the yolks slid out between his fingers.
I can do them shaped like snowmen, he said, or rabbits, or flowers.
He was mixing stuff up in a bowl; flour slopped over the edges and sprinkled on the counter and the floor. I’ll have to clean that up, I thought.
Round ones, please, I said.
There was butter bubbling and crackling in the frying pan. Was that pan mine? No, he must have brought it with him—it was a big heavy skillet, the kind you could kill someone with.
He poured in the batter—it was thick and pale yellow—and the hissing butter shut up for a while. I looked in the pan. There were two large lumpy mounds there, side by side, bubbling inside as if they were alive, turning brown on the edges.
He turned them over and I saw the crispy undersides with patterns on them like the moon; and then he pressed them down with the spatula, pressed them flat and the butter sputtered and hissed.
There was a burning smell.
I’m not feeling very hungry right now, I said.
But I brought maple syrup, he said. It’s from Vermont, I think.
The pan was starting to smoke. Pushing him aside, I took it off the flame and put it in the sink. It was heavy; the two round shapes were now charred and crusted to the bottom.
Well, we don’t have to eat them, he said. He held out the bottle of syrup. Aunt Jemima smiled at me. She looked different. They must have updated her image; new hairstyle, outfit. But that same smile.
There’s lots of stuff we can do with syrup, he said. It’s a very romantic condiment.
He stepped closer and reached out and turned the knob on the halogen lamp. His face looked even more distorted in the dimness.
What? I said. Where did you get such a stupid idea?
Read it somewhere.
I’m sorry, I’m just not feeling very social tonight, I said. Peter, I said.
Oh, come on.
I missed my parents very much suddenly. You’re so insensitive, I said. Get out.
Hey, I am sensitive. I’m Mr. Sensitive. I give change to bums. Pachelbel’s Canon makes me cry like a baby.
Like a what? I said.
Why are you screaming at me? he said.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, I said. I thought I was being smart and cutting. But he took it literally; he went out and closed the door behind him with great care.
My sister called later that night.
So how were they? she asked.
Fine, I said. Same as always.
Your voice sounds funny; what happened? she said.
Nothing.
Something’s wrong. Why don’t you ever tell me when something’s wrong?
There’s nothing, Mitch.
You never tell me what’s going on. When you think I’ll worry about something you keep it to yourself.
I tell you everything.
Well, then, tell me what was wrong with you earlier in the fall.
Nothing … I don’t know … there’s nothing to tell.
That was the truth. All that happened was I got tired of people for a while. I didn’t like to go out, didn’t shower, and didn’t pick up the phone except to call my office with elaborate excuses. The smell of my body became comforting, a ripe presence, nasty but familiar. I lay in bed telling myself that it was just a phase, it would pass. Eventually the bulb on my halogen lamp burned out and after two days of darkness I ventured out to buy a new one. The sunlight on the street did something to my brain, or maybe it was the kind bald man who sold me the bulb. I went back to work.
So how are you? How’s Neil?
Oh, we broke up, she said. We had a big fight. He couldn’t see that I was right and he was wrong. It was high drama, in a restaurant with people watching, us screaming and stuff, and this fat waitress pushing between us using her tray as a shield and telling us to leave. So we finished it outside on the street, I made my points, one-two-three, and did my closing arguments. If we were in court, I would have won.
I’m sorry, I said. Why didn’t you tell me right away?
Oh, I didn’t want you feeling bad for me. I’m glad, really. Small-minded jerk. Did I ever tell you he had all this hair on his back? Gray hair, like a silver-back gorilla.
Yes, well. I don’t know that I’ll be seeing Piotr anymore either.
That’s too bad.
No, it’s not.
That night as I lay in bed I thought of my mother and felt my body for lumps the way she said she felt hers, and I put two fingers to the side of my throat. And I began to think of her and think of an undetected cancer, spreading through her body unnoticed. It began to dawn on me that I had done a very stupid thing.
I thought of her lying in bed beside my father at that moment, oblivious to the black thing that might be growing and thickening inside her, maybe in tough strands, maybe in little grainy bits, like oatmeal. She would avoid thinking about it for another six months or a year or two years; she’d deny it until her skin turned gray and she had tentacles growing out of her mouth and her breasts slid from her body and plopped on the floor like lumps of wet clay. Only when all that happened would she give in and say, Hmmm, maybe something is wrong, maybe I should see a doctor after all.
I lay awake for most of the night.
At one point I got up to use the bathroom, and as I sat on the toilet in the dark I suddenly became convinced that there was something horrible floating in the water below me. I was sure of it. A live rat. Or a length of my own intestines lying coiled and bloody in the bowl. I sat there afraid to turn on the light and look, yet I couldn’t leave the bathroom without looking.
I sat there for half an hour, wracked with indecision. I think I fell asleep for a bit.
And when I finally forced myself to turn on the light, turn around, and look—I was so convinced there would be something floating there that I was horribly shocked, my stomach lurched, to see only the empty toilet.
I went back to work on Tuesday.
Did I miss anything? I asked one of the men.
You were gone? he said.
I didn’t know his name; all the men who worked there looked alike. They were all too loud and had too much spit in their mouths.
I had a cubicle all my own, but I dreamed of an office with a door I could close.
A few days later, my father called. Your mother heard the results from the clinic, he said. The mammogram was fine.
That’s great, I said.
She doesn’t seem happy about it, he said. She’s acting very strange.
Oh, I said.
What’s going on, Lisa? he said. There’s something fishy going on here.
Nothing, I said. Ask your wife, I said. Can I talk to her?
She just dashed out for an appointment, told me to call you. She said you’d be relieved.
Yes.
I’m going to call your sister now, she was waiting to hear. Or do you want to call her?
I’ll do it, I said.
It seemed strange to me then that I would need to call Mitch. It felt like she was right here with me, living in my skin. Why should I have to pick up a phone?
We both went home for Christmas.
Later