The Cleanse

I hadn't expected snow, but the faint dusting that had come the night before was a welcome change to the usual mornings. It was the rare ornament of winter once Christmas had left us. Christmas--with its tinsel and twinkling lights and fragrant green. I turned the outside light on over the deck and just watched the glittering little crystals blow with the wind. They lifted in a spray like magic, and I realized I was smiling. George was not awake yet. He'd been in bed for three days with the flu, and I don't think I was taking very good care of him. It irritated me, to be honest. He was such a baby when he was sick. In any event--whether I was stoked to do it or not--I'd gone to the store the day before and bought him cans of soup and a box of saltine crackers. He said those were his "sick comfort foods"--the things that made him feel at home and on the mend. I texted his mother a Happy New Year's message, and she wrote me back thanking me for taking care of her baby in his time of need. "Baby". That's exactly what he was.

I'd taken on a number of resolutions for the new year, and I wasn't particularly excited about any one of them. I'd resolved, for one, to keep to a keto diet for the entire month of January. That one was the real bummer. On a usual morning, I'd assemble the most delightful parfait with thick greek yogurt, agave, berries and sliced bananas. It was my routine--it was my "comfort food". Not my "sick comfort food"--but just my day-to-day comfort food. Something that kept me level and happy. On this morning, though, being the first day of my keto cleanse, I couldn't have my precious agave and bananas. I dazedly scrambled some eggs and microwaved a patty of sausage. I put berries on my plate since they didn't spike the blood sugar too much. The typical morning hunger seemed zapped as I nibbled at my fat heavy breakfast. I missed bananas. I missed agave. I missed....Christmas. That's what it was. That was the basis for the heavy, dark feeling. Christmas had come like a job for me. That sounds awful. I mean--most people would read that as a bad thing--but Christmas gave me purpose. George had said that I was the "pulse" of Christmas. I'd dived headlong into the holiday--happily decorating the house with giant bells and tinsel. I'd bought a baby poinsettia and placed it in the hallway. I'd bought a slew of Christmas magazines--six or seven of them--and kept them piled on the coffee table. One was devoted entirely to cookies and baking, and I'd made my way through it pretty swiftly. I made chai spiced "pinecone" cookies that were dipped in chocolate and studded with sliced almonds. I made peppermint shortbread and shaped them into whimsical candy canes and dusted them with crushed candy. In the kitchen, there was a tower of cookie tins. "The yield", I called it. Now I didn't know what to do. There were no more deadlines. Nothing else to be baked, wrapped, or tinseled. I tried watching some TV with my keto breakfast, but it was hard to focus. Thankfully, the kitchen was a wreck. That gave me something to do. The anticlimax was killing me. I put on my rubber gloves that came up nearly to my elbows and got to work. I turned on the water and kept it on until it was scalding hot. I filled crusted over pots and the bowl in which I'd whisked my eggs earlier that morning. As I scrubbed the dishes, I intermittently stared out the kitchen window at the dusting of snow. It was quiet, save for the running water. I didn't know what time George would be up. I'd grown sort of used to being alone. That's not a good thing. I'm not good at being alone. I'd watched a documentary about a rock star a few days before with George in which the main guy had disociative disorder. He described it as feeling as though he were standing outside himself. Like he was watching himself. I couldn't get that notion out of my head. I was convinced I had the same thing. As I stood there scrubbing dishes, I had the distinct feeling that I was watching myself. That I wasn't me. That I was a spectator in my own life.

I took off the rubber gloves and pressed hard at my eyes until all I could see were red circles. I dumped my half eaten keto breakfast in the trash and rinsed the plate and put it in the dishwasher. It could be hours before George awoke. I walked into the dining room and paused before the sideboard. I knew what was inside, and I was trying to avoid it. On top there was a cake stand piled with sugar cookies cut into trees and snowflakes. I lifted the lid and touched the coarse sugars on top. Damn keto. Damn George. How would I keep from opening the sideboard?

