By Shayla Frandsen
“Please eat,” my husband will beg me. “Can I make you a sandwich?” I wish it were as simple
as a sandwich. Nobody wishes more than me. I look at him and say, “I can’t.” I say, “Not
right now.” I say, “Please, don’t look at my body. You will not like what you see.” I
know this thing that I do—that I can’t stop doing—is draining me dry from the inside; I
know it is the reason for the headaches, the dizziness, the exhaustion, the brain fog.
Nobody knows better than me. It is a pestilence, that I cannot stop starving myself.
Sometimes it seems like all I know. A habit, an identity, a fixation. I hold the truth
away from my children, arm’s length, and I know that I will keep holding it from
them. But this is a song in a minor key, and children are perceptive. They watch,
hungry like wild animals, and one day—I do not know when, but my oldest, she
nearly has ears to hear the song—they will see, and they will know. They
will know why Mama lifts her shirt and watches her stomach in the mirror
and why Mama opens the refrigerator and stares inside only to shut it again,
and they will know why Mama lies on the bed with her eyes closed and
asks for a minute, just one more minute, of quiet. I know all of this
but I cannot stop. I will keep my secret from them as long as
I can and I will listen to their loud gulps of water and milk and
I will fill their plates high with food and I will exult at the sight and
I will not say a word except “Who’s ready for more?” And I will
tickle their bellies tight full of food, and I will give them rasp-
berries and strawberries and blackberries piled like marauder’s
jewels and warm brothy soup and toast topped with coins
of melted butter, and I will give them scrambled eggs and
syrup-drenched pancakes and cupcakes and McDonald’s
if they want it, and I will give them golden pizza and
when they ask for more soft cheese or breadsticks
or English muffins or dripping chicken torn right
from the body. I will be the mother wolf prowling
for flesh in the snow and I will fill their plates
whenever they want. I will carry a fat slice of
meat in my mouth and drop it in the doorway
like a lioness returned from her hunt,
and I would give them my heart right out
of my chest if they asked for it, and I will
give them all that I keep from myself
so they can be cozy and safe in the
cavern den of my hollow chest
and they will howl with joy
and I will shrink and slow and
lament until the end the
stomach and hips and
thighs that stretched
the wide span of
the world to
bring my
babies
here to
me.
A Best of the Net nominee, Shayla Frandsen earned her MFA in fiction at Brigham Young University. She previously earned an MA in English at The City College of New York. She is currently an adjunct professor of English at Utah Valley University. Her writing can be found or is forthcoming in New England Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Under the Sun, Blood Orange Review, Literary Mama, Irreantum, and others. She was awarded first place in both the 2023 Plentitudes Prize in Fiction and the Blue Earth Review Dog Daze Flash Fiction contest. She also received an honorable mention in The Exposition Review’s April 2023 Flash Fiction 405 contest and was shortlisted for The Master’s Review Novel Excerpt Contest.