The Deadly Force of a Doughnut

“But let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie Your eyes are soft with sorrow Hey, that's no way to say goodbye” —Leonard Cohen

It was eleven hours of driving to get to where Luke was staying with Kevin’s brother and sister-in-law. If you went in a straight line, it was eleven hours. I would have made it before dark If the highway wasn’t under construction if I hadn’t stopped for gas and water and the bathroom and called Scott to yell at him for the mixed tape that featured song after Canadian Irish love song featuring a male vocalist with a heartbreaking voice. These instrumentals expressed longing, regret, grieving, and lust. I should have stayed in a motel and finished driving the next day. I didn’t listen to Scott’s tape until I had listened to a call-in radio show for the relatives of drug addicts, my tapes which included The Cranberries and Enya, but Enya was the soundtrack of my birth, Seventy-two hours of labor with Enya chanting unintelligible Gaelic words. I pulled into a general store to get gas.

The store was empty except for a woman smoking a cigarette behind the counter, yelling at someone over the phone. I could only hear one side of the conversation, an argument about who forgot to take the meat out of the freezer. I was holding the mixed tape, tempted to throw it away without playing it, but desperate to hear what Scott had recorded. I grabbed a bottle of water and filled a cup with coffee and milk.

“You want to listen to that?” The woman hung up the phone and put out her cigarette.
“Oh, no, I mean sure. Do you have a tape player?”
The woman gestured towards the counter, where there was a cassette player with its compartment open. “Throw it in there,” she said. “I need something to distract me.”

The woman was probably in her late forties and wore a t-shirt that said, “I’m with stupid.” The tape started and the first song was a love song featuring a man telling a woman he loved her and would keep her, and she should leave her husband. The next song was a female vocalist singing about her longing for her absent lover. The next song was an English folk song about the unrequited love an artist has for a lady; Kate Bush sang Wuthering Heights, and so on. I listened to this torrent of passion, star-crossed lovers, dying lovers, married to other people lovers, and one John Lennon song about jealousy and started to cry.

The store lady hit the eject button. “Wow,” she said. "Who gave you that?”
“A friend.”
“Some friend,” the lady said. “I think that’s a marriage proposal or a suicide note.”
“Can I use your phone?” I put down a ten-dollar bill.    
“You calling him?”
“Yes.”
“Going back to him?”
“No. I’m married. I’m picking up my almost two-year-old and then meeting his father.”
“So he gave you this tape just to fuck you up?”
“Exactly.”
“Classy.” She put the phone down on the counter. “Go for it,” she said. “I’ll be in the back.”
I  dialed the number of his casita. “Hello?”
“Motherfucker.”
“Technically untrue.”
“Manipulative, cruel bastard.”
“Hey—“
“A total stranger described that tape as a suicide note. Or a marriage proposal.”
He was silent.
“But it’s neither, is it? It’s just you leaving scars.”
“Did it work?”
“Did it make me feel horrible? Yes, it worked.”
“Mission accomplished,” he said.
“You don’t want me,” I said. “This was just a diversion for you.”
“More than a diversion, less than a proposal.”
“Oh, fuck you.” I hung up.

The store lady came out of the back room. “How’d it go?”
“He doesn’t want to marry me or kill himself.”
“Rat-faced pig.”  
My mother said things like that. Suddenly, I wanted to be home with my self-absorbed, tyrannical parents who, despite their huge flaws, loved me.
“I’ve been married twenty-five years,” the lady said. “I’m not sure why. We’re too lazy to get out. He was too lazy to take the chicken out of the freezer. I got like eight people coming to dinner and frozen chicken. Dickhead.” She looked at me. “Listen,” she said. “You think you’re old and you know stuff, but you don’t know shit, and you’re still young. Hang out with some really old people, and you’ll understand how young you are.”
“I don’t feel young,” I said.
“You go get that baby and love him up. Some things just don’t make sense.”

I played the tape over and over again, pulling over several times to cry, scream, and once to consume a massive ice cream cone. I finally reached the place where Luke was sleeping, the house completely dark and silent. It was three o’clock in the morning. There was a note on the door that said, “Come in. Lock the door. Upstairs room to the right.”

I woke up to the soft patting of a tiny hand. Luke had been asleep when I tiptoed into the room, curled around his slightly older cousin, dead to the world, which allowed me to touch his face and hair. He had changed again, slightly less baby, more boy, a frown line between his brows, lips puffed out, breathing loudly.

Now, he was sitting cross-legged, staring at me. My boy. He retreated to the opposite bed where his cousin was still asleep, her hair a mass of curls on the pillow.
“Luke. Luke. It’s Mommy.”
He didn’t smile or move, just stared at me.
I sat up and held out my arms, but he stayed still. So I sang. “Sometimes my mommy takes me over to another house to play. Sometimes she's gone for a little while, sometimes she’s gone all day. But my mommy comes back, my mommy comes back, my mommy comes back to get me-“
He screamed and crawled into my arms, butted my chin with his hard head, and rubbed his face against my skin and hair, murmuring, “Mumma, mumma, mumma, mumma.”
His cousin sat up. “Hi, Molly,” she said.
“Hi, Sarah.”
“My mommy,” Luke growled.
“He really missed you,” Sarah climbed out of bed. “Are you staying?”
“Just until tomorrow. We’re meeting your uncle in Chicago.”
“I love him,” Sarah said.
“Thank you,” I smiled over Luke’s head. He put his hand over my mouth.
“My mommy.” He clung to me like a monkey, perched on my hip, his body as close as possible, his hands woven through my hair, his face pressed against my cheek, his breath in my ear. How I had missed this physical connection, my boy, my baby, his skin and scent and voice. When I tried to put him down, he held on to me like someone drowning, murmuring,“Mommy, my mommy,” so I pulled him back and held him tighter.

