I did not relapse into my original condition, but stood my ground very close to the point of deciding and recovered my breath.

Saint Augustine

Chapter Fifty-Two

Ellyn

I go back to the kitchen and look at the plate of cookies I’d made for Miles to take home. How could I be so stupid? To think he’d still want to be friends? Or want anything to do with me, for that matter. I felt his discomfort the moment he arrived. I felt it the day I offered to make him breakfast, and invited him to stay for lunch at the café. And again, at the restaurant when we ran into him. He’d said he wanted to remain friends, but I knew.

Something had changed.

So what did I do? I set myself up for disappointment.

Rejection.

I told you he was only after one thing. When a man says he wants more, what do you think he’s referring to. Don’t be naïve. Have a cookie, you’ll feel better.

I look at the plate of cookies, but they don’t even tempt me. My stomach is tied in knots. I slump against the kitchen counter and let the tears fall. They come as much from humiliation as disappointment. I stand up straight again and reach for a paper towel to wipe my eyes and nose. When I do, I see the cookies again.

Go ahead, have one. I made them for you. They’ll make you feel better.

I look at the plate and a memory, long buried, digs its way to my consciousness.

I’d just come home from school—my freshman year of high school. My dream had come true: Eric Neilson had asked me to the Homecoming Dance. Eric Neilson, a junior, had asked me, a freshman, to the dance! I burst through the front door.

“Mom, I’m home!”

“In the library, Ellyn.”

I ran into the room off the large foyer, where my mother took her afternoon tea. She isn’t English, but she adopted the custom after vacationing in London with my father. “Guess what?”

“What? Goodness, Ellyn, your face is beet-red. Slow down.”

“Eric Neilson asked me to Homecoming! I have to get a dress. Can we go shopping? Can we go today?”

I remember her taking a sip of her tea and then setting the cup on its saucer. “Ellyn, sit down. I have something to tell you.”

“But can we go shopping?” I went to the sofa and sat down.

“No, we’re not going shopping.”

“But—”

She held up her hand. “We’re not going shopping because you’re not going to the dance. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but . . . Eric Neilson is making a joke of you. His invitation wasn’t serious. Some of his schoolmates dared him to ask you. The vice principal called me today and informed me of this unfortunate scheme.”

I just stared at her. It wasn’t true, couldn’t be true. Eric was so kind—we’d become friends. I shook my head. “I don’t believe it.”

“It is true. I’m sure you’re humiliated, but you’re better off this way. Boys . . . men . . . rarely have a woman’s best interest at heart. It is better that you learn this lesson early.”

I continued to shake my head, wanting to deny what she’d said.

“Really, dear, are you that surprised? Look at you—that hair of yours alone would scare off most boys. You must have suspected something.”

That’s when it happened.

She reached for the plate of cookies next to her teacup, then held it out toward me. “Go ahead, have one. I made them for you. They’ll make you feel better.”

When I returned to school the next day, I found Eric. I wanted to ask him if it was true, but when he saw me, he turned and walked the other way. It was clear he was ignoring me.

He never spoke to me again.

I look now at the plate of cookies on the counter, the cookies I baked for Miles, and the same sick feeling that cloaked me that day so long ago, the day I ate not just one or two of the cookies my mother made for me, but—at her encouraging—the whole plate of cookies, settles over me.

I ate that day until I was sick.

Why would she encourage me to eat like that?

That was the first time I remember her doing it, but not the last. No. There were many such occasions when she encouraged me to stuff myself. Did she want me to get fat?

No. That’s ridiculous. Isn’t it?

She was always the one pointing out my weight—admonishing me.

Condemning me.

I pick up the plate of cookies and carry them back to the office to jot a note on a sticky pad. I put the note on the covered plate, and then take it to the kitchen and leave it on the counter for Paco to take home to his little ones.

Then I go back to the office and reach for the phone number Twila gave me when I called her.

It’s time to schedule an appointment.