I climbed into the van and reversed out of my parking spot, forcing myself to ignore the four white cars in a row across from me. I’d wasted too much time on my stupid omens and superstitions. It was time to get serious: Mommy dearest was getting out in eight months. I would be ready for her.
By the time she and I were living under the same roof again, I would be skeletal. It would be too cold to walk around in a tank top in November, so I’d decided to take up running to give me an excuse to jog around the neighborhood in little clothing. With any luck, I might even faint on one of my runs and cause a scene. I could already picture Tom Behan or Mary Stone helping me back home, ringing the bell and glaring when my mother opened the door. They’d picture her at the stove, rubbing her hands together and cackling with glee while she tilted drop after drop of the sickly-sweet liquid into my bowl of stew.
Their outrage would be just the beginning.
I didn’t need to seriously start restricting calories for several months. I was already thin, so losing the extra weight wouldn’t take long. But I wanted to make sure I was up to the task when the time came. I had come to love food like it was a person. In some ways, food was better—reliable and nourishing and it never talked back.
I was not looking forward to giving up burgers and blueberry pancakes and mac and cheese. Nor was I excited to act like I didn’t know my way around the kitchen. I could make a pretty mean frittata by that point. Still, sacrifices had to be made in the service of a greater good.
To prepare I’d instituted a training program of sorts. I’d spend two hours making a beautiful roast chicken, then pour nail polish remover over it so I couldn’t eat it. One night I put a bag of Skittles on the tray table in front of me and tested how long I could go without opening it. (My record was forty-two minutes.) Last month I baked a gorgeous Funfetti cake, took one bite, then forced myself to throw it away. After that, I knew I was ready.
Were these drastic measures necessary? Not strictly, but don’t underestimate the importance of boredom.
When I reached the parking lot of my one-bedroom apartment, I remembered I didn’t live there anymore. I swore. An elderly man gave me a dirty look. I gave it right back.
Ten minutes later, I paused at the stop sign at the intersection of Evergreen and Apple. To the right, a beat-up old treadmill stood at the end of Mr. Opal’s driveway. If he was throwing it away, I might as well ask if I could have it. Tomorrow I’d go over there after work to find out.
I turned the van left on Apple and drove until the street dead-ended. Number 201 Apple Street: home sweet home. I waited for the garage door to open, then pulled the van in and parked.
Two weeks prior I had moved into my mother’s childhood home. Mabel Peabody had been hoping to wait to move out until the end of the year, but Gerald’s cancer worsened faster than either of them expected. He bit the dust two months ago. I went to the funeral—to mourn, but also to remind Mabel I was ready to move in. She was so overcome with grief, she couldn’t wait to leave. “Too many reminders of happy memories here,” she said.
What a hard fucking life you’ve led, I didn’t say.
I unlocked the door to my house. My house—I still got giddy saying it. It was old and creepy and falling apart in places, but it would do for now. I didn’t have enough furniture to fill the two spare bedrooms, but one of them would be filled with a warm body soon enough.
I kicked off my shoes and flipped through the mail. Bills, delivery flyers, and one thick envelope. I ripped it open—it had taken me months to find this online. When I was a kid, you could buy it at pharmacies and in grocery stores, but now you had to crawl to dark corners of the Internet to get ahold of it. Reaching my hand inside the envelope, I felt for the cool, round glass and pulled it out: a small brown bottle with a white cap. Printed on the label in blue letters was “Ipecac Syrup.”
“This is it, Planty,” I said to the fern in the corner.
I stared at the bottle—no bigger than my hand, yet it had wreaked so much damage on my body. As a kid, I had only seen it once, at the back of Mom’s sock drawer. She must have changed hiding places, keeping the bottles away from “nosy noses,” as she referred to me. I closed my fingers around it, feeling powerful and sick at the same time.
I didn’t revel in the prospect of poisoning myself, but it was the one concrete way to prove my mother was back to her old tricks. I wasn’t sure a jury would believe an adult could be starved against her will, but she could sure as hell be unknowingly poisoned. Only an idiot would fall for the same trick twice, but I’d have to be that idiot, I guessed.
On the bright side, I wouldn’t be the only one getting sick. It was my turn to play God.
I tucked the small brown bottle into a sock in my bedroom dresser. On my way back to the living room, I paused in the doorway of my mother’s soon-to-be bedroom. I’d planned a nice surprise for her in here before her arrival. I didn’t want Mom stuck staring at four boring old walls—she deserved a flourish.
Sometimes I was convinced I felt my grandfather’s dark presence in this house. How, I wondered, had my mother hidden from his wrath? Had she gone for the obvious spots at first: her bedroom closet, under the bed, behind the shower curtain? And then as she got older, had she become craftier? Hidden in the car inside the garage, up a tree, in the giant freezer in the basement?
“What do you think?” I asked Planty as I moved through the living room. “I’d guess the Wattses didn’t spend much time in the basement after dear old Uncle David died.”
In the kitchen I checked the calendar on my refrigerator, cursing when I found “RESTRICTION TRAINING” written on today’s date. I’d been hoping to order a pizza tonight. But a plan was a plan, and I hadn’t tested myself in several weeks. I prepared my dinner—five saltines, two spoonfuls of Bush’s baked beans straight from the can, and one perfectly microwaved chicken nugget—and brought it to a tray table in the living room so I could eat in my recliner. I didn’t see the point of eating meals at the kitchen table anymore, not when I’d have to stare at the empty chair across from me.
I turned on the TV and let The Godfather play in the background. I’d already seen the movie a few times; Don Corleone’s voice soothed me. How far I had come—when I was a kid, Mom would only let me watch Disney movies and Blue’s Clues. The thought of watching Steve get the mail one more time made me want to choke myself with his green sweater.
I moved the can of beans away from me so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat anymore. I picked up my phone and scrolled through a handful of social media apps. I discovered Mrs. Stone had created a Facebook account and rolled my eyes.
“Another way for her to insert herself into other people’s business,” I said to Planty. I clicked my tongue and kept scrolling. Everyone’s lives were so boring, so diminished. All they did was change jobs and boyfriends and apartments.