Lauren Giard
I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of the 1997 Toyota Camry making its way through each generation of our family. It has beige, velvet upholstery with small red and pink and blue and yellow lines that have faded over the years, though in childhood they reminded me of sprinkles on an ice-cream cone. Sticky adhesive crusts the windows because none of the motors work anymore, so the plexiglass rests in the door panel, unless it rains; then I have to pinch the inch of plastic that sticks out and palm it up while one of my siblings duct tapes it to the top of the door and around the other side—but not the roof, because then you can’t get out.
There are only two other cars in the Walgreens parking lot. They come and go while I’m there. I watch them, to make sure they’re not watching me. The store is on a corner three miles away from my parents’ house. It’s August and it’s hot. I bought a large bag of trail mix for my health, and two Hershey’s chocolate bars. I’m wearing a loose t-shirt that’s wet from sweat at my lower back, and a pair of running shorts that I tug down around my inner thighs even when I’m alone. I tear the plastic seal off the top of the bag and begin to scoop the mix of nuts and dried fruit into my mouth by the handful, gorp spilling out onto my lap. When the bag is empty, I rip open the first chocolate bar and take large bites, unphased by the ugly misalignment in the perfectly oriented squares. I finish the first bar, and then the second. I lick the wrappers.
When I’m eating, I can relax. I’m subdued. My mind is quiet. But as quickly as the binge begins, it’s over. I debate going back inside. I could keep eating and eating all day, and I’d never have to think at all. The contentment subsides, shame overwhelms me like it always does. I start to cry. I look at myself in the rearview mirror and wipe away chocolate on the corners of my mouth. I say “you’re a disgusting pig” out loud. Then I laugh. Then I respond. “Okay. A little dramatic. Just stop eating…just stop fucking eating.” But I can’t. And I don’t know how to even start to stop. It’s the first time I have ever binged in the morning, though I still ate much less than my nightly gorge. It is a new step in my own powerlessness. In one week, preseason will begin, two weeks before my junior year. The university is only a 30-minute drive from home. Tears run down my face as I start the car and drive toward the gym. I do the math in my head as I drive—the calories of the trail mix, plus the two chocolate bars—about seven hundred. One mile on the treadmill is about a hundred calories burned. I will run seven miles on the treadmill when I get to the gym. Maybe I will take a break and walk for a few minutes after I finish the fourth mile. Then I’ll only have to run three more. A break. Yes. I will allow myself that.
***
At home, my father’s guts are full of cancer. We don’t know it yet. It will kill him in less than a year. He’s been struggling to eat for a while now and has gone to the doctor once or twice, where they’ve told him it is an ulcer. He doesn’t take the medications they prescribe, because he wants to be fine. He pretends it will just go away. I will wonder later if he knew, and he was too scared to push further. He drinks a lot of Pepto Bismol, milk, and eats tums like candy. Any time I see an antacid I think of my father. The last family vacation we had, and what would become the last one ever, my mother and father fought over his health. He complained of stomach pain. He barely ate on the trip at all. My mother yelled at him—my parents were yellers. “You need to go to the doctor!” Of course, by then it was too late.
***
We wake up at five a.m. to be on the field for practice at six a.m. The whole team stays in the same dorm for preseason. We go back to practice again at two p.m., and then back to the field one more time at six p.m. for skills and drills. We’re showered, iced, and in bed by nine p.m. We run this schedule for two weeks straight. The first thing we do is a run test—one of many over the next two weeks. The cardinal evaluation of our fitness is six back-to-back 300-yard sprints, with a ten second rest in between. This year, our coach tells us to turn at the 50-yard line, so now we turn six times per 300, instead of only three times, “to test our agility.” It does in-fact test our agility. I’ve run the test twice already in my life. It’s the hardest workout I’ve ever done. Second is “quarter-quarte.” We did twice a season during high-school track and field. In this test, the whistle would blow, and we’d take off on a 400-yard sprint as hard as we could for a full lap of the track, then a 60-second break, then a second lap sprint when the lactic acid is taking over your legs—half a mile under two minutes and fifteen seconds if you don’t let it get you.
