“What do you recommend off the appetizer list?” asked the customer.
“Well, my personal favorite is the frog’s legs,” said the waiter. “But a lot of people don’t want to be steered in that direction.”
“What do they taste like?” asked the customer.
“Well, similar to, well, chicken.”
“I’ll take the mussels,” said the customer.
At the emergency room, they called the pain “stress cardiomyopathy.” Through the morphine haze, the syllables split nonsensically, so she requested clarification.
“You have no sign of coronary artery disease, but you just lost your husband,” said the doctor. “We call this Broken Heart Syndrome.”
The place in her chest, hot as the center void of a volcanic crater, made sense to her then. She settled back into the arms of the pain.
“We can give you something to make you more comfortable,” the doctor said. “But all that heals this is time.”
Now I am the one with the secrets, but they are the good kind. I keep so many doors open, but guard them all against you.
It is better this way, because I can make myself anew into something more valuable, a gift someone else can open.
Or perhaps they already have.
One Panera looks very much like another, but the women stood amazed by some transformation only they could see. The exclaimed about the former pictures on the walls, reveled in the changeover.
Then they ordered the very same soup and salad combos they would have ordered no matter what Panera they were in.
“You’re like a spy,” my mother said. “The way you take pictures is so sneaky.”
“The difference is this,” said my father. “She takes photos. You take snapshots.”
“That’s true,” said my mother.
“I would hate having a baby in winter,” one friend said.
“That’s the problem with babies—you have to keep them all year ‘round,” said the other friend. “The solution is to have them in the tropics.”
Some days, she felt more raw than others, her whole being tenderized in a lightless bath of delicious waiting. A feast would begin soon, all chandeliers and heat and laughter and toasting, but until then, she had to remain content in the dark.
100 Proof 