I hated New Year's Day. Felt like a Sunday. The dreadful anticlimax of it all. The weight of it. I put the lid back down on the cake stand and walked upstairs to check on George. The stairs creaked and groaned as they tended to do when the weather was cold. Even the railing felt cold. There was dust in the corners of the stairwell, and I made a mental note to myself to sweep that up later. Outside the bedroom I paused with my hand on the doorknob. I could hear George's steady snores. Slowly, I eased the door open and peered beyond the dresser to where he was sleeping. He was all twisted up in some impossible position with his hands pressed tightly to his wrists. His mouth was hanging open and his breath made his beard sway like the wind moving leaves. "George," I whispered ever so softly. There was no point in waking him up. Or, rather, he needed his sleep. I knew he couldn't hear me, but I felt it was my duty to check on him. "George," I said again, a little louder. In his sleep, he took a deep breath and just held it for some time. Finally, he let it out with a snort and said some incomprehensible thing. I'd done my duty.

The sideboard was calling my name. What could I do to distract myself from that siren call? The shutters were closed in the hallway and it felt really dark. Nighttime dark. I closed the bedroom door and opened the shutters and looked out again at the dusting of snow. I could see Mr. Halloway who lived next door and he was trapsing across the loft room of his house in a bathrobe. He looked like he was singing, and he swung the sash of his bathrobe with flourish. Mr. Halloway was an artist of sorts. He only worked a few months of the year at some Renaissance festival at the fairgrounds. He made garish masks with metal spikes and bits of leather and feathers and anything he could find. He kept the bright lights on in that attic and there were no blinds. When he saw me, he waved, embarrassed. I waved back unenthusiastically and looked away.

I needed some direction for my day. Years ago, George and I had stayed at this fantastic bed and breakfast in the mountains. In the morning, the aproned hostess would load our plates with yeasted waffles, homemade yogurt, and various breakfast meats. We'd sit at the common table with the other guests and talk about the quality of our sleep and our plans for the day, if we had any. The hostess would ask, "do you need any help with your day?" I remembered that at this moment. That's what I wanted right now. What I needed. I needed a hostess to give me some direction. A calling. A thrill. I needed to stay away from the sideboard. My stomach was rumbling despite the sausage and eggs I'd eaten. It was too early in the cleanse to feel this way. I wanted sugar, and I wanted it badly. How could I distract myself? I went in the kitchen and opened the pantry door. I'd "keto-fied" it a couple of days before to prepare myself for the new year. Still...there sat my bottle of agave that I didn't have the heart to throw away. There were innumerable varieties of nuts and seeds, but I had no interest in those. I closed the pantry door and rubbed my temples hard. I wished George would wake up; I wished George weren't sick.

The wind hit hard at the kitchen door and it flew open with a bang. I must've forgotten to lock it the night before. The cold air quickly filled the kitchen with a sweeping vigor, and the air felt thinner. There was my distraction. I closed the door and locked it and went upstairs to get my bathrobe. In the hallway, I could hear the toilet flush. George was awake. I slipped into my fuzzy bathrobe and wrapped it tight.