It’s already 80 degrees on the turf. Coach splits us into groups: freshman and sophomores, then juniors and seniors. The older girls are always slower, except for a few who somehow manage to maintain their eighteen-year-old bodies. Freshman year I finished first in nearly every run test. I was fast. Sophomore year I was still fast, but I’d lost some energy. I knew I was going to be slow this year. I already knew I was a failure. When the whistle blew I fell behind immediately, though I had run nearly every day for the entire summer. I didn’t check to see my coach’s reaction.
That night, I take three “ThinkThin” protein bars to the bathroom, and eat them in the shower stall, the water running to hide the sounds of the wrappers. I wonder what is wrong with me. How could I have become so helpless? I bury the wrappers in the trash under paper towels, and go back to bed, to wake-up for six a.m. practice. I try not to think about how pathetic I feel.
***
While the doctor with the stupid cartoonish eyebrows is supposed to be cutting the cancer out of my father, he steps into the private waiting room the hospital has provided. He sits down next to my mother, and tells her that they have found more cancer than was on the scans. My mother asks how much more. He says it’s everywhere. I can’t stop myself from crying. My sister commands me to leave the room under her breath. In the single-stall bathroom I gasp for air, holding onto the sink, crying and whispering “Oh my god.” Within moments my sister joins me. She tells me the doctor said that my father will have a year to live.
My father begins chemo. The timeline is not spoken of out loud again, though we all begin to count down. He still looks the same, and not like a sick person. He’s home now a lot, and not at work, which makes it hard to pretend like things are normal. One day he gets up from the couch, wobbles, and falls unconscious, his body hitting the hardwood floor, and I just stand and watch. I do not run to catch him. I wouldn’t have been able to. He is six-foot, one inch, and weighs about 220 pounds. He wakes up, shakes his head, laughs and tells me I need to work on my reaction time. I help him up. He assures me that he’s okay. It’s just a dumb side effect. My mother comes in after hearing the thump and finds my father on the edge of the sofa.
“What happened?” She asks.
“Lauren pushed me down.” He jokes.
I have to go back to school for practice and lift. I just came home to see how things were going.
***
On the first Thursday of preseason, we run the interval. We knew it was coming, but we still dread it. It’s run once per preseason, usually late into the first week when our bodies are so sore everything is uncomfortable. It is still dark out when we get on the line. The older girls align themselves next to others of similar pace and disposition. I find Gabby. She’s a senior—long limbed, level-headed, and funny. She leads a group of middle-of-the-packers. The other groups include: the freak athletes, the whiners, the weirdos (the goalies) and the freshman who will go too hard in the first ten minutes, then be miserable for the rest of the time. We set off on the first whistle, cheering each other on. Gabby tells us about a long hair she pulled out of her asshole last night in the shower, and how good it felt. We discuss the logistics of this phenomenon as we settle in to a manageable pace. The drill is a ladder; sprint for 15 seconds, jog for 15 seconds, sprint for 30 seconds, jog for 30 seconds, and so on. We run until our Coach says stop. The only sounds are feet pounding on the turf, a single tight whistle, and the morning birds. I love it. I love being with the team. I love the pain. I love burning calories. I love not being home.
***
I come home for the night. My parents go out to dinner for their twenty-third wedding anniversary. My father gets a steak and potatoes. It’s the last full meal he will eat. When they return home, he goes quietly to the bathroom. The rest of us sit and listen to him vomit, looking at each other, making pained faces and shaking our heads. We wonder if we should do something. We wonder if there is there is anything to do. My brother puts music on the TV and turns it up to the loudest volume to drown out the vomiting sounds down the hall. He’s trying to make us laugh. He does. Then we feel bad. Our father emerges from the bathroom an hour later, still with his coat and shoes on. He walks past us to bed. We do not say good night.
