Perfect Like Practice

When I was a girl, my mom was fat and my dad, who was also fat because he had a fondness for beer and red meat, never let her forget it. She was fat but pretty and she always smelled nice and loved my sisters and I hard. We thought our mom was perfect, like most children do. One day, my mom decided to stop eating. She’s a determined woman. She sat my sisters and I on the couch in the living room—a long affair with dark oak arms and cushions covered with pictures of barns. It was a very ugly couch. My sisters and I refused to bring our friends into the living room for fear they would see it hulking against the wall. That afternoon, my mom told us that she wasn’t going to eat for six months.

I was twelve and my sisters were eight and six. We didn’t really understand what she was telling us so we nodded and then she made us dinner—meatloaf and baked potatoes and green beans that were too salty. Our dad, who was rarely around while we were awake, preferring to spend that time at the bar around the corner with his other unemployed friends, came to dinner that night. “Did your mom tell you the big news?” he asked. He often asked questions for which he already had the answers. Dad grinned widely and patted Mom’s leg, then grabbed a roll of fat around her waist, jiggling it up and down. She smiled back at him. She comes from a long line of women who smile instead of speaking their minds.

For the next six months, Mom drank five milkshakes a day. My sisters and I were very jealous because we loved milkshakes and she wouldn’t share. We also realized that the milkshakes had magical properties. With each milkshake she drank the smaller she became. The smaller she became, the more our dad came around and soon he was spending the night and sticking around the next morning the way my friends’ fathers did. Our lives were almost normal.

When she was done with the milkshakes, Mom started eating again, but it wasn’t the same. She cooked elaborate meals for us and sat at the dinner table, but she hardly ate anything herself. She watched us, smiling sadly. She pushed leaves of lettuce covered in lemon juice or chunks of tofu around her plate. Dad would cut his steak and shove huge chunks of meat into his mouth then take a sip from the can of Old Milwaukee’s Best, his beer of choice. He would grunt happily and leer at my disappearing mother who would smile back at him like she was living the life she had always dreamed of. I would clench my dinner knife and try to choke down my own food.

My mom kept a little notebook with her at all times, carefully writing down anything that went past her lips, calculating what it would cost her. She also carried a book that listed calories for different foods. If a food wasn’t in her book, she pretended it didn’t exist. She also drank a lot of water, so she went to the bathroom all the time. No matter where we were, we always needed to be close to a bathroom. If she didn’t know where the nearest bathroom was, she would panic and my dad would say, “Michelle, relax. We’ll find the fucking bathroom.” Then he’d smack her on the ass, and she’d take hold of his arm and smile.

Every morning, Mom woke up at five, started Dad’s coffee and ran eight miles. When she came home, her t-shirt would be drenched in sweat, her face long and gray, the dark areas below her eyes hollow. Sometimes she was so tired, she would sit at the table and tell me how to make breakfast. “I’m sorry, sweet pea,” she’d say with a thin voice. “I’m just so tired this morning.” Eventually, I started waking up before Mom returned from her run so that breakfast would be ready when my sisters came down. She’d find us in the kitchen, chattering over oatmeal or cereal and toast. I’d look up at her and I’d smile and I’d gently tell her to sit down.

One Sunday morning, in church, my mom fainted, just passed out right there between my dad and I. One moment, she was singing, and the next moment, she was slumped over, her head lolling from side to side. Dad, who never likes to make a scene unless he’s drunk, put his arm around her, smiling at everyone around him, shaking mom every few seconds until she woke up. Then we all sat there, smiling and listening to the sermon, standing and kneeling and standing again like nothing happened, like everything was normal. It was good practice.