tell that my father felt the same, but we didn’t want to upset my grandfather further by changing too much too fast.
“Save it!” he barked when I ventured to dispose of the extensive jam jar collection. He hadn’t entered a grocery store, much less prepared his own food, in over sixty years. We didn’t know if he was capable of making himself dinner, much less whether he would need to store leftovers in a jam jar. And yet we were all going back to work in two days, leaving him to fend for himself. It didn’t seem right.
My grandmother’s house was loaded with sweets, but I never saw her touch any of it. She had a soft, grandmotherly body. She must have been a closet candy eater—keeping it openly but opening it secretly. This was true for my other grandmother too. She kept Andes mints in a little bowl on her table for years. But my parents, with second generation (at least) sugar genes, kept a candy-free house. I never learned to live with it. The result was that, with household candy stocking on both sides of the family, I was quite the opposite. Nothing lingered on my shelves. Shelves? My candy never even made it to shelves. When I bought candy, I came directly home to eat it. The idea of keeping it in the house was utterly absurd. It would never work. My purchase size was my serving size, without fail.
My father opened my grandmother’s freezer and scanned its contents. Pulling a quart of ice cream out of the freezer, he sniffed it.
“Want some?” he asked. I ate mine on the step down into the garage, figuring it was the last Swiss Chocolate I would taste.
Sugar-Free
F our months after we broke up, Luke told me he wanted to talk to me. I figured he was going to say that he missed our friendship and wanted to see me more. Instead, he informed me that he had begun dating the only person who reported to me at our company. When he told me this, I started hyperventilating. My breath loud in my ears, I stormed across the street, away from him. Then I crossed back and turned on him in a rage of pain and disgust. My voice was high and unfamiliar. Later I realized there was a word for it: I was hysterical. The idea that he couldn’t look farther than the desk across from mine for his next girlfriend was utterly outrageous. The instant he informed me, after work on a Friday, a flip book of painful realizations riffled through my mind. I suddenly knew that they had played hooky together the week before. I realized that the cute “long-distance” romance she had conducted via email over the holidays had occurred while he had been overseas. I remembered the attention he had given her at the Christmas party. He was telling me on the street outside our office, as if he were going beyond the call of duty by letting me know, and I nearly spat at him. “At least now I don’t have conflicting feelings about you,” I snarled, “since all that’s left is hatred.”
My own drama shocked me. He came up to my apartment, where he hadn’t been since we had broken up. I said, “Please, say anything to help me forgive you.” He didn’t apologize—if only for the inconvenience to me—or make any effort to defend his actions by claiming that this was true love. He just waited uselessly, so he could tell himself later that he had done the right thing. I could tell from his shirt selection that he was going to meet up with her after he had delivered his news.
“I think you should leave,” I said. The
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