The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(44)
Before I left for college, my mother insisted on contacting dining services to research what I could and couldn’t eat. She called companies and inquired about ingredients, compiling lengthy lists of foods that were and were not safe. But when I got to Yale, the lists got lost in all the novelty. I’d forget to consult them and stuck with the basics. Rice, chicken, vegetables, meat. There were new things to worry about: how to play beer pong without beer, how not to French-kiss a boy after his late-night pizza. When I finished my freshman year five pounds lighter, my mom looked worried and asked about the lists. I confessed that they were too hard to follow, and the summer before my sophomore fall, she sought to fully transform Yale’s food-allergy plan. With her credentials from Boston Children’s Hospital, she arranged meetings with our head chefs and supervisors, getting gluten-free cereals and bagels in dining halls, adding “gluten” labels on every dish’s information cards. It was unbelievable. It was impressive. Watching her make calls, I could see her eyes smile with the smallest hint of pride.
*
My junior year, I moved off campus. And with this departure came a farewell to the campus meal plan. I dismissed the hours and efforts as I had the cones and pies. I wanted to live in a house. I wanted a bigger bed. I was annoyed at the guilt I felt at leaving. After all, I hadn’t asked her to put in all that work. Miraculously, still, her efforts annoyed me. She’d arrive at Yale with six bags of groceries, lugging three kinds of gluten-free pretzels upstairs.
On vacations, I’d gain weight. From the moment my car crunched my driveway’s thick ice to the moment I’d pile back into my aging sedan, I’d be presented with feasts every meal of the day. I hated it. Too guilty to refuse, I’d be forced to eat my weight in gluten-free goods. Plans to run every day and cut college’s convenience-store pounds were thwarted each winter and spring by her earnest offerings. On a warm Saturday this April, I awoke to a massive pile of blueberry pancakes. I was still full from the previous night’s chicken curry, and the sight of the plate finally forced me to crack. My mother stood silently as I cruelly complained she was making me fat. “Stop feeding me, Mom,” I said with a cold exasperation. “How the hell am I supposed to stay thin when you feed me all this damn food?” Compulsively accommodating, she apologized for her hours of labor, her chocolate-chip banana muffins, her walnut fudge brownies. She moved my plate to the sink and retreated to her office, leaving me near tears in a kitchen that still smelled of baked maple, shamefully eating a yogurt and going upstairs.
*
A year later, I’m loose with my diet. I take risks, I forget to double-check. At restaurants, I don’t bother talking to the chef; in my kitchen, I’m too lazy to drain my pasta in its own colander. I kiss my boyfriend after he’s had a beer; I neglect to check when caramel color is involved. My physical symptoms have largely subsided, and any trace amount of gluten in my blood affects me mostly in the vague statistical increase of my chances for cancer. I don’t think about my red blood cell count when I eat cheese off plates that might have touched crackers. I’m young. I’m fine. It’s just food, I say, again and again. It doesn’t matter, it’s really just food.
*
On a cold morning this past February, my family went out for brunch the day after my play. We went to a place on Chapel Street, trudging through plow piles and slush into its elegant doors. I was happy to be with my mother, to talk and to hug. I’d had a difficult month with rooming dramas and summer plans, and it was nice to relax in the comfort of family. When it was time to order, I requested a vegetable omelet and roasted potatoes to replace the home fries. “I’m allergic to gluten,” I added after my order. “It should be fine but you can let the chef know.” I could feel my mom eyeing me over the winter flowers. She managed to restrain herself until our orange juice came in thin brittle glasses.
“Marina, honey,” she began, “did you want to ask the chef to cook your eggs on a clean griddle?”
“Not really.” I played with my fork.
“Well, what about the oil they use for roasting?” I knew she didn’t want to pester me, didn’t want to mother her daughter who was now twenty-one.
“Mom, it’s fine. There’s a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance it’s fine.”
But that was never enough.
*
On a rainy March middle of the night, I was lost in my laptop when I stumbled across an article online. I was trying to search what types of vodka are gluten-free, but what I found instead was a study on pregnancy and the gluten-free diet. New findings, it said, found that gluten can harm the development of a Celiac’s unborn child. Even the tiniest presence, it said, can affect the baby’s ability to absorb enough nutrients. I read the article twice and turned down my iTunes. I was struck in that moment with the absolute conviction that someday, when I was pregnant, I would be insanely careful. I’d eat only at home, boiling brown rice and vegetables—call every company on every ingredient, checking, double-checking, and checking again. Then I started crying.
*
My mother and I were watching old family videos one summer on our living-room TV when we came across the footage of my first birthday party. I’m sitting in a high chair with a pointy paper hat, and my family and friends are gathered around, laughing and waving. Soon the lights dim and my mother walks in—a younger, longer-haired mother with full cheeks and bright eyes. Illuminating her face and the tiny dining room is a glorious birthday cake with flaming Mickey Mouse candles. “Happy birthday to you,” they sing. “Happy birthday to you.” But my real-life mother, my older, thinner mother, had her hand clutched over her mouth, glassy-eyed and fixed on the screen.