Michael Somers's Blog

Once I get back to the hotel in the evening, I decide to make myself do a sit for thirty minutes just to ground myself in that routine.

I turn on the TV to CNN. I figure since I’ve already read the paper today, I might as well continue the news-junkie vibe. Since I’ve been under a media blackout for so many months, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I feel antsy once time is up. As much as I like this hotel room with its little kitchenette and lounge area, there is only so much of these walls I’m willing to put up with. I need to get out of the room, walk around the hotel a bit, maybe even walk downtown again. I don’t want to become a hermit already on my first day out, but who could blame me for enjoying the peace and quiet and solitude I’ve got here? Well, I’m sure my dad could find something wrong with it, but he’s not here, so who cares what he might or might not say?

No one. Exactly. And certainly not me.

I make sure I have my room key and slide into my back pocket, slide on my flip-flops, and open the door. I look side to side, down each end of the hallway, and see no one. I hear an explosion from someone’s TV. Probably some dumb action-adventure movie on TNT, like Terminator or Lethal Weapon, or any one of their equally stupid sequels. I will say one thing for George, for my father. He has good taste in movies, and did teach me to be a movie snob. There’s no way we would’ve ever watched any of those at home.

I try to tense my feet enough so that my flip-flops don’t make that annoying slapping sound, but rather make a muffled “chock” sound. Even though the explosions can be heard down the hall, I don’t want to be slap-slap-slapping by someone’s door and irritating them. I want to be a good neighbor, for however long I’m here.

Like people actually live here, sheesh. They’re just here for the weekend, most likely, and if they aren’t, they’re probably business travelers, and either way, they won’t be extended guests, like you might be. You’re not planning on putting down roots here or anything. If I had to deal with bombs, they could deal with flip-flops.

Rather than take the elevator, I decide to slap-slap-slap my way down the stairwell. May as well get a bit of exercise while I’m at it, because Sandy said that taking the stairs is good for you, it increases your heart rate and metabolism, just like a Stairmaster, and since that’s where the whole idea for the Stairmaster comes from, anyway, it’s a no-brainer.

My room’s on the fourth floor, the top floor. The first floor has a lounge, a restaurant, a bar, and the pool and Jacuzzi, plus the gym. The second floor has a nice conference hall, or so Sandy told me, as I’d be using it for something. The rest of the second floor and top two floors were rooms.

I slap-jog my way downstairs past the third floor and spiral down the stairwell until I reach the second floor. For some reason, I become fixated on the conference room, and I just have to see it. It’s probably generic and lame and smells like the ghosts of fruit punch and sausage that were left out too long from the last conference, but what the heck. It beats sitting around my room right now.

The door handle makes it “cha-chunk” noise as I smack my hands against it to push the door open. I nearly trip as I moved from the concrete of the stairwell to the hallway carpet. Apparently, flip-flop soles aren’t so good for traction, and how much you want to bet that Mom paid thirty dollars for these, since they’re American Eagle? At least she cared enough to send the very best.

The carpet is different from what’s upstairs on the fourth floor. There, it’s a faded blue in the middle, navy blue on the edges of the hallway where the foot traffic hasn’t worn it out, with little white dots, like pin points of light. Yellowed light, soiled light, in the middle, but on the edges, I can see their brightness, what they used to be. I notice the edges. I stick to the edges, usually. I like the edges. Here, though, the carpet is burgundy and gold, rich and fancy looking. The background is burgundy, deep like a Merlot, maybe a Shiraz (Dad’s wine training is coming in handy for something), and it’s topped with gold ovals. The effect is really rather nice. It’s elegant, opulent.

If I thought I could check out the conference room by myself and be alone, I was wrong. Quite a crowd gathered, all dressed to the nines in suits and formal dresses. Up ‘dos galore, enough to make Mom swoon with pleasure. Diamonds and pearls and sapphires all over the women’s throats, ears, fingers, and wrists. The party looked as fancy and elegant as the carpet, It’s like I entered a totally new world.

There are beautiful padded benches and chairs to my right, slightly away from the action. I duck over and sit in one of the plush burgundy-and-gold chairs that circle a small mahogany table, with a crystal vase full of bright, happy Gerber daisies. I love Gerberas. They’re in-your-face Crayola flowers. They simply make me smile, even on my most pissy teenage boy days. I breathe in, and smell the faint sweetness, like sugar in the air.

It must be a wedding reception or something. People are coming in with gifts wrapped in white paper, tied with silver bows. Classic wedding wrapping paper action. The atmosphere is pretty subdued, and the vibe they’re giving off is one of quiet expectation. The bride and groom and bridal party haven’t arrived yet. That’s good. I don’t feel like I’m intruding quite so much.

A couple catches my eye. They’re hanging back from the others a bit. She’s wearing a strapless light green silk dress with the image of an iris seemingly hand painted on. I could tell it was silk from the way it flowed around her as she moved, every turn and shift inspiring a gentle wave to wash along the shoreline of her body. The iris has to be hand painted; even from where I sit, it looks original with brushstrokes and lines a machine could never produce. It has soul, it has life. Her hair is light blonde like Mom’s, and swept into a simple chignon. Diamonds twinkle in her ears and around her neck. I can’t see her hands, but I’m sure she has a huge rock on her wedding ring. Tanned skin, but not obviously tanning booth created. Calves Mom would hate her for. Stuart Weitzman shoes. This woman spells c-l-a-s-s.

