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People eat their dinner, just eat their dinner, and all the while their happiness is taking form, or their lives are falling apart. —Anton Chekhov
“I thought you were asleep,” she said, not looking at him, not able to communicate how his presence shattered the image of her industriousness, her private productivity.
She did not know how to drink this coffee: how to fight and accept care, how to hate and how to love.
you are a star. Don’t forget about us as you go around shining.”
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is, she would say. Nobody is perfect, Piglet.
She wondered—if they were to continue as if nothing had ever happened—if it was his betrayal, or herself, that meant so little, that it could be so easily brushed aside.
They slipped back into their skins, shrugging on the familiar feeling of self-satisfaction. I have never questioned whether we should be together, she said, and they nodded as one, finding comfort in their lie.
She was going to waste, she feared, she knew, the life she had made spoiling around her, turning to rot.
she felt the urge to submit—let it happen, let herself be guided forward; behave nicely, as expected, like the flower girls: sugar, spice, subordination.
shouldn’t she be full now? Shouldn’t she be satisfied? Despite everything, she was hollow.
Piglet understood how it was, how it would always be: they, the family; her, the imposter—still, always.
Bourguignon would not let you down like a lover. Confit garlic would not abandon you like a friend.
“Please,” he said. She wondered as to the end of his request. Forgive me? Stop eating? Return to the remit of my control, to the image that people believe our lives to be?
She had eaten her heart out. It had not changed a thing.
listening to her new husband’s speech about how they were meant to be, how he had known from the start, she had found herself, despite her gorging, hollow. The attention from their guests, their wedding-day admiration, had not filled her up. Her father’s pride, wrested from him, had been bitter; her in-laws’ approval soured.
What did she want, she wondered afresh, and did it matter, as long as she could choose?