Walking into the kitchen, I didn’t recognize my sister-in-law at first. She’d gained so much weight her features were altered, her body as inflated as the Michelin Man’s. It crossed my mind that if my mother were there, she would have said something like, ‘My, aren’t you healthy!’ Code for fat, code for failure, code for bad. I smiled at her, reaching to hug her. But Luke put his hand out. “My mommy.”
“He missed you, Molly.”
“Thank you for taking such good care of him.”
“Oh, Sarah did it all. He was like her doll. Did you get much writing done? You look great.”      
I felt the pressure to return the compliment, but it felt wrong. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“I’m so fat. Like seriously fat.”
“Are you okay?”
“Besides being fat? Sure. Loving life.”
“You want to take a walk? I drove for eleven hours yesterday. Luke can sit in the stroller.”
“Yes,” She smiled, so for a moment, I saw with the woman I had known before, the healthy, normal-sized young woman.

photo by Alexander Grey

Kevin’s brother came through the kitchen door, holding a huge pink box. “Look who rose from the dead! Molly, good to see you!”
He moved to kiss my cheek, but Luke blocked him. “My mommy,” he said.
“Yup, that she is.” He put down the box and flipped open the cover. Lined up inside were two dozen, glazed, cream-filled doughnuts. I glanced at Karen and could see fear in her eyes. She was terrified of the doughnuts. I felt like punching him in his stupid, un-fat face.
“We were leaving to take a walk.”
“Bring a doughnut.”
“Maybe later,” I said.
“You’re looking kind of run-down, Molly.”
“I feel good. Been in the desert, not eating my feelings.” I shifted Luke to my opposite hip. “Stroller?”
“No!” Luke grabbed my face and squeezed it.
“Excuse me?” I tried to frown but my face was squished in Luke’s fists. “Let go, buggy!”
My sister-in-law stood up. “I guess a walk would be nice.
Kevin’s brother was pouring a cup of coffee. “See you gals later.”

The stroller was leaning against the barn door. After I strapped Luke in, I walked back into the kitchen to get him a doughnut. My brother-in-law was doing the Jumble in the newspaper. “You shouldn’t bring food like this into the house,” I said. “I can’t believe how much weight she’s gained.”
“Not everyone’s a skinny. spiky, New York City career girl type," he said, not looking up. In middle America we like something to keep us warm.”
“No one’s skinny. But doesn’t diabetes run in your family? Now she can’t do anything but make you dinner.” This was probably the wrong thing to say.
“Sounds good to me.”

I walked back outside and handed Luke the doughnut.
“My doughnut,” he screamed, took one bite, and threw the rest at a passing rooster. The rooster took a bite and then picked up the doughnut in one claw and tossed it back towards Luke who screamed in delight.
“He’s definitely your kid,” she said.
“Those things are disgusting.”
“He brings them home every day. I’m on Weight Watchers but sometimes I swear he’s going to enter me in the county fair next to the butter sculptures. Fat wife. Kevin making you happy?”
I didn’t answer.
“Yeah. They knock you up and marry you, but after that, you’re past your sell-by date. I’m proud of you, Molly. You didn’t let him stop you.”
“It was Taos or driving into a brick wall.”
“Dallas so bad?”
“I’m not made for the suburbs.”
“You had a pool.”
“The water was always cloudy.”
“You were teaching writing, right?”
“Part-time. I’m in adjunct hell. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything. I wish I had your courage.”
“What courage?”
“You left, didn’t you?”
“I came back.”
“For Luke. But you’re different.”
This secret felt very heavy. “I met someone.”
“Another writer?”
“A painter from Canada.”
“Good for you.”
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Why not?” Karen’s breath was fast and shallow. There was a fine film of sweat on her face.
Luke had fallen asleep, slumped down sideways, his head sticking out of the stroller. We sat on a barrel at the end of the driveway.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Not really. You still sober?”
I nodded.
“Are you leaving, Kevin?”
“No. Did he say I was?”
“He said you were an unrealistic, spoiled brat. And you don’t  want to be anyone’s wife.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“He won’t change. I’ve been married for eleven years. Three kids later and it’s the same shit.”
“Well, he shouldn’t buy those doughnuts.”
She shrugged. “If I’m fat enough, I won’t cheat on him. ‘Cept lots of guys like big women. I haven’t tapped into any of the local farmers.”
“What about your health?”
“Last check-up I had pre-diabetes.”

I looked at the back of Luke’s head, his perfectly round head. We started with so much hope and a belief that where we were going was new territory, an untouched snowfall, a hidden garden, but it was the same: babies and love, sex and sadness, disappointment and regret. I missed Catherine. I  missed Scott. I even missed Boo Radley who always acted glad to see me.  

—Molly Moynahan