The man wears a fitted grey pinstriped suit, with a light purple shirt and a purple and grey tie. If the whole ensemble wasn’t Ralph Lauren, I’d be surprised. Maybe Calvin Klein, but my money’s on RL’s Purple label. His shoes are Johnston and Murphy if they’re anything else. His salt-and-pepper hair is cut short in a Caesar style. That cut never goes out of style for guys. He’s tanned, too, almost the same color as his wife.

He wraps his arm around her waist and she turns away just slightly before leaning into him, like the most natural place for her to fit in the world is right there against him in that position. He smells her neck; she must have dabbed perfume there, maybe Chanel No. 5. He kisses that part of her neck, then kisses her earlobe before nibbling it just a bit. She shakes slightly, giggling like the nibble tickles. She tilts her head a bit more to the side, inviting him to kiss her neck again. He does. She melts. She visibly melts. He wraps his arm around her tighter and starts swaying to whatever music he hears in his head, to whatever music their bodies create, to whatever music their love plays. A symphony. She releases into him more, and lets him sway her, lets him take the lead, lets him move her.

No one else exists. No one else matters. They move and they sway. Like waves. Like silk. Like silken waves. Like wedded perfection. Like wedded bliss.

Like nothing I had ever seen before.

I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I haven’t tried since that disaster of a visit to Pizza Vito’s this afternoon. Not a single thing, except for this coffee here at some lame coffee shop by the hotel called Bean Around. I’ve got Ensure at the hotel, just in case something like this happens, but I haven’t touched it. I’ve got grapes and protein bars and even gummy bears, but I haven’t touched any of it. I should care more, but I don’t.

It’s not like I’m backsliding in any big way, and I’m not even really too worried about it now. I know it’s because of my current situation, and the fact I bit aimed too high today and it’s really just hard to transition from having so much structure to so much freedom. I need to remember that for the weekends coming up. I don’t want to keep having this problem.

Once I get back to my hotel room, I’ll drink a can of Ensure and eat some grapes. Maybe even some gummy bears. I can’t go all day without something in my stomach. I don’t like how my stomach feels compressed, like it’s collapsed in on itself and trying to wad itself up into the smallest ball it possibly can. That feeling used to give me so much joy, so much pleasure. It meant I was doing good, I was achieving, I was exceeding. I wasn’t the disappointment Dad thought I was. I was good at something.

The dreadlocked barista comes over to wipe my table. “Slow day in here, man.”

“Yeah, looks that way,” I say. I’m the only customer.

“Haven’t seen you in here before,” he says. “You like the coffee?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“It’s Fair Trade and organic.”

“Saving the world one coffee bean at a time,” I say.

“Something like that.” Then he moves on to the next table.

I stare at his grungy-looking dreds and his hipster Goodwill clothes as he works. I look like I fell out of a Gap ad, and he looks like he fell out of a homeless shelter.

Mom bought and had delivered new clothes about a week before I was discharged. Good old Astrid. I might not be her son anymore, I might have completely upset her crumbling world, but I still had to look good. I still had to keep up appearances. I still had to put on a show.  “Looking the part matters,” she’d say.

I’m the only one who stopped acting.

As I watch the barista work, I wonder if he can see I nearly starved myself to death? That I can puke without sticking my finger down my throat? That I’m parentless now? That I was always was in many ways? That I’m on welfare so I can get the health insurance to be able to afford the day hospitalization program? Can he see any of that written on my face?

I shake my head to stop the questions.  The lack of food is getting to me.

I really don’t like all this self-awareness. Some days I wish I could be as blissfully arrogant and ignorant as Dad is. I could just bully my way through the world and not care about what damage I left behind. I could be right all the time. I could be an emotional fly swatter and whack the heck out of anything that tries to land on me. I could feel how satisfying it is to hurt someone who means me no real harm, to have power over someone else.

But I could never be like that.  I’ve seen what it’s done to me and Astrid.

I’m free and she’s not. That’s the choice she made, though, the choice she makes every day she decides to stay.

ASTRID AND GEORGE

When Astrid opened the door from the garage to the kitchen, she found George leaning against the sink, tossing one of her empty bottles of Smirnoff from hand to hand. Damn, she thought. Didn’t I put that in the recycle bin?

“Where did you go?” he asked her, his voice remarkably devoid of sarcasm. She smelled a minefield. The only time he didn’t confront her about her drinking with sarcasm was when he was planning something particularly nasty.

“Look at my bags and you tell me, George.”  She felt it best to meet the hurricane head-on, no boarded up windows and no evacuating.

He scanned the bags in her hands. One from Kitchen Kitsch, one from the Hallmark store, and one plain brown paper bag that had to be from the liquor store.

“How many bottles today?” he asked.

“Three.”  She walked to the island and set the bags down. The first bands of rain should be hitting right about now, and the initial storm surge should be cresting.

“Just three?”

“Yes, just three.”  She pulled the tortilla press and corn meal out of the Kitchen Kitsch bag. “I had to go out and get a press for your tortillas.”

“Aren’t you the dutiful wife?”  He still tossed the bottle from hand to hand, leveling inscrutable stare at her.

“It would appear that way, George.”

“Appearances are everything, aren’t they, Astrid?”

“You would know best, George.”

He took a moment, sizing her up. Heavier bands were coming, the storm surge crashing against the sea wall.

“Two empty bottles plus three full bottles equals one worthless drunk,” George said, setting the empty bottle on the counter next to him, label facing toward her. “That’s an equation they don’t teach in algebra, but maybe they should.  A real-world application for the kids to learn might be helpful to them.”