After everyone has gone to bed, I head to the kitchen. I pull out a loaf of bread, a box of cereal, and a family sized jar of peanut butter. I eat most of all three in less than ten minutes, scooping and chewing and spooning and swallowing. I wonder if my mother thinks it is my brothers eating all the food. It’s a feat to eat slice after slice of the cheap, dry bread she buys. But I don’t feel nauseous anymore after a binge. I give my best guess on the calories after. It could be anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000. Maybe 3,500? A pound. I settle on that number. Tomorrow, I have practice in the morning, and then class. I’ll go to the gym after. We run less in practice once we’re in season. I’ll be tired, lethargic, and constipated. I’ve started to use suppositories, but they don’t work very well, and I worry I’ll shit myself during practice. I think I should make myself throw up. I try. But I’ve never been very good at it. I stand over the same toilet, and I think of my father hours ago. I go to bed instead, my mind quiet, soothed by the pain of being so full.
***
I dislocate my shoulder diving for a ball in a warm-up game at the start of practice. I walk over to the athletic trainer, Adam, and tell him my right hand feels weird. It’s late fall, so I’m wearing a thermal long-sleeve and my loose practice pinny. He’s nonchalant with me. He teases because I’m not a player who gets hurt. “What’d you do Lo?” When he realizes my shoulder is out of place, he yells for our assistant coach. “Sparks” is what we call her. They speak calmly to each other as though I am not there. Adam puts me in position. Sparks wipes my running nose off with her sleeve. She’s so kind, I think, as Adam slots my shoulder back into place.
“Oh wow.” I say as I regain the feeling in my hand. The team makes fun of me. After practice, one of my roommate’s boyfriends comes to the apartment. He plays hockey. Sports feel like our whole world. He asks me if it hurt. My roommate interjects. “She didn’t even scream, or cry or anything.”
One year later, a few months after my father dies, I have shoulder surgery to repair the tear in my labrum. The university pays for it. The surgeon tells my mother the tear was quite severe. In the meantime, my shoulder will sublux frequently, even in my sleep. But it always falls back into place.
***
My father no longer eats. He is beginning to lose weight. His digestive system stops working, so they insert a G- tube into his stomach. He becomes too sick to continue chemo. The tube is supposed to connect to a bag to filter his stomach contents into, but he refuses to carry it around because it makes him feel like a sick person. Instead, he drains the tube’s thin, greenish brown liquid into a large plastic container that was once used for leftovers. We all take turns going to the bathroom to dump it out since he is too weak to get up so often. It smells like acid. We also take turns changing his 24/7 IV . I’ve become petrified of air bubbles. Only my mother changes the TPN that he has once a day, which looks like a bag of milk and connects to a different port. All the bags remind me of the Franzia box of chardonnay my parents drank growing up. For Thanksgiving, family members tell us that they will wear masks so they don’t risk getting my father sick, but he tells them that if they do, he won’t come. He does not want to be treated like a sick person.
***
After my shoulder comes out, I’m benched. I was barely playing anyway and I’m grateful to have the excuse. I’m slow. I’m distracted. Coach doesn’t say so, but I know she agrees. I meet with her and Sparks in her office once a week. We never talk about field hockey—instead I tell her about what is happening at home. I feel embarrassed, and dramatic, like I’m exaggerating things. She’s pragmatic in response. It makes me feel better. She sends me to a spiritual advisor on campus. I go. She says “wow” a lot. She calls me wise. I think she’s useless. I don’t go back. As our season ends, we lose in the championship and do not get a bid to go to nationals, though we have the best record in the conference—even better than the team who beat us. I’m grateful that it’s over, but I feel bad for my teammates who care. I want more time to go to the gym on my own to do cardio. On the way home Sparks hands out the subs for dinner on the bus. I eat all my buffalo chicken thing while my teammates sit quietly, not touching their food. They are depressed by the loss, and the end of the season. The seniors cry over their last ride home. I look out the window wishing I could eat someone else’s sandwich too.
