Shout Her Lovely Name Read Free Page A

then your chest, that your stomach is nearly the last thing to go under. Weeks of role-model eating have changed your body. Try to love your new abundance.
    When your husband and daughter return, you are still in the tub. She slams her bedroom door. Your husband comes in and slumps on the toilet, his head in his hands.
    Quietly listen.
    “She pretended not to know where the shoe store was. We walked for forty-five minutes. Really, it was more of a forced march.”
    Say nothing, though you feel more than a dash of bitters; you feel angry and tired of being angry. Stare at your wrinkled toes. You are each alone: your daughter in her room, your husband on the toilet, you in the tub. You’re each in your private little suffering-bubble.
    “Exercise is verboten,” you say. The doctor has given you both this directive.
    “I know.” When his voice breaks and his hands shudder, get out of the lukewarm tub. Climb into his lap, and put your arms around him. Cling together.
     
    November
     
    Hooray! Your daughter has added whole-wheat pasta to her approved-food list. At the doctor’s office, her blood pressure is amazing! She’s gained five pounds! You people are all smiling. This time in the elevator, your daughter stands right beside you. For days you are happy.
    Until you find her in the kitchen blotting oil out of the fish fajitas. When you confront her, tell her that is anorexic behavior, she throws the spatula across the room.
     
Persons with anorexia nervosa develop strange eating habits such as cutting their food into tiny pieces, refusing to eat in front of others, or fixing elaborate meals for others that they themselves don’t eat. Food and weight become obsessions as people with this disorder constantly think about their next encounter with food.
     
    Your daughter claims oil gives her indigestion, the food in the drain is because of acid reflux, you are the one obsessed, you are the one who is sick, she is fine.
    You say, “Bullshit.”
    “Shh,” your husband says. “Can we please have peace?” Like a middle-school principal, he calls you into his home office to tell you that she doesn’t need to be told every single moment that something isn’t right. “Stop reminding her,” he says. “Leave her alone. It’s hard enough for her without having to faceherproblemeverysingleminute.”
    He can’t even say the word anorexic.
    Properly censured, return to the kitchen. Your daughter eyes you with smug satisfaction and eats barely one half of a whole-wheat tortilla—no cheese, no avocado—with her fish. A vise of resentment tightens around you. Anorexia has rearranged your family.
     
di·vorce [di-vawrs, -vohrs]— noun, verb -vorced, -vorc·ing
noun
1. a judicial declaration dissolving a marriage in whole or in part, especially one that releases the husband and wife from all matrimonial obligations.
2. any formal separation of man and wife according to established custom.
3. total separation; disunion: a divorce between thought and action.
verb (used with object)
4. to separate by divorce: The judge divorced the couple.
5. to break the marriage contract between oneself and (one’s spouse) by divorce: She divorced her husband.
6. to separate, cut off: Life and art cannot be divorced.
     
    Fantasize about how you will decorate your living room when you live alone, when you disjoin, dissociate, divide, disconnect. Imagine your new white bookcases lined with self-help books:
     
     
Wishing Well
The Best Year of Your Life
The Power of Now
When Am I Going to Be Happy?
Flourish
A Course in Miracles
Get Out of Your Own Way
The Upward Spiral
Forgive to Win!
Super Immunity
The Essential Laws of Fearless Living
Feel Welcome Now
100 Simple Secrets Why Dogs Make Us Happy
     
    You’re filled with a thrilling flutter of shame. When did this become about you?
     
    Snoop. Look through your daughter’s laundry basket for vomity towels. Stand outside the bathroom door and listen. Look in the trash for uneaten food.