The storm was only going to get worse, but she knew better than run and hide inside. She needed to just bear the brunt. “Maybe.”

“You agree?”

“It might make math more interesting for young girls.”

“Now you’re concerned about the youth of America?”

“I think a story problem should accompany that equation you came up with, George.”  She met his gaze with her own.

“Do tell.”  He folded his arms across his chest.

“Here’s what I think it should be,” she said. “A woman marries a selfish, verbally abusive man she thinks she loves. Day after day, he greets her with at least one insult, but that’s on a slow day. Usually, it’s more like five insults. Nothing she ever does is good enough for him, but she still tries. So she decides to enjoy her day a little by having some quality time with Mr. Smirnoff. How many bottles does she need to drink until she matches the average number of insults he throws at her?”  Not once, not one time, did she blink or move her eyes from his.

The smirk. She managed to get the smirk. Good. Exactly what she wanted. If she was going to get soaked to the bone in the storm, she at least had to get the smirk. Otherwise, what was the point?

“Good one, Astrid,” he said. “Good one. And typical. I noticed how the husband got the blame.”

“I was hoping you would.”

“Very original.”

“Actually, it’s not terribly original,” she said. “It’s a bit of a cliché at this point.”

“Indeed it is.”

Suddenly, the rain started letting up and the surge noticeably lightened. The storm was losing its ferocity as it churned over land.

“Two bottles in one morning is a lot.”

“Not all in one morning,” she said. “But it’s kind of you to notice, George.”

“I’m keeping count.”

“Tell me about it.”

He paused. She wasn’t what he expected she’d be today. Something was different. Something was off. She was fighting back, not like she normally did. “You know he’s probably been discharged by now.”

Maybe the storm hadn’t lost all its power after all. “I know.”

“He turned out a lot like you, Astrid. A lot like you.”

“He reminds me more of you, George.”

“Does he? Funny. I don’t see the resemblance.”

“You could be twins.”

He narrowed his eyes a bit, squinting, like she had to squint when driving downtown. Like she had to when she saw Nathan outside the pizza parlor, just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure it was even him, but she knew deep down. That was the boy she had given birth to.

“I don’t feel bad about what happened, Astrid,” he said, not acknowledging her last statement, her last attempt at an insult.

“You made that clear when you walked away from him, George.”

“I wasn’t going to sit there and constantly be blamed for what’s wrong with him!” George said. “There he was, constantly blaming me for his problems, and those nurses and doctors believed every word he said! You even believed him! You would join right in attacking me. No, I wasn’t going to let that happen. He’s a man now. He’s on his own, and I don’t want anything more to do with him.”

Astrid didn’t respond. There was nothing to respond to. She had heard that same rant over and over in the last month, and she could recite it by heart.

“We’re better off without him,” George said.

Astrid didn’t respond.

“You know it’s your fault anyway,” he said. “You know that you’re a drunk. You’re no good. You’re a no-good drunk, and you’re a no-good mother, and you’re sure as hell a no-good wife.”

Astrid didn’t respond.

George shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I’m going to the den to work. Let me know when supper’s ready.”

And he left. The storm was over.

Astrid stared where George had just stood. She saw the empty bottle, standing there like a lonely bowling pin.

She left the bottle on the counter. She grabbed the brown paper bag with the bottles and headed to the basement, to the wet bar. She put two of the bottles in the wine refrigerator, and kept one out. She twisted the cap off, and sniffed it the way a wine connoisseur would smell a cork. Instead of oaky and floral bouquets, she smelled sharp and clean 80-proof, modern vintage. All business, no fanciness.

She took a highball glass from the shelf, and tinkled ice into it with tongs. She poured the vodka to within an inch of the rim. She swirled the glass, letting the vodka flow over the ice. She brought the glass to her lips and drained it in three long sips. Shocking, bracing, numbing.

She had seen Nathan today. She had seen him. He was out of the hospital. He was in town. And if she saw him once, she might see him again. Maybe he would see her, too, and maybe he’d want to talk to her.

But no. He made his choice. Hadn’t he? Or had the choice been made for him? Was she only mad at him when she was feeling sorry for herself? Did she only hate him when she hated herself the most? When she was the most drunk?

But no. He was the reason everything had fallen apart on him. He knew better. He fought and lost, but he probably sat there thinking he was the winner in all of this. Teenagers always think they’re right, that they know more than their parents.

But hadn’t she fought back today? Just now, in the kitchen with George? She didn’t flinch, even when he threw his barbs at her. She stood there, not shaking, not yelling, not reacting. She didn’t take it; she gave it. He didn’t cut her in half, and he didn’t yell. He didn’t raise his voice this time. Something was different, and it was because she was different.

But what was different? She was no good, supposedly, yet she had been just right today, just now. Was it because of seeing Nathan? Was it because her buzz had worn off? Her buzz had disappeared the moment she saw Nathan. From that moment on, she had felt sober and clear-headed.

Was this how Nathan felt these days? Clear-headed and aware? Free? An urge to head back downtown seized her. She wanted to get back into her BMW and drive around the streets until she spotted him again, until she could call out to him, get him to come to her so she could look at him again, and see him all healthy and happy and free, not skeletal and sad and imprisoned. Not like walking death. She wanted to smell him, to see if that sickly sweet scent he had when he was starving himself had gone. The same pull that brought her to her Smirnoff bottles called to her to go in search of him.

But no. George would hear her open the garage door, hear her start her car and back out. He’d want to know where she was going. She had no reason to go out, not again. She had everything she needed to get through the day.

