Getting Fat

Marion’s husband wants her to lose weight. And he’s vocal about it. He comes down the stairs and sees her leaning on the counter with me eating ice-cream and raises an eyebrow, he says, “Do you really need that, Marion?”

“Sure do,” she says, and as he walks away, she makes a single-fingered gesture at his back. “Asshole,” she mutters.

She’s been my friend for years and years, and I suppose, in a way, so has he. I ask her, “What’s gotten in to him these days?”

She pats her belly, “this has.” And sure, she has gained weight. She’s not the little stick she was when we were twenty. Well, we all change. She says, “He tries to pretend it’s all about my health, but we both know it’s not.”

“Maybe he does want the best for you.”

“Maybe.”

But it’s more like he wants the best for him. The best wife; the slender, perfectly put-together trophy he can walk down town with, take out to dinner; let all his friends see what he’s able to pull.

Sometimes, when she’s really had enough of him, she sits down on the couch with a big bag of chips. He asks her why she’s doing it, and she shrugs and says, “Why not?” Then she looks at him with one widened eye and a bladed smile, “What’s it worth to you if I stop?”

“What?”

“What’s it worth to you if I stop eating this fattening bag of chips? If I don’t get up and go for the ice-cream? A pair of shoes, perhaps? Or are you going to do the dishes for a week?”

He doesn’t look directly at her. “I don’t think so.”

She crunches on a chip: “Oh, well then.”

“You shouldn’t be eating those things.”

“Mopping the floor maybe…” crunch goes another chip.

“You’d lose some bloody weight if you loved me.”

Crunch. “Hm. A nice piece of jewelry might be worth it…”

He just walks out.

“And. Good. Riddance.”

#

After visits like that one, I rush home to Andrew and throw myself into his arms on the couch, and remind him how much I love him. I bury myself in his scratchy jersey and slide my fingers into his waistband.

Sometime later we eat a salad, and follow it up with chocolate.

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work