A Tuesday, again. Still no word from Valerie, and to make matters worse, I can hear Direct Care rummaging in the kitchen:
Girls! Breakfast is served!
On Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays we have cereal at 17 Swann Street. Those are easy breakfasts. I have Frosties or Cheerios, the first when I win against my anorexia, the second when it wins against me. Fridays are palatable: yogurt and granola. I always have the vanilla. Wednesdays and Saturdays are more challenging; oatmeal and nuts are quite filling. I can get get through them though, plain with almonds, with help from some cinnamon and salt. But Tuesdays, Tuesdays, I dread 8:00 A.M. Not even the coffee helps. On Tuesdays at 17 Swann Street we have bagels and cream cheese for breakfast.
I had declared I disliked bagels and cream cheese on my very first day. I had then stood firmly by that claim in the weeks that had followed. To nutritionist, therapist, Matthias, and Direct Care, I had said I could eat toast instead. With a slather of cottage cheese, if I had to, but not that dense, unhealthy food. I did not like the texture, I did not like the taste. I had said it so vehemently, so loudly, that I almost believed myself.
Almost. In reality, deep in my brain where I knew no one could hear me, I thought it was heavenly. The combination, in one bite, of a creamy, cheesy layer lathered with a butter knife on a warm, toasted bagel, inside still soft, in neat, parallel strokes. A sprinkle of salt, then a sip of bitter coffee with the taste still on my tongue.
It was so decadent it scared me. It could not be right. That first Tuesday, that innocent bagel had nearly made me cry. But it had only been half a bagel, and it had only been my second day. My brain had not caught up with the program, the pleaser in me wanted to please. So I had let the pleaser eat, and when I had finished I remember patting myself on the back and thinking: It is done.
But Tuesday came again, and now it is back, and my portions have doubled with my meal plan. Also, as I enter my third week here, my willingness to please is waning. In fact, it is next to gone, worn out by six meals a day. And this morning, mirror or not, the certainty, pulling up my jeans, struggling with the zipper, stomach sucked in, that I am gaining weight.
Breakfast is served. I sit down reluctantly and look miserably at my plate. I see fat and carbohydrates: a full bagel and nearly half a whole pack of cream cheese!
No one can eat this much cream cheese, I think. No one should eat this much cream cheese! How will I even fit it all on the bagel? How will I swallow this?
May I have some salt please?
No, Anna.
May I reheat my bagel then?
And have the cream cheese melt onto the plate so you don’t have to eat it? Nice try.
I just need something, anything that would make this easier to swallow. But Direct Care has six other sick girls’ plates she needs to monitor.
Not a minute over time, Anna.
I cannot eat this. I cannot eat this! My panicky brain screams. I have fought too hard, gone hungry for too long, run too far on sheer will to get here. I choose what to put, or not, in my body, it protests, knowing it is not true.
Knowing I have two options at this point: breakfast or the liquid supplement.
A few deep breaths. A nervous look at the clock. I try to calm my racing thoughts.
I must remain composed. Around me, almost insultingly, life is still going on. Julia and Sarah have both finished eating and are on their second cups of coffee. Emm is working diligently on her bagel and the word jumbles. The other girls are quiet; one of them is crying, but all of them are chewing. I must start chewing. I am frozen in place. How do I start chewing?
May I cut my bagel in half, at least?
Sure, Anna.
So I do, and slather some cream on one end and dare myself to take the first bite. Slow, mindful breaths. This is so painful that I almost laugh at the situation. Here I am, about to have a breakdown over a bagel and cream cheese.
I want to recite Maman’s poem in my head, but the fear is overwhelming to the point that I cannot remember the first line, or her face. Or ever being this scared. It takes my full concentration just to take a second bite, to swallow it, to take a third. I make it through the first half of the bagel not daring to stop, think, or look up.
Two more bites of the second half remain. About a third of the cream cheese. My heart is about to stop. The screaming in my brain is almost turning me deaf. No more, I think. I cannot. I did my part. Not another bite. The guilt feels like being dunked into freezing water; I cannot breathe, my stomach is clenched.
Two more minutes to the end of the meal.
Anna, you must finish your plate.
I could force down the last two bites of bagel, but the cream cheese … I cannot.
A furtive glance at Direct Care, who is looking the other way. I do not recognize myself doing it: I stuff the cheese inside my napkin.
I wait for the apocalypse. It does not come. No one seems to have noticed. The conversation continues. The clock above my head ticks the last two minutes on. Breakfast is over. We clear our plates. I throw the napkin deep in the bin. Evidence discarded, I ask to use the bathroom. Minutes later, I lock myself in.
I dare to smile at myself in the mirror: Breakfast is done. I survived.