Except Nathan. Suddenly she needed him. She needed him near her. But he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be. Not anymore, not unless he wanted to. She wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to. His father didn’t want to be near her. He learned that from George.

He was like his father. He had paid attention to George too closely. He learned how to forsake her the way his father had. The apple landed right next to the trunk.

No, she would not go searching for him. Not today, not anytime soon. Maybe not ever again. He could search for her. He knew where to find her.

He was no longer her son, right?

She placed the highball back on the bar, grabbed the Smirnoff, and poured another glass full, this time to nearly full. Nathan was gone. She had found him, but he was still gone. This was all she had. This was the only thing she understood. This would never leave her, not unless she told it to.

She had no intention of that. No intention at all.

She poured another glassful of vodka and swirled the glass, alcohol washing over the ice cubes. She raised the glass to her lips, her hand slightly trembling. The confidence and levelness she felt upstairs deserted her now, left her feeling open and vulnerable. Left her wanting to run and hide.

So she ran and hid to the only safe place she knew, to her glass full of vodka and ice, to her cupboard under the stairs. Three long sips and she was gone, hidden, not to be found.

Disappeared. For now.

GEORGE

That dumb drunk, George thought, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, as he walked into the kitchen. An empty Smirnoff bottle lay on its side on the kitchen counter.

At least she was a functioning alcoholic. She smiled sincerely. She greeted warmly. She dressed impeccably. She laughed appropriately. She spoke intelligently. No swaying, no slurring. Perfect balance and perfect pitch. The ideal wife. Charming. Smart. Sophisticated. Devoted to him and his career. Devoted to her son, who was away at a private school now.

The cover story was working great. No one thought it odd or unusual that George and Astrid would pull Nathan out of public school and send him to a private school upstate. A private school for gifted and talented youngsters. Yes, Nathan was gifted and talented, all right. Gifted and talented at starving himself nearly to death with a girl’s disease. Gifted and talented at blaming his parents, especially his father, for what was wrong with him. Gifted and talented at being as messed up, pathetic, and useless as his mother. Gifted and talented at causing uproar in the family, at making waves that had no business being made, and all for what? Attention? Special treatment? What was wrong with that boy, anyway?

Nathan was no longer his concern.

But Astrid still was. She attacked him for being horrible to her when he only treated her the way she deserved to be treated. Nathan’s therapists and nurses egged her on. They said he should listen to what was being said to him.

Which came back to Nathan in the end. Nathan’s team said that since George resisted the therapeutic process, he might be doing Nathan more harm than good. They said he shouldn’t come to any more sessions until he was willing to accept his role in how Nathan ended up where he had.

Oh really? When he had so many cases to handle, so many briefs and depositions to prepare for? When his case load had tripled? These people who barely knew Nathan believed the kid’s delusions without asking George’s side of the story, without trying to double-check their facts. He wasn’t about to be tried without being able to testify on his own behalf. He had no desire to be found guilty in front of a kangaroo court full of quacks.

So he gladly left that last “family therapy” session. He gladly took himself out of that fiasco, Astrid crying and screaming behind him, as he tried to put as much distance between himself and what he had left. He made it to the parking garage before Astrid and he took off, leaving her there. Let her take a taxi home. He had work to do.

George didn’t care if Nathan was discharged before he was fully recovered, or whatever they were waiting for. The kid wasn’t his problem anymore. George’s own father had set him free at Nathan’s age. What was good for George was good for Nathan. He no longer felt any obligation toward his son. He was done.

Nathan had become an emancipated minor, so he could go on welfare in order to get the insurance coverage he needed to stay in the hospital. Great. Now his son was a welfare case. At least Nathan was his own man now, which was how it should be.

Astrid knew Nathan’s discharge date was close, if not passed. That explained the Smirnoff bottle on the counter and the other one in the kitchen sink. Two bottles in two days. Let her drown herself, let her wallow in her sorrow. She was the reason Nathan turned out the way he did. She didn’t deserve to be the kid’s mother, considering how badly she messed him up. It served her right.

At least the kid’s discharge date was close to the end of school here. There would be a good excuse to give if any of his co-workers saw Nathan around town, assuming Nathan stayed in town. As long as the stories lined up, as long as everything looked the way he wanted it to look, he was good.

He didn’t miss Nathan at all, not one bit. Good riddance. Life was easier without him around. It was bad enough he had to deal with Astrid. That took all the energy he wanted to spare.

One train wreck in the house was more than enough.

ASTRID

Too much today, Astrid, she chastised herself, squinting to get a clearer view of the downtown street ahead and make the split images into one. Too much today before heading on your errands. Errands which included getting more Smirnoff to replace the fifth she had just finished before coming out today.

Nathan had to have been discharged by now. She had longed to call the hospital but they wouldn’t have told her so either way, now that he was officially emancipated and on his own. She knew she had no say and no control, not that she ever did, anyway. Why should her relationship with who used to her son be different that the one with the boy’s father? George always said Nathan was more like her, useless and pathetically weak, but from her standpoint, from how things played out recently, she saw Nathan as a carbon copy of his father.

Who would blame her for indulging a little too much, considering her only child was no longer her child at all, and he was likely discharged from an inpatient eating disorders unit to be placed God knew where with God knew whom? Nathan’s medical team had set a target discharge date before the blind-side emancipation hearing and ruling, and Nathan was surely bound and determined to make his weight and get released. Astrid knew he wouldn’t have done anything to prevent that. Deep down, she knew he was out in the world by now.

