After the daughter leaves, the mother develops a problem with food. There is always too much, or not enough.
Before there was a daughter, back when the mother was young and living on her own, working a series of temp jobs and searching for herself in other people but never finding what she was looking for, back then her refrigerator was empty except for beer and batteries and a carton of eggs, and her pantry was filled with nothing but Pop-Tarts and cereal, and maybe a couple hardened chocolate bars. Back then, the mother went days consuming only stale coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches from Stu’s Diner.
She bought a basil plant on a whim because it was a sunny day and she was feeling optimistic and full of beginnings. She washed the basil leaves and made pesto linguine for her boyfriend’s birthday. When they broke up two weeks later, the basil plant was already wilting on her windowsill, and the daughter was already growing inside her.
The mother awoke craving a salad with dark leafy greens and cucumbers and tomatoes, the crunch of fresh carrots and broccoli, and nothing was the same after that.
She got a job as a receptionist at a property management company. Stu’s Diner became a grease-smudged memory. She bought The Joy of Cooking and learned how to dice an onion. She squeezed fruit for ripeness and searched labels for organic.
The daughter arrived with her own opinions. She preferred pears to applesauce, sweet potatoes to carrots. She adored Cheerios until, one day, she didn’t. On Saturdays, they walked to the farmer’s market and filled bags with bell peppers, zucchini, squash, blueberries, peaches, raspberry jam. The daughter grew. The tooth fairy came. The daughter picked the biggest watermelon and insisted on carrying it herself. They stopped at every other parking meter so she could rest. “Why don’t I take over for a little bit?” the mother said, but the daughter shook her head and lifted the watermelon to her chest. “No. I can do it.” So, they stopped and started all the way home.
•••••••
Twelve summers later, the daughter moves across the country. She lives in a college dormitory and carries a plastic tray around the dining hall for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She calls every weekend. The mother always asks, “Are you getting enough to eat?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Are you eating enough vegetables? Do they have a salad bar?”
“Yeah, but I gotta go—I’ll talk to you later.”
The mother eats salads every day, but still there is too much food. In her fridge, the lettuce grows mulchy, the bell peppers wither. The world moves faster than it used to. She used to whittle away entire Sunday afternoons at Stu’s Diner, filling in the crossword puzzle. Now even her grocery lists are written in sloppy fast cursive. She eats lunch in front of the glowing computer screen and dinner in front of the glowing television screen, chewing automatically, not tasting much. When her plate is empty, she feels astonished at how it all disappeared so quickly.
•••••••
The mother flies out for family weekend. When the daughter is showering, the mother opens her mini-fridge, hoping to find blueberries, yogurt, string cheese. Instead, she sees the fridge of her own youth.
The mother throws the daughter’s sour milk in the trash. She buys the daughter apples and hugs her goodbye, leaving the daughter to her own shopping and eating and not eating.
Home again, the mother sets her bags down in the hallway and opens her fridge. She slices the tops off the strawberries and washes the dirt off the grapes. She sits in the sunshine of her kitchen and chews and swallows, chews and swallows, savoring every bite.