Feed Me

The sizzling of the onions in the pan, their milky white shards turning sweet and translucent, was like the percussive build up before a band breaks out into song. It was the shaking of a tambourine, the beating of a drum. It reverberated throughout the kitchen, nestled itself among the clanging of silverware and clattering dishes finding the bottom of the sink. Gary was facing the stovetop, the back of his gray t-shirt mottled with spots of sweat as he stirred the pan, tossing in the garlic and spices. I had fallen asleep on the couch, mouth open with the soft buzz of sleep, my hands loosely wrapped around the television remote. Something about tornadoes showed on the screen, barely audible, a vector for sleep. Quietly, I padded into the kitchen, propelled by my olfactory awakening which stirred something deep in the gut of me like the sauce simmering on the stove, bubbling the lid right off the pot. I was brought back from the dead by the scent of tomatoes, their visceral bodies peeling out from under the skin. As I passed between the sink and the kitchen island, I popped a cool slice of green pepper in my mouth. An unsatisfying place holder for the hunger that was now clawing itself to life inside of me.

"Smells good," I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder before quickly choosing instead to occupy my hands with clearing crumbs off the chopping block.

"Same sauce I always make, just the way you like it," he replied, motioning for the peppers without turning from the stove. I passed them to him absentmindedly, a well-practiced dance we could perform without words. Next would be the meat, still wrapped and bleeding in paper on the countertop. I had risen just in time to be of minor assistance but mostly in the way.

"I probably would have kept sleeping if it wasn't for your cooking waking me up. I started dreaming about frying onions," I said.

"Well then I suppose," he cleared his throat, sniffed his nose "You're welcome for the wakeup call as well as the sauce," he said, his back remaining fixed in my direction.

I wanted to stroke his hair, long since gray but still as thick as the day I met him when he was as lean and taut as a greyhound striding long-legged across the campus lawn, but it had been years since the touch between us had been anything more than a casual bump of fingers reaching across the dinner table. A, 'please pass the salt and pepper,' waltz. I don't believe it was what either one of us had sought out to attain when we locked eyes so long ago, but it had, for better or for worse, become easy. Easier, certainly, over time. Each week blending into the next slowly becoming months and then years and then how long had it been since I had brushed my lips across his face? How many years had it been since I had draped a leg over his sleeping body in bed, my hips pushing into his in a dream? To make the time for touch now would be an inconvenient disruption to the routine.

When the children left the silence consumed me and I had nothing with to fill my time. Nothing to occupy my fingers or my mind or my feet, which were used to circulating through the gas and brake pedals as I militantly marched through grocery store aisles and to and from soccer practices and choir rehearsals, football games and swimming practices. My days were a never-ending montage of school and after school activities. Dinners and parties and weekends with the in-laws until, one day, our littlest one packed all of her most treasured belongings into the back of the now defunct family minivan and settled into a dormitory 1,200 miles away. On the journey home, Gary had pulled into the drive through of some fast-food restaurant ten miles from our front door, and afterwards, I sat alone in the cool dark of the kitchen eating fries that grew soggier and saltier with my tears as if I had returned from a funeral rather than a university.

For a while I continued to keep the house tidy, obsessively dusting the figurines and rearranging the china. The silver was always polished to a high mirror like shine so that I could rest easy at the end of the day, knowing the house was in order and feeling as though my purpose was still a cemented and tangible thing. Each miniscule task completed; each dust bunny sufficiently sacrificed at the altar of my loneliness. There was a spell where I drank sweet wine in the backyard and attempted to write the next great American novel, but it wasn't long before I found the wine gave me a penchant to sleep and, when I did write, most of it was so unintelligible that I threw the pages into Gary's shredder and pushed the whole idea away for good. I wondered when was it that I had last had the time to develop any talents besides birthing children and pushing them out into the world? These little adults that were firmly loved and educated and then set free like caged birds into the summer air. Was this not enough, I wondered, as I sat in the silence of an empty kitchen. The ticking of the clock marrying itself to the dripping of the faucet and echoing off the tile floors.