"Beautiful?" I could hear George calling out to me. His voice was cracked and he still sounded very much sick. "Samantha?" he called again. I went into the bedroom just as he was pulling the blankets back again. He turned his head with a faint smile. "God--you're a sight for sore eyes," he said, lifting his legs under the blankets. I sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to check his forehead. "You're still hot," I said. He grinned at this and looked at me lovingly, "you bet I am," he said. I rolled my eyes. "Can I get you anything to eat?" I asked. "Can I get you anything at all?" "All I want is you," he said, taking my hand. He smoothed my knuckles and yawned. His hair was sticking straight up and seemed to have taken on a life of its own. "You look like a Spartan," I said. He kept rubbing my knuckles. "And you look like a princess, " he said, kissing my hand and releasing it. I knew this last bit was not remotely true. I hadn't showered in three days, and my hair was so oily, a comb could easily stay in it on its own. The wind howled outside the window, and I could hear acorn caps tumble across the deck below. The sky was horribly gray and uninspiring. This was day one of my cleanse, and I felt like I was going to buckle before noonday. I thought about the bottle of agave downstairs; I thought about the sideboard and what was inside it. It was as though George could read my mind. "How's your cleanse going, babe?" he asked with a tilt of his head. I couldn't believe he even remembered. His hair bobbed about when he said this, and he looked absolutely ridiculous. I leaned down against the bed resignedly and buried my face in my hands. "It's going terribly," I said in muffle-speak. "I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day." "Your voice is so raspy it's sexy," he said. "I can't wait until I'm better so we can....you know." I stayed low to the bed and grunted. "Is that all you ever think about?" I said. Ignoring me, he went on, "what about the other thing?" I looked up and stared at him with a hurt expression. "The other thing is fine," I snapped. "I haven't even thought about it," I lied. The house seemed very quiet all of a sudden. I couldn't hear the wind anymore or the acorn caps. The sound of the door slamming open was a distant memory. "Sometimes I feel like I'm sitting beside myself watching my whole life," I said finally. "I feel like I'm not real--like my thoughts are some sort of narration." George looked concerned. He pushed the blankets away from him and reached out his hand. "Come lie down with me, princess. You don't have anything to worry about. You're absolutely perfect in every way." I don't know why, exactly, but that stung. "I don't think I can live up to that," I said to him. "In fact, I think perfection is evil. The very notion of it. I can't live up to it." "You know what I mean, he said and took my wrist. He dragged me close to him and we both lay there. His breathing was steady and there were no other sounds. It was warm in the bedroom--much warmer than downstairs. I could hear the wind whistling again. Eventually his breaths became broken--then turned into snores. I very carefully eased my way out of his embrace. I had to kneel on the floor at first to get up. One of my hands had fallen asleep and I shook it silently. I rubbed it against my robe until the feeling came back. After kissing George on the forehead, I left the room and went back downstairs.

The sky had grown even darker. It hadn't started snowing again, but it looked like it could. I thought about the meat-heavy keto dinner I had planned for that night, and the idea made me sick. With George out of commission and everything closed, I didn't know what to do with a New Year's Day. With my cleanse in full swing, it felt like January was bound to unfold as a month of Sundays. And I hated Sundays. For a moment, I got excited at the idea of going out to check the mail. Then I remembered that the mail didn't come on a federal holiday. Bummer. I opened the pantry again and gave the bottle of agave another good look. It stayed there so tawny and sweet, I couldn't wait until February. It wouldn't hurt to hold it, would it? I took the bottle to the dining room table and plunked it down. This is what it'd come to. My only company was a half-empty bottle of agave. At least it's sweet, I thought to myself with a grin. Then I imagined the agave was George. If that were the case, the agave would reply, "not as sweet as you." I was losing my mind. I was really losing my mind. I was imagining a bottle of agave was my boyfriend? The wind picked up again at this thought and I could hear the locked door straining from the kitchen. There was nothing to do. That was the bottom line. The house was clean. The tree was out. I could think of no chore that needed to be done. George was upstairs asleep. No one would ever know, I thought. I stared at the sideboard, and it seemed to stare back at me. To dare me. I put the agave back in the pantry and walked over to it. The time for thinking had past. I'd had enough. Who wanted a month of Sundays? A month of privation? The agave could wait, though. There was something else I wanted. I opened the sideboard and rummaged past my trivets and old glass vases from flowers George had sent me. At first I thought it wasn't there anymore. That it had just been imagined. But there it was in the very back waiting for me. My beautiful bottle of cheap vodka. Really cheap. Gasoline-fume cheap. At that moment, though, I wanted it more than anything in the world. I wouldn't light into it right away, though. There had to be some etiquette, some ceremony. I went in the kitchen and cut a fresh, bright lemon that I'd bought for my keto salads. To hell with keto. To hell with my New Year's resolve. I took down my crystal highball glass that my grandmother had left me with a slew of other crystal items. Carefully, oh-so-carefully, I plunked three large ice cubes into the glass and squeezed lemon juice over them. Sugar? Agave? No--I'm keto now, I thought nonsensically. I was literally salivating. This was the first part of the day when anything had made any sense. When I was happy and excited. I reached for the bottle and was suddenly taken with alarm. I pulled it out by the top, it was so light. This couldn't be happening. I slammed it down on the dining room table and just stared at it. Inside were beads of remnant vodka, but it was very much empty. I felt like I couldn't move or breathe. The salivation was turning to nausea. On the side of the bottle was a post-it which I snatched and held down low enough to read. I'm saving you from yourself, babe. xoxo George.