Squinting more, she managed to make the two separate red lights join into one, just in time to stomp on the brakes of her BMW. Her Jimmy Choo shoes pinched her feet and her foot felt too sluggish. Perhaps she should have worn her Eccos. It was Saturday, after all. No one to impress and no need to worry about being seen. But no, Jimmy Choo and Eileen Fisher called out to her in her haze, and, since they were the only choices she could focus on, she put them on. George was at the office, working on an upcoming trial, thank God, so she was alone. Not that he would have been any help. She felt alone even when he was there.

Two orbs of green appeared and a horn honked behind her. Tooting her own horn, she slowly moved her Choo’d foot from the brake to the gas pedal and revved ahead.

She knew she should keep squinting. She knew seeing double is not exactly approved behavior by the DMV, or the police, or other drivers. But she didn’t care. She had to get to the kitchen store to pick up a tortilla press and skillet for tacos tonight. George proclaimed it to be taco night and he demanded homemade tortillas this time, not store bought.

She found a parking spot near the store and whipped into it, jerking the car as she stomped the brakes again, stopping just before hitting the curb. She slipped the gearshift into Park.  She needed to gather herself before going in. Opening her visor, she glanced at her face in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes jumped out against her lined eyelids, and the mascara only popped the red more. She looked like she had been crying, and she had been, only on the inside. Outer tears did no one, especially her, any good. She could pretend her allergies bothered her if anyone asked. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth it. She hadn’t run a brush through it before she left.

Then she stopped short. Behind her, on the other side of the street, stood a tall, thin, dark haired boy in front of the pizza parlor wearing the striped polo shirt and Levi’s she had bought for him. His face was turned away, but she would know the back of his head anywhere. She would know that cowlick anywhere. It was his father’s cowlick.

Nathan. He was out. He had been discharged. He was downtown. Did that mean he lived near here now?

Nathan. She looked away from the mirror, her heartbeat jack hammering inside her. She looked to the steering wheel for answers and found none.

She looked back up in to the mirror. He was gone. Nathan was gone. Had he ever even been there? Did she just imagine him?

He was gone. Nathan was gone. Like he had never even existed. But he was there. He was downtown, so close to where she was parked.

She beat back the urge to search for him. Not while she was drunk. Not while she looked a mess. He’d know. He’d know nothing had changed. He’d know everything was still the same.

That, she knew, was why she had lost him.

I went up against a pepperoni and mushroom pizza and the pizza won.

I’m an emancipated minor, an “adult” barely off his training wheels, and I couldn’t take on and defeat one stupid pizza.

How am I ever going to do this? How am I ever going to find out how to eat without someone watching me and holding me accountable when I don’t? It’s not like there were any nurses there to give me double the meal’s calories of Ensure when I just walked away from Pizza Vito’s without eating any of what I ordered. I didn’t even eat at noon, like I’m supposed to, because I was too busy being scared of the pizza joint. I was scared of the pizza. I was scared of starch, meat, and vegetable exchanges.

And I had no one to talk to about it. It’s the weekend. I’m not an inpatient anymore. I was discharged yesterday and left to fend for myself until Monday when I start the day hospitalization program. No one at the hotel knows anything about me, or even cares. I’m supposed to be moving to a new place soon with a family, and I thought that would all be worked out when I was discharged but it wasn’t. I’m in this limbo.

I don’t have a home. I don’t have a family. I don’t have friends. I don’t have Sandy or Dr. Jamitrack or Dr. Panzer, or even Holly, Brandy, and Sarah. God, I’d rather put with Brandy’s crappy pro-anorexia attitude than be alone with these thoughts right now.

I’ve got my thought restructure sheets folded in my back pocket. They’re supposed to help me transition from the unhealthy thoughts to more productive ones. The sheets are basically flow charts starting with the negative thoughts, then identifying the trigger of the thought, then stating the emotion felt before and during the thought, and ending with a shiny, happy new thought that will make everything all better. Sandy told me it’s part of cognitive behavioral therapy. I have a stack of them at the hotel, and I grabbed a few about food, but nowhere in my stack is one dealing with being beaten by a pizza.

Let’s try doing a thought restructure now, shall we? Okay, the bad thought is this:  I am a failure for ordering that pizza, not eating any of it, and walking away. The trigger was seeing the whole pie and not the individual slices, sort of a reverse forest-for-the-trees scenario. The emotion I feel is fear and self-loathing. Fear because of the high-fat nature of the food I ordered, and self-loathing because maybe my father is right, maybe I am pathetic and weak. The shiny, happy new thought would be this:  Exchanges are my anti-freak-out friends. Or something like that.

See how easy it is?

Only it’s not. It’s not easy when you’re in the middle of the negative thought in a pizza parlor, staring at a pizza with enough saturated fat to scare any non-anorexic person if they really thought about it. Is it bad to think about it, though? Is it bad to be aware of what’s in the food we eat, and to turn away from the food that could clog your arteries and make you fat?

There I go again. Afraid of getting fat. Afraid of food.

They shouldn’t have let me out yet. I shouldn’t have been discharged. I’m not ready for this. I can’t do this –

Wait. I’ve got a thought restructure for this. I reach into my left back pocket, pull out the folded sheets, and unfold them. The top one’s negative thought is “I’m not ready for this.”  I lean back on the bench, and read it, hoping for a bit of shiny happy.

This pizza I’m staring at should not scare me. It is knowable and understandable, all through the magic of dietary exchanges. I know the role and function of each part, and I know that this pizza is a balanced, fairly healthy meal to eat, as long as I stick to a piece or two.