With the countertops glimmering and the dishes all washed my twitching fingers wandered their way through the cupboards and dug into bags of cookies and crackers. Foods I still bought mostly out of habit as I did not know how to feed just two, but also in the hopes that if one of the children decided to visit, they would know they were still loved by the sight of their childhood favorites. Over time my twitching fingers grew solid and sausage like, ballooning around the wedding band that was placed on my hand when I was nearly still a child. The only thing flexible about me now being the waist band of my pants that I had to diligently stretch up and over my oceanic stomach, snapping it into place under my breasts.

And then there was Gary who, somehow, flourished. He grew tanner and leaner and quicker as though the children were weights that had tied him down and now, he was free to fly, weightless and unbound. His muscles pulled at his skin and bulged in places I hadn't seen in decades. He joined the Country Club and started practicing tennis and golf. He submerged his long body into the lap pool and swam endless laps up and down the sun specked water. He was piscine. He was doe like. He was more animal than man as he whipped his form into fighting shape and grew surer of himself. Evolved into someone calmer, kinder, wiser. He would sit across from me in his armchair, glasses perched on the end of his nose as he challenged himself with sudokus and crosswords, read classic literature and kept up with current events. I would look up at him from my place on the couch where I had nearly carved a divot from overuse, as he scratched away at a puzzle, oblivious that I was even there. He was exhausting. He was a stranger.

He manifested interests and hobbies I had no idea he had, and I wondered if this had always laid dormant inside of him for all these years of if, perhaps, I was only really ever watching the children, unaware of what occupied the moments he had to himself. Of course, I wondered about other women. Younger women. Blonder women. Exotic women who would squeal childlike screams of pleasure at the sight of his aging penis as if they had never experienced a joy so rich. But the worry enough was not enough to push me to leave him or even question him. I continued to disappear while simultaneously becoming larger. I continued to hide myself within my own body becoming comforted by candy bars and cobblers. Contented by the rhythm of my jaw moving up and down, back and forth.

One morning, while I was scouring through old cookbooks and recipe cards, Gary stated that he would like to give the cooking a whack. Dumbfounded, I looked between him and the kitchen with a hand on my hip and told him to be my guest, tossing the recipe cards across the table in front of him. And what could I say? My husband, always just far enough out of reach, offering to come into my kitchen where I spent years blending baby food, baking cookies and cupcakes for school birthdays, basting Christmas turkeys. Entering the temple where I worshipped day after day, year after year. It might have been more comfortable should he have actually tried to crawl into my skin, but I had no real reason to deny his request, it was our kitchen after all. I claimed no real ownership over it any more than he did but still I felt a great unease at what felt more like an intrusion than a favor.

From then on, I watched him come through the front door, carrying plastic bags heavy with the full round bodies of lemons and garlic bulbs. Excitement, a thick wash over his features as he threw himself, successfully as always, into another pursuit. I watched as the herbs he planted in front of the kitchen window began to make our kitchen come alive with the piney scent of rosemary and the tang of dill. I watched this takeover as if I were a hostage and I was forced to examine why I hadn't attacked the task of cooking with the same fierce determination and inventiveness. It was as if some fire inside of me had gone out or, simply, had never been lit.

I became the designated taster. The spice recommender. The garnish expert. I walked him through flavor combinations and showed him basic culinary skills like teacher to pupil, but he excelled and eventually I could only sit at the table and wait to be served. He would spoon perfectly salted bisques between my lips. Split open steaming, soft, loaves of bread, placing heavily buttered sliced before me as I stared at the television. Taunt me with spicy curries bursting with soft, pillowy potatoes and bright peas. I would let go of sighs buried deep in the core of me as the luscious chocolate centers of his truffles spilled down my throat. Slowly and with closed eyes I would savor a fruit tart, so mosaically beautiful and buttery crisp.

The sounds of cooking filled the empty and cavernous downstairs and drew me back to where I now sat at the long and empty wooden table. I grabbed plates, bowls, silverware, glasses and placed them at two spots across from each other. I watched him continue to bustle around, dishtowel over his shoulder, as he drained pasta, tweaked the sauce, set a block of parmesan on the lazy Susan.

"Here," he said, coming to the table with a bowl in hand. He placed it down in front of me and grated the cheese over the top, took my fork and gently brought a bite to my lips. "Taste."