***
I try to get better. I start to see a counselor on campus at school. I do not tell her about my binging. She tears up when I talk. She tells me I’m strong. I think she’s an idiot, and a terrible counselor. I don’t go back. I stay in and say I have work to do, then eat my roommate’s food at night when they go out. I try to eat things that are old, hoping they might have forgotten about it, and that they won’t notice. I feel guilty. On the weekends I experiment with binge drinking, instead of eating.
***
My father spends the few days before Christmas in the intensive care unit. He’s gotten sick with something else. He vomits blood. They think he might die but he doesn’t and is home for Christmas. He doesn’t remember the hospital at all. He unwraps wool socks, and clothes that still are too big for him, because what do you give your dying father for Christmas? We all cry. No one says why.
***
It’s spring season. We run hill sprints on campus after a Saturday morning lift. I pretend to hate Ken, our strength and conditioning coach. He pretends to fear me. The team loves this bit. On the lifts before gamedays we sit on the weight room floor and examine each other’s body hair while Ken gives us a speech. We all have varying definitions of “hairy.” Sometimes Ken becomes so impassioned that he gets choked up. We are all obsessed with Ken, because he’s not old enough to be our father, and tall, and sweet. Really, it’s because we feel so safe with him. Ken will come to my father’s funeral and give me an awkward hug. Meg, one of the freak athletes who does chin-ups with a plate chained around her waist, asks me how my father is doing as we walk down from the top of the hill catching our breath. It catches me off guard. I tell her he’s doing well. He’s not. But what do I say? He’s going to die. It will probably be soon. She tells me she’s glad. We run up the hill again. I focus on driving my knees down and climbing the concrete. I have always liked hills. We’re on the third rep of our second set of five.
***
At the end of spring my family is worn down. We fight more, and uglier. We become desperate for resolve. We wonder how much longer he will suffer. I’m watching my father through the kitchen window. He’s sitting on the porch that he built by himself twenty years ago. He’s wrapped in blankets, though it’s a warm night. The sun is setting and the light dapples him through the shadow of a sprawling oak tree in the backyard. His skin is jaundiced, and sunken down to his bones. He has no muscle tone left. His clothes hang off him like curtains. He does not like to see himself in a mirror. He’s biting down on to a crisp, sour plum, chewing on it, and spitting it out into a napkin.
***
I black out after drinking nearly every weekend. Our team is mostly loyal to the 48-hour rule in-season, but we have a reputation when we aren’t. I love drinking. I love getting to forget. I like being hungover because I feel too sick to eat. I go as long as I can without eating on Sundays. But I can’t help myself. Later, my therapist will tell me that I was coping.
***
My father is on hospice. It reminds me of being “on” a diet, as if it is only temporary, the heavy dose morphine and the shallow breath. My mother still goes to bed beside him, though she does not sleep at all anymore. He is never left alone. My uncle—my father’s oldest brother, sits with him. They have already lost one brother to cancer. He asks my father if he’s scared. My father says no. He asks my uncle to take care of us and my uncle promises he will.
***
My life separates into before and after. I stop bingeing all together. Not out of will, or self-care or respect for myself but from the freedom of a new kind of pain. Grief satiates me. My final field hockey season ends and I’m heartbroken. I drink. I graduate. I walk the stage on a Sunday afternoon in May, and I go to work full-time on Monday. Work is the perfect new place to hide. My mother sells the house I grew up in, because it is too hollow without my father. We do what we can to be a family without him. We do what we can to move on. In time I begin to face my feelings, without any pain to distract me.
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Lauren Giard is a writer from Worcester, Massachusetts currently residing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where she is an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. She is also an Assistant Editor of Black Warrior Review. She loves the farmers market, the pool, Dunkin’ Donuts, and laughing inappropriately.