She used to be skinny, they said. But then she got married and had a kid and filled out and she wasn’t skinny anymore.
“Please eat your peas,” the woman said to the daughter, holding out a spoonful.
“No!” the daughter yelled from the high chair.
The woman sighed and ate the spoonful of peas. Her jeans dug into her flesh.
“Would you try to reason with her?” she asked the husband.
He barely looked from his phone. “There’s no reasoning with a two-year-old.”
The woman ground her teeth. The daughter played with her doll, setting it down on the tray of the high chair.
“Eat your peas,” the daughter said to her doll. “Eat them!”
The daughter shoved the doll’s face into the peas, scattering them across the tray and onto the floor. “Look what you did!” she said, smacking the doll across the face.
The woman sighed and bent down to pick up the peas. She put each one in her mouth and chewed slowly. The husband didn’t notice. She ate her frustration. The husband didn’t notice that either.
She grabbed the daughter from the high chair and set her on the floor.
“Go play,” she said. The daughter ran off, dragging the doll behind. The woman ate the rest of the peas.
“Got to go to work,” the husband said.
“I don’t know why you agreed to the night shift.”
He didn’t respond. Just stood and kissed her on her wide cheek. He was as skinny as a bean pole. He never ate his feelings.
The woman cleaned up dinner, licking the plates before loading them into the dishwasher. She ate a sleeve of cookies for dessert.
“Oof, you’re crushing me, babe,” he said to her one night while she rocked her hips into his. She rolled off him, ate her sorrow, and gained ten pounds overnight.
“I don’t want to!” the daughter screamed at the top of her lungs a few days later at the store.
“Please, honey, you have to hold my hand or get in the cart.”
“No!”
People stared. She covered her ample face.
“Please, honey,” she begged.
The daughter toppled a display of apples and whacked a man across the shins with her doll. The woman ran after her, her colossal legs quickly filling the distance between them. She grabbed the daughter and shook her.
“You’re sitting in the cart!”
The daughter started crying. The woman lifted the sobbing child and put her in the cart.
Everyone stared.
She ate their stares and gained fifty pounds while she stood, chewing.
Every night while her daughter slept and her husband worked, she ate. She ate the cookies hidden in the back of the cupboard. She ate the ice cream stored in the freezer. She ate the pie concealed in the oven.
She dared to eat in public, humming happy tunes to herself while she ate, moaning with pleasure. Soon, she couldn’t fit inside the front door. She had the furniture moved outside and they ate dinner on the front lawn, her chins wiggling with each bite. She had to eat standing up or on the ground; none of the chairs were strong enough to hold her bulky frame. She ate everything in sight, licking her plate clean after every meal. People hated her for it. They talked. They called her obscene, revolting, disgusting. She ate all their comments, her body expanding with each whisper. The husband joined them. His jeers tasted most delicious. She ate all their disappointment. She ate their hate. She grew as big as their houses.
Committees were formed, petitions drawn up.
And then one night, they came at her with pitchforks, her husband joining them, their daughter on his shoulders. The woman grabbed at them with her pudgy hands and used a pitchfork to pop her daughter into her mouth, chewing slowly, relishing the taste.
Kelly Norene Dudzik is an emerging writer who nurses unhealthy obsessions with serial killers and cats. Check her out on Instagram @kellsndudz.