My Lover is Fat

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After the kidney transplant that saved her life, my lover gained another 50 pounds. She'd gone months with no appetite, weeks with nausea that forced her to live on just bread and applesauce, so it was a joy when food tasted good to her again. Besides, she was now taking prednisone, a steroid drug that made her constantly hungry and changed the way her body metabolized food.

It is also true that my lover is, in her own words, 'addicted to food.' She sometimes eats when she is not hungry. She has ignored her hunger so often—because she was dieting, or eating to fill other needs—she no longer knows what it is to feel full. These things are true of many thin women as well.

From time to time, my lover declares she wants to lose weight. I want to help her, I tell myself, so I start making her salads for lunch and cooking fat-free vegetable soups. And I catch myself beginning to watch what she eats. I feel the judgment growing in me again.

So I pay heed when my lover tells me that I am the first person who has ever loved her at her weight, not in spite of it. She tells me this over the breakfast I've made: a crustless quiche with potatoes, apples, red onion, and smoked mozzarella. Cooking has always been a way I nurture myself and the people I love.

I remember watching my sister refuse to eat. I think of the months when my brave and beautiful lover's failing kidneys made eating impossible. So tonight, I think, I'll cook us a meal to celebrate our appetites at their most joyous and untamable: maybe a garlicky Puerto Rican asopao, fresh-baked corn muffins, and a salad of greens, pecans, feta cheese, and pears.

From The Sun (Nov. 1997). Subscriptions: $32/yr. (12 issues) from Box 6706, Syracuse, NY 13217.

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