But who sticks to a piece or two?

And who comes to Pizza Vito’s all by themselves and orders a large pizza? Who comes in at two in the afternoon, after walking past the joint every fifteen minutes since noon, building up courage to walk in, only to swerve back to the sidewalk and walk the same two-block circuit, only to fail yet again?

Who does that?

Someone who just wants to prove to himself that he can order a whole pizza, sit down, eat two slices, ask for a box, and take the rest home to eat two more slices again at another meal. Or maybe ask for a box, walk out of the parlor with it, then pitch it in the first trashcan he sees on a street corner. What happens to the pizza after it’s ordered and the two slices are eaten isn’t important, but he makes it important by dwelling on it, which means he doesn’t have to dwell on the fact he still has to eat two slices from the pizza in front of him.

Lunchtime is supposed to be at noon. It is now two o’clock. My stomach is snarling. The hunger pangs are deep and they echo. I shouldn’t say this, but it feels so good to hear that snarl and feel that deep echo again. It reminds me of a time when I had the power and something as simple as pizza didn’t.

Oh, who am I kidding? That pizza would have had all the power in the end. Just like it does now.

A pizza is not just a pizza. It is not just tomato sauce with some oregano, basil, and thyme smeared on a spongy piece of white dough, topped with mushrooms and pepperoni, buried under a thick layer of cheddar and mozzarella.

A pizza is more than a pizza. That tomato sauce? It’s lycopene. It’s vitamin C. It’s a vegetable exchange. That dough? It’s simple carbohydrates (assuming you’re not being fancy and using whole wheat, in which case you’ve got some complex carbs and protein thrown in for fun), yeast, and water. It’s a starch exchange. Those mushrooms? They’re more than just delicious cap-shaped fungus. They’re a non-starchy vegetable exchange. That pepperoni? It’s more than just thinly sliced hard sausage packed into a casing. It’s a high-fat meat exchange. That cheese? It’s more than just a bubbly, stringy gob of spoiled milk. It, too, is a meat exchange. Just how high fat depends on how much gets piled on.

A pizza is more than a pizza, no matter how you try to narrow it down. It’s one thing, then it’s another thing, and those things add up to something you thought you knew, but don’t.

The fun of exchanges is that food is no longer food. Food becomes the parts they play in your body, the role they serve to feed you and keep you healthy, the sum of their nutritional whole. They are stripped of what they seem to be, and displayed for what they really are – components, pieces, vitamins, minerals, amino acids. Chains, reactions. All serving a purpose. All understandable, all understood. The magic is gone and when the magic is gone, the fear is gone.

Or so I was led to believe.

Since I haven’t eaten since eight fifteen, and all I’ve put in my mouth besides sugarless gum since then is diet soda here at the parlor, I’m feeling lightheaded. I’m remembering what it’s like to starve, and I like it.

I got spoiled by all the structure I used to have in the hospital. I’m supposed to keep that structure going. I’m supposed to have my schedule rigidly in my mind, and follow it just as rigidly. I shouldn’t be letting hours go by, working up the courage to walk into a stupid pizza joint. I was trained to be able to do this. That’s how I can even be here in the first place. I’m not locked up anymore. I’m free.

Only I’m not free. I’m still locked up. This pizza is proving that to me. I’m just as weak now as when I weighed ninety-nine pounds from starving myself and throwing up what little I did eat. I’m supposed to be stronger than this. That’s why they let me out.

I really could use Sandy’s encouragement. She’d be practical: “Nathan, it’s okay, it’s just some starch and meat exchanges.” She’d remind me of what the pizza means when I couldn’t, when I was wrapped up in the other things it means to me, like weakness, like defeat, like loss.

The steam from the pizza is thinner than it was when Kasey, the bored waitress, brought it to me, looking at me like I was a hog for ordering a large pizza. Or maybe I imagined she looked at me like that. Maybe I was projecting, like Dr. Jamitrack said I have a tendency to do. The steam started out fat, and now it was thin.

Like I used to be.

Now stop that, Nathan

know what’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with me is that I ordered a large pizza just to prove I could, and now I have to eat two slices of it and get a take-out box, just to prove that I can. Just to prove that I can do something millions of people can do without even thinking, without even blinking. Just to prove that two slices will not make me fat, but will give my body the energy and nutrition it needs to help me get through the day. Just to prove that I’m not a prisoner anymore.

Just to prove that I’m not what I used to be.

But I am. I am today. Just for today, at least. And not even just for today. Just for now, just here at five minutes past two at Pizza Vito’s on a slow Saturday afternoon. Just long enough to remind me that I’m not as far along as I thought I was, but not so far gone as I used to be.

I shift my weight, and grab my wallet from my back pocket. I pluck a twenty out, tuck it under my clean plate, sip the rest of my diet soda, slide out of the booth, the pizza untouched, and head for the door I never should entered in the first place. I walk away from what I worked so hard to be able to do, but now can’t.

Pizza is not just pizza. I should have known that.

ASTRID

I have a son who . . . she thought.

Correction. Start over.

But first, a sip of Smirnoff.

Ah, much better. Nothing like the tinkle of ice and the burn of booze to clear one’s thoughts.

I had a son who starved himself nearly to death, she thought. She had found him unconscious, right here in this living room, right in front of the couch where she sat drinking her vodka. She had found him passed out and splayed out like he’d been shot. A mother’s nightmare. A child looking like he’s dead, and maybe even really dead for all she knew at the time.

