The Taste of Mourning
AT A CERTAIN POINT IN BETWEEN NIGHTS DOUSED IN WHISKEY AND SELF-PITY, the therapy of the few friends still willing to listen as he spun through the shattered life he had been dumped into was drying up.
Either he could see the dull 'oh fuck—not this again' look on their faces or he was simply growing weary of revisiting the horror show. Regardless, he found himself lying about her when other friends or family called. The fictions somehow made him feel better and, given the marriage had been fictionalized in its own very special way, felt like symmetry.
"Laura? Oh, she left. No, nothing like that. She kept it a secret but she was picked in a lottery to be cryogenically frozen until the climate disaster had been ironed out. Seriously. She's in cryo-freeze underneath Area 51 as we speak!"
"Laura doesn't live here anymore. No. No divorce. Turned out she was an operative from Korea. Yeah. A double agent embedded into American society. Exactly. The marriage was part of her cover. A beard? Yeah, I guess that's exactly what I was."
"Car accident. Her head rolled right out onto I-15. A seven-year-old girl found it and thought it was a fake head."
"Peace Corps. She's somewhere in Indonesia, I think."
"Hippos ate her."
As strange as all of these bullshit excuses were, they were not as weird, as outlandish, as the truth.
✶
TWO MONTHS EARLIER, HE NOTICED THAT LAURA HAD STOPPED EATING.
She wasn’t wasting away. She simply stopped eating. He'd make some lunch. She wasn't hungry. Dinner? Same. He'd suggest that they go out on a date night and she'd order a drink but no food. She didn't even ask him for his pickle if they went to a deli and he got a sandwich.
"Honey? Is everything alright?"
"Sure. Why do you ask?"
"You aren't eating as far as I can tell."
"Oh, c'mon! I'm not hungry. Why would I eat if I'm not hungry?"
"Yeah, I suppose. It's just that we used to eat together. Like a couple. Now I'm just eating by myself and you don't eat at all. Feels sort of isolating, I guess."
"We just don't like the same foods. And I only want to eat when I'm hungry. Just because you're hungry doesn't mean I am. Do you want me to sit with you and watch you eat?"
He conceded the point. He ate when he wanted and, after a while, ceased even asking her if she wanted something to eat or go out to dinner.
✶
HE WAS STARTLED AWAKE. She was up and quietly getting dressed. He didn't move. He glanced at the clock on the end table. 2:38a.m. He pretended to continue sleeping. She finished dressing and snuck out of the bedroom then apartment. He bolted out of bed and threw on some shorts, a shirt, and shoes. He followed her.
At first he couldn't find her. He knew she couldn't be far. He heard something like an animal and turned the corner. There she was, on all fours, loping through the parking lot like a dog or chimpanzee.
He followed from a distance until she stopped, sniffing in the air. Then she climbed up into a dumpster and dove in. He heard sounds like a wild animal attacking something. He approached slowly and peeked over the edge. There was Laura, ripping open a package of danishes that had been thrown away and devouring them as if each raspberry confection was prey. If stale baked goods were gazelle, she was the lioness tearing the flaky flesh from bone. Next she spied a pizza box with two rock hard slices. She cleaned those up in record time, ingesting some of the cardboard in the process.
He stepped backwards a few steps, trying to process what he was seeing. He couldn't wrap his mind around this odd spectacle. He couldn't begin to think of how he would address it with her if he could at all. Who was this woman he was married to and where had the other one gone?
✶
THE NEXT DAY, AFTER HE HAD SLEPT IN HIS CAR, HE SLOWLY CAME BACK INTO THE APARTMENT. Laura was cleaned up and acted as if she'd slept the night without incident.
"Where've you been, sweetie? Did you get up early and go to the gym?"
"No. Uh... just out for a morning walk. Couldn't sleep. You want me to make you some eggs or something? I could go to the store and grab some danish if you want..."
"I'm not hungry. I swear, it's like I'm married to a Jewish mother."
✶
THIS WENT ON FOR MONTHS. At first, she'd go out once a week and sate herself on discarded Ramen noodles and half drunk Vitamin Waters. Soon, it became twice a week, then three times a week. She started to smell like garbage even after a shower. Her clothes were stained. Her fingernails turned yellowish brown like a chain smoker's teeth.
One night, he waited up for her. She came in at around 4 a.m. covered in what smelled like opened packets of Taco Bell hot sauce. She was surprised to see him up. She froze in the doorway.
"Laura—what the fuck is going on? You've been eating out of the garbage for months. What is wrong with you?"
"I've been foraging for the past two years, sweetie."
"Foraging? That's a pretty fancy word for eating trash."
"I knew you'd judge me. It's all about your fragile ego."
"Are you nuts? Of course I'm judging you and it has zero to do with my ego! You're literally dumpster diving! I think you might need some professional help because this is not fucking normal. Wait. TWO YEARS?"
"Oh. Yes. 'Normal.' Because everyone needs to be 'normal.' To conform. To follow the rules. Maybe I'm just not cut out for 'normal.' Maybe 'normal' is the road to your soul dying. Maybe I'm like a house cat that has outgrown her cage and dreams of a time when felines roamed freely to stalk and kill and live. I want to live and I can't do that with you staring over my shoulder."
She turned, dropped to all fours, and bounded away.
He searched for her for a few months before he resigned himself to the fact that Laura was gone for good.
He mourned the loss of his marriage but every time he had leftover lasagna or some salad he was going to throw away, he'd make sure he put it right on top of the trash, in case she was hungry.