Too soon. Someone knocks gently on the door. I go under freezing water again.
Anna, when you are done in there, I would like to talk to you please.
I take my time brushing my teeth and braiding my hair. I even look out at the magnolia tree. Then I wipe my hands, take one last look outside, noting the sky is bright blue. Perfect weather today for the walk, I think. That I will probably not be on.
I open the door. Direct Care is outside, avoiding eye contact with me.
Why don’t we talk in your room?
she asks, wanting to spare me a scene.
We go upstairs. Once in my room, she shows me my cream-cheese-filled napkin. I cannot remember being more mortified or ashamed. I admit it is mine.
We have a policy about stolen or discarded food,
she explains uncomfortably. She looks as distraught as I am. No, not as distraught, not exactly.
I know that policy. I know the house rules; my punishment is a full liquid meal. A nauseatingly thick shake containing the caloric equivalent of breakfast. And another black mark on my record. And of course no morning walk.
The calories. The calories.
I could die right here just thinking of the calories in that liquid supplement. I have never felt anything more overwhelming than this fear flooding my stomach, the room … and then the shame.
When did I become a liar and a cheat? What will Matthias think of me? What will he say when he learns that his wife hides cheese in napkins like a thief?
What would my mother say? My father? My siblings, who looked up to me once? What will Papa think when I do not call him as usual on the morning walk?
I can feel something unraveling inside, but Direct Care is still here. I will not cry, or argue with her. I will take responsibility for what I did.
She returns with a large glass of thick, beige cream. Thoughtful, she included a straw. I take the supplement without a word and drink it methodically, all of it.
When the glass is empty I hand it back. She is decent enough not to preach. She stands up and leaves the room, saying,
You can come down whenever you’re ready.
I want to die. Instead, I sit still. Time does too, in the bedroom. I stay there forever, but it is still Tuesday morning when I come down. The girls are waiting by the door for their walk, sunglasses, phones, and trainers on. They all know what happened but do not say anything. I am grateful. They leave.
There is no one in community space, but I need a place to hide. Those are intentionally rare at the house on 17 Swann Street. The bedrooms are off limits by day, the bathrooms permanently locked. There is the laundry room, the coldest room in the house. I go there, curl into a ball, and cry.
I cry more than I ever have. More than when Camil died, and Maman. More than over Philippe. How sad, the power of a piece of cream cheese.
Free fall from a tightrope, and it just keeps going, me lying on the floor behind the dryers. I look up and see the first diet I ever went on and Philippe’s beautiful wife. I see that night the wooden stage rose up to meet me and crashed against my knee. I see my brother’s empty bed. My mother locking the bathroom door. I see transatlantic flights and two dinner plates set, in a lonely apartment, getting cold.
I see the life I wanted with Matthias, the baby I wanted with him. Every plan and dream that went wrong. Every decision snatched out of my hands.
I see the alarm set for five thirty each morning, after long nights, too cold to sleep. I see fourteen-hour work shifts and thirty-minute runs that got longer and longer gradually. The numbers dropping on the scale. Food groups disappearing with them, along with my friends, ambition, and personality. I see what remained: my apples and popcorn, and my eighty-eight pounds.
I see myself on my first day here, physically as trapped as I felt. I see myself asking for permission to use the bathroom, to step outside on the porch. I see food set in front of me that I did not choose, did not like, did not want. And the yellow feeding tube that will go through my nostrils if I do not comply.
I see every one of those six meals a day and every group and individual session. Then I see the cream cheese and nutritional supplement. But I do not see the point.
My fall ends in a silent crash on that floor. It knocks breath and emotion out of me. The tiny blood vessels in my eyes pop. I am done crying, done trying. I am so tired. I cannot get up.
Not that I have anything to get up for, anywhere or anyone to be. So I stay behind the dryers, on the floor, till the girls return from their walk.
Emm finds me.
There you are. Direct Care is calling us for midmorning snack.
I do not reply or get up, so she pulls me up herself.
Listen to me, Anna: so you slipped. It happens. This is not who you are. That voice in your head that made you do it, that’s not you. It’s anorexia. It just sounds like you.
Her hand gripping my arm firmly, she leads me to the big wooden table, where the snacks are already set and most of the girls are sitting.
You just need to start recognizing the difference between your thoughts and your disease. You can do it. Try again,
she says.
Try again. I glare at Emm, who does not see me as she goes to her seat across from me. I do not need advice or encouragement from her or anyone else. I do not need a nutritionist, therapist, psychiatrist, Direct Care. And I especially do not need empathy in the form of condescending head tilts.
I have never been more furious in my life. Something in me quietly explodes.