That day, all she wanted was to get home from volunteering at the children’s museum, which she only did because her husband told her she needed to, and have a drink before the evening tension began.  Before George came home full of ill temper, and before she had to watch Nathan not eat, or do odd things with his food if he did eat. Before George would criticize Nathan’s eating habits and before criticizing her for allowing it. Before George would hole himself in his study for the night. Before Nathan slunk into the bathroom, turning the radio on loud. Before the toilet flushed at least twice.

She knew what he was doing, just like he knew what she was doing when she went to the basement to the wet bar, drop ice into a tumbler, splash Smirnoff over the ice, and gulp it down. He puked and she drank. The two of them didn’t really have secrets hidden where no one could see them. They hid their secrets in plain sight. Ice and glass gave her away, and music and flushing gave him away.  He thought she was too drunk to notice, but she noticed more when she was drunk than when she was sober. She saw things as they really were, crystal clear like a sharply focused lens, not foggy and muddy like her son thought.

She had her way of dealing with her life, and he had his, and who was she to tell him he couldn’t cope the way he wanted to cope? It upset her. It hurt her. She gave birth to him. She wasn’t heartless. But it was his business, just like drinking was her business.

It was George’s fault she didn’t have a son anymore. Her husband was the reason. He just couldn’t accept responsibility. His wife and son were suffering and he couldn’t be bothered to notice, or care, or do anything to stop it. He blamed them instead. She was a bad wife. She was a bad mother. She was a drunk. Nothing was good enough. The house wasn’t spotless enough, the laundry wasn’t clean enough, the car wasn’t waxed buff enough, the meals weren’t cooked well enough. Why else would Nathan not eat, or play with his food? It had to be her fault. She was certainly the reason George was starting to have problems at work.

She lifted the tumbler to her lips, looking up from the spot where she had found Nathan. She looked at the walls, an elegant gray. No pictures graced the walls. Well, no family pictures at least. Instead, tasteful paintings hung, showcasing beaches, cliffs, and other isolated and lonely places. Never anyone in them. Just emptiness and space.

That’s what she wanted: to be alone, away from where she sat and what she saw, away from the prison she felt housed in.

All she was left with now was a husband she hated, in a house she hated, in a subdivision she hated, on a cul-de-sac she hated, in a city she hated, in a life she hated.

She even hated Nathan in that moment. She hated how he couldn’t get George to see. He shouldn’t have tried to change anything. He should’ve just dealt with it, like she learned to deal with it. He shouldn’t have been so flashy. He shouldn’t have held a mirror up to his father. She tried that before, and all George did was take it from her hand and smash it against a wall, shattering the glass into jagged fragments that reflected what their life together was, right there on the hardwood floors, right there for her to sweep up and empty into the trash, because that’s where garbage belongs. Nathan tried to change that, and damn him for trying. Damn him for thinking he could do what she couldn’t.

Now, she no longer had a son. He was emancipated. He was his own man. He was an adult now. Because of George. Because of the hospital. Because of Nathan’s doctors and nurses and therapists.

She ached for him. She looked at the spot where she had found him unconscious. She envisioned him splayed out like a crime victim, like a dead body. That image was never far from her mind. She always had him in her mind. He might not be her son legally anymore, but she was still his mother. She missed him. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

Her father had left her. Her son left her. Two men she didn’t want to say good-bye to, didn’t want to have to let go. Her husband stayed. One man she would not be sad to say good-bye to, would not be sad to let go.

She was alone.

Time to stock up, she thought, gulping the last of her vodka and looking at the clock above the fireplace before leaving for the liquor store downtown. George will be home soon.

SANDY

Sandy looked out her kitchen window at the muted gray morning sky, wondering how Nathan was doing and worrying about him.

Despite his family situation, despite all the obstacles, everyone on his treatment team felt comfortable saying he was a success story. He had finally learned to not only follow the recovery plan laid out for him, but he had also learned to believe in it and believe in what it meant for him. They had not had a patient like him. He was only the second male eating disordered patient she had worked with, the first lasting only a few days before signing himself out, and the first she had ever been primary nurse to. He simply—finally—wanted to get better and move on.

At least  the team agreed to transition him to the day hospitalization program, but she worried about the weekend gap between his discharge and the start of his treatment. Dr. Panzer and Dr. Jamitrack both felt he could handle it, but she couldn’t shake the feeling it was too much freedom too soon. He had no one to officially check in on him until Monday, and he was staying at the Andover Inn downtown because the family they had lined up for him to live with after his discharge backed out at the last minute.

It felt rushed to Sandy. It felt dangerous for Nathan.

She reached for her keys and drove downtown with thinking, propelled by her concern for Nathan. She parked in the Andover Inn’s lot downtown, hoping to see a sign of him. She saw him leave a little after eleven. She gave a little start, like she had been shocked by a static charge. She slumped down in her car a bit, but she didn’t need to; she wore one of her daughter’s baseball caps and had her Oakley sunglasses on, plus Nathan had never seen her Malibu before. There was no way he would have recognized her.

He looked good to her. He looked healthy. On the thin side, but healthy. Funny, on 8-D, he seemed bigger somehow. Outside the hospital, he looked like a normal guy his age. No one watching him would ever guess where he’d been these last months.

But she knew.

She shouldn’t be here watching out for him. But lunchtime wasn’t too far off. He left the hotel, which meant he was probably out scouting for a place to eat. He was all right, at least for now, at least for today. “You can do this, Nathan,” she said softly, as if someone might hear her and discover what she was doing.

