The Best American Short Stories 2012 by Heidi Pitlor

Author:Heidi Pitlor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Perhaps it was because of the only moderate success of her lecture, perhaps because of her binge at the banquet—at any rate, Emily turned up at the nutritionist that week at an unacceptable weight. She was hospitalized. She was not force-fed, but her room’s bathroom had no door, and while she consumed one pea at a time she was watched by a nurse’s aide with baroque curves.

“Sugar, eat,” coaxed the aide.

“Honey, do,” mocked Emily. But she acceded to the regimen; her work was calling her. Soon she’d gained enough to be discharged, though she’d have to see the nutritionist twice a week for a while. She was released a day earlier than planned. Her mother drove to the hospital in a downpour. She brought a present: a long, black vinyl raincoat with a hood.

“Thank you,” said Emily, unsurprised at the kindness of the gift. Her mother was everything a human was entitled to be: outspoken, attached to her particular children, unacquainted with tact. Ghiselle had no concern for the superorganism—but, after all, ever since the development of the spine, the individual had become paramount, the group disregarded. Ghiselle was only following the downhill path of her species.

“There’s a candy bar in the pocket of the raincoat,” said Ghiselle.

“Oh.”

“Wolfie and Adele can split it. Veux-tu rentrer?”

“Pas encore. Laisse moi à la bibliothèque, s’il te plaît.” Emily was the only member of the family, Richard included, who had mastered enough French to converse with her mother in her mother’s tongue.

Ghiselle parked and Emily got out of the car. The rain had stopped. The new coat concealed Emily’s emaciation, and she had raised her hood against the suspended mist that had followed the rain, so her patchy hair was concealed too. She looked, Ghiselle thought, like any serious modern girl—bound for medical school, maybe, or a career in science.

Emily crossed the modest campus and entered the library. Ghiselle blew her nose and drove away.

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