The Gargoyle. Andrew Davidson

      Marianne Engel arrived the next day in a simple white dress with open-toed sandals, and she might have passed for a woman from a seaside village on the Mediterranean. She appeared with two food hampers, one blue and one white, and I could tell they were heavy from the way she lugged them into the room. Bent over as she was, the arrowhead on her necklace bobbed in and out of the V-neck of her dress like a lure on a fishing line. “I’m finally going to live up to my promise to feed you.”

      I’ll take a moment to explain why Dr. Edwards would allow a visitor to bring food into the burn ward. In addition to the psychological benefits of a picnic (as it were), there was also a physical one. With my healing came a condition known as hypermetabolism: a body that normally requires two thousand calories a day can consume seven thousand after a severe burn. Despite the nasogastric tube that constantly delivered nourishment directly into my stomach, I was still not getting enough and I was allowed, even encouraged, to eat extra food.

      Marianne Engel had previously brought me snacks, but it was obvious that this meal was far more substantial. She opened the hampers—one for hot items and the other, packed with ice, for cool—and started to lay out the food. There was a freshly baked round of focaccia, still smelling of wood smoke, and bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. She danced a swirl of black across the surface of the yellow, and then dipped a chunk of the focaccia into the leoparded liquid. She said the familiar prayer before she lifted the bread to my mouth: “Jube, Domine benedicere.”

      She’d also brought cheeses: Camembert, Gouda, blue, Iranian goat. She asked my favorite and when I picked the goat, she smiled broadly. Next, some steaming wraps that looked like crepes but had a most bawdy smell. Gorgonzola pancakes were not for everyone, she explained, but she hoped I liked them. I did. There were cantaloupe balls wrapped in thin slices of prosciutto, the fruity orange peeking through the meaty pink.

      She continued to excavate the hampers. Bastardly plump green olives, fat with red pimiento stuffing, lounged contentedly in a yellow bowl. A plateful of tomatoes soaked in black vinegar with snowy nuggets of bocconcini. Sheaves of pita and cups brimming with hummus and tzatziki. Oysters, crabs, and scallops drowning a wonderful death in a marinara ocean; little wedges of lemon balanced on the plate’s edge like life preservers waiting to be thrown in. Pork sausages with peppercorn rims. Dolmathes, trying hard to be swarthy and macho in their little green suits, scented with sweet red wine. Thick rings of calamari. Souvlaki shared skewers with sweet buttered onions and braised peppers. There was a shoulder of lamb so well cooked it fell apart if you only looked at it while thinking about a fork, surrounded by a happy little family of roast potatoes.

      I sat trapped under the culinary avalanche, unable to move for fear of tipping a plate over. “There’s no way we can eat all this.”

      “Finishing isn’t the point.” She pulled a bottle out of the chilled hamper. “Besides, I’m sure the nurses will be happy to help with the leftovers. You won’t tell them I was drinking alcohol, will you? I like retsina because you can taste the earth in it.”

      The nurses soon hovered around the door like a flock of hungry seagulls. I felt a strange manly pride, the one we get when being seen on a date with a beautiful woman. The nurses giggled and made a few comments before dispersing to their rounds. Marianne Engel lifted morsel after morsel to my lips. “Try this. … You’re going to love it. … Have more.”

      We made a determined effort, but it was predestined that we’d never be able to finish the meal. When we gave up, she brought out a slim metal thermos and poured Greek coffee into two demitasses. It was so chuggingly thick that it took a good thirty seconds to pour out. Then she brought out the dessert: baklava so honey-dense that it oozed like a charitable beehive. Tricolor gelato, green white red. And of course bougatsa, her dog’s namesake—light brown pastry with custard between layers of phyllo.