She hoped he didn’t try to eat somewhere scary just to face his fears, like the burger bar or the pizza place. If he did, she hoped he had his thought restructures with him. She didn’t think he had one specifically for those places, but he may have written some new ones since his release. If he didn’t have one written down, she hoped he could make one up on the spot in his head and be all right. He was a smart kid. He’d know he didn’t have to have it written down to use the process.

She watched him turn left onto the sidewalk, jam his hands into his pockets, hunch his shoulders a bit, and disappear. She leaned back in her seat, exhaling, surprised she’d been holding her breath. She repressed an urge to follow him and instead went home to her daughter, who needed her mother more than Nathan needed his former nurse.

SARAH

Sarah looked out through the reinforced glass of the 8-D lounge, eight stories above all the life and activity down below. All the life on the streets, in the cars, on the sidewalks, on the bikes, in the shoes. All the life that Nathan now was a part of, all of the life she wasn’t. Not yet.

She hugged her thin arms across her chest and rested her cheek against the glass. Even though it was springtime, it still felt cool like February. The clouds a dull gray, the sunlight trapped behind the clouds, turning what should be its happy warm rays into cold and dank dishwater. Maybe it was warmish outside, or maybe it was chilly. It was hard to tell. It was hard to tell anything, being locked on the adolescent eating disorders unit and not yet being at the level where she could walk outside under nurse supervision. She could leave the unit with a nurse to go to the atrium, or the chapel, or walk around the hospital, but not go outside yet.

And there Nathan was, out there, able to move around and go wherever he wanted, alone and unsupervised.

She envied him.

She had five more pounds to go before she could take walks on the hospital grounds with a nurse, and maybe even a bit around the city close to the hospital. Those last five pounds were a killer; she just couldn’t gain an ounce and Ellie, the nutritionist, had upped her calories to 3000 a day to jumpstart the process and meet her metabolism head on.

That felt scary. She knew Nathan had been above 5000 calories a day at one point because he had plateaued, and he started gaining after that. If Nathan could handle 5000 calories without falling apart, she could handle 3000.

It didn’t help that Brandy was her usual nasty self. “You are so going to pork out on 3000 calories, Sarah,” she smirked over her chicken and cheese enchiladas at lunch. “Your mom will need to buy you the next size up.”

She held Brandy’s stare as Holly snickered and said, “Totally. You’ll be up to a size four soon.”  She ignored Holly completely, but continued to stare Brandy down.

Brandy didn’t blink or budge. “What? You have something to say, Sarah?”

A direct challenge, straight from the undisputed eating disorder champion of 8-D.

“Not to you, no,” Sarah said, eyes never wavering from Brandy’s smirking, smug face.

“You’ll be just like Nathan,” Brandy said, not relenting her gaze. “He was up to 5000 calories, and you know how fat he got. He was huge when he left here yesterday.”

“I’d rather be like Nathan than be like you,” Sarah said, taking a bite of her enchiladas and not taking her eyes off Brandy.

A look of surprise, small and bright, flicked across Brandy’s eyes. “Whatever, heifer,” she muttered, finally taking her eyes off Sarah and looking down at her plate. “You’ll be mooing in no time, just like him.”

Sarah shook her head as Holly snickered yet again, like some stupid sidekick who thinks her hero is the most brilliant thing on the planet. She shot Holly a look saying, “Screw off” before tucking back into her enchiladas.

She was not going to let Brandy and Holly throw her off track. They represented what she didn’t want to be anymore: A slave to her eating disorders. She didn’t want to be held hostage by the obsession and the pain anymore. The aching muscles, the cramps, the cracked fingernails, the yellow skin, the dried frizzy hair that hurt her scalp when she brushed it, the throbbing of her bones. She didn’t want to feel terrorized by food or a scale or a skirt or a shirt or a clothing size. She didn’t want to hate herself anymore. She didn’t want to hurt her parents anymore. She didn’t want to be victim anymore. She was tired of fighting her anorexia and losing. She wanted to fight and win, just like Nathan.

Maybe it was different for him being a boy. Maybe recovery is easier for a boy because they don’t have to deal with the same kind of baggage women do. They don’t have the same kind of pressures to look a certain way, to be skinny, to know that being skinny gets you compliments, and the more compliments you get, the skinnier you want to be, and the more things are wrong in your life, the more those compliments mean, so your parents’s marriage can completely collapse but you’re okay because you’re skinny and people tell you that you look great.

Maybe Nathan didn’t have to deal with any of that. Things were bad with his parents, that much she knew. Each one of them had problems with their parents, could blame their parents somehow for where they ended up. But he’d had to “divorce” his parents, become an emancipated minor and go on welfare, so he could have insurance to finish his treatment and go to the day hospitalization program. Sarah didn’t see that as an option; her parents were coming around in family therapy. She could see light at the end of her tunnel.

Maybe it wasn’t too different at all. Nathan still had to eat and gain weight and deal with his feelings and learn to be a different, better, non-eating disordered person. He still had to learn to cope and deal, and not starve and puke.

He didn’t realize it, but he was her inspiration. She wanted to be like him. She wanted to get things in gear and work hard, like he did. She would eat those 3000 calories and not freak out. She would gain those five pounds so she could move up to the next level, and hopefully find herself discharged in a month or so, maybe even get admitted into the day program so she could see him again and tell him what he meant to her.

As she looked out over the city that lived on without her, without knowing or caring about her, the city she didn’t know if she could ever feel normal in again, she thought, I miss you, Nathan. I hope you’re all right. I’ll pray for you.

She sighed. She had a